Economía

Once close to the levers of power, matters were different. He wished to become Paul Volcker’s successor as Fed chairman, and he knew that firm opposition to Fed policy would hurt his chances for the job. Going against his earlier analysis, he supported the “largest bank bailout in U.S. history,” the rescue in 1984 of the Continental Illinois National Bank. He admitted the dangers of the bailout, but it was, as Mallaby summarizes his position, “necessary and appalling.” Appalling, one suspects, because of its effects on the free market; but necessary to advance Greenspan’s career. By the time he became Fed Chairman, the transformation was complete. By 1989, his “libertarian rejection of bailouts was long gone; what he wanted above all was the space to fight inflation.”

Greenspan wanted to fight inflation; but the best way to do it was no longer acceptable. A gold standard, he had long ago recognized, would bring with it monetary stability; but to replace the Fed with a commodity standard not subject to control by the government would erode his power. Accordingly the gold standard had to go.

He cast aside the gold standard with a transparent sophism: “A necessary condition of returning to a gold standard is the financial environment which the gold standard itself is presumed to create. ... But, if we restore financial stability, what purpose is then served by a return to a gold standard?” (quoting Greenspan). Why a gold standard cannot help create a stable financial environment, but instead presupposes it, Greenspan left unclear. Even less clear was how the Fed was supposed to preserve stability in the absence of the gold standard. Evidently we were to rely on his supreme powers of judgment in steering the economy.

Greenspan in his long career as Fed chairman gained the power and acclaim he coveted; but the crash of 2008, two years after the end of his tenure in office, led to a sharp decline in his reputation.

In their attitude toward compromise, Greenspan is the polar opposite to Murray Rothbard. Rothbard could have tailored his views to win the favor of Arthur Burns, who was a family friend, but he refused to do so. He never abandoned his principles, and he took the measure of Greenspan. Writing about him in 1987, Rothbard observed: “Greenspan’s real qualification is that he can be trusted never to rock the establishment’s boat. He has long positioned himself in the very middle of the economic spectrum. He is, like most other long-time Republican economists, a conservative Keynesian, which in these days is almost indistinguishable from the liberal Keynesians in the Democratic camp.”

In looking over Greenspan’s fall from free-market grace, the melancholy first lines of Browning’s The Lost Leader, addressed to Wordsworth, come to mind: “Just for a handful of silver he left us,/Just for a ribbon to stick in his coat. ...”