No you said you respect him (and I infer, even admire his intellectual capacity).
You go right ahead and respect this sycophant who has endorsed and legitimized embezzlers, felons, con-artists-- talk about whoring. Everybody knew, and I mean everybody in the financial world, that you could get Greenspan to endorse anything if you paid him enough when he had his consulting business. In this he is the perfect representative of his class. You go right ahead, respect this person, criticize his behaviour, while he impoverishes millions, and laughs all the way to the central bank. The critical task is to expose him for what he truly is-- a fraud, just as the bourgeoisie's notions of free markets are fraudulent and are deployed to justify the imposition of the death squad economy. Remember the Chicago boys? Remember that other phony, and psychotic, pseudo rationalist Friedman and his free markets? Remember where the Chicago boys got their first real jobs? Pinochet's Chile. Should we respect Friedman? Economics really is concentrated history. It is class struggle. You give Greenspan far more credit than he is due, and thus mystify, fetishize, the social relationship that makes him appear so erudite, so thoughtful, so dedicated, when in reality, all that is going on is the determination of the bourgeoisie to further reduce the living standards of those already on short rations. The ultimate argument of the bourgeoisie? It's not about buying and selling, it's about aiming and firing. dms ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jurriaan Bendien" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2004 10:12 PM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] demo fervor > > The ultimate argument of the bourgeois class concerning individual > initiative and the market is, that everybody has something they can sell to > get an income, and thus, if they don't do it, the inquality or disparity > which results is just "natural" (the dispute then is about exceptions to the > rule, such as the disabled and so on). I.e., the rich are rich because they > are rich, and the poor are poor because they are poor. And for the rest, > insofar as the market doesn't enforce a specific morality, it is a question > of fostering a specific individual morality. And I think you can > legitimately question that and argue about it. > > But I don't think I get anywhere if I say that people should be arguing > about things completely differently from what they are actually arguing > about, rather, I ought to explain why they are arguing about it, engage with > what's being said, and if I say they're just stupid clowns or scam artists, > I don't think I score many points. I don't claim to have the complete > picture of Greenspan but I have followed him a bit over the years and feel > able to make the comment I did make. I think you are wrong to think that > Greenspan doesn't have a theory, but I think Greenspan is also a politician > or ideologist of sorts, who is fully aware of the "furies of private > interest" to which Marx refers in his comments about the political > economists in the Preface to his magnum opus. I prefer to stick to the norm > of "respect the person, criticise/change the behaviour" if at all possible. >
