Alan Greenspan, in an interview on Democracy Now, discusses the current issues of the Iraq war, Social Security, tax cuts, and his work as economic adviser under the Clinton, Bush, and GW Bush administrations. To view the complete interview, go to democracynow.org

Somewhere towards the middle of the interview, Noami Klein brought up that Bush administration tax cuts coincided conveniently with Greenspan’s advocacy for privatization of Social Security, Klein suggested that these policies must conjunct into some sort of ideology. In response, Alan Greenspan said:

Well, first of all, ideology is not what I hold. I try to learn what are the facts, and I let my opinions, judged on the facts, not by some preconception, which I regret is what ideology as a notion means.

So assuming that he doesn’t work from the “big picture” and that tax cuts along with privatizing Social Security were two different objectives, they certainly do generate an ideology whether or not Greenspan doesn’t want to be labeled… He is essentially calling for the scaling back of government within the economy and leaning towards the privatized sector rather than taxes. But let’s look at more that has built this case…

He has also worked as the head of the Federal Reserve during the Reagan administration, and during his time there, we saw the income inequality rise. The ratio between CEO pay and their workers rose 43 percent. Amy Goodman asked if Greenspan shared some of the responsibility through his policies of deregulation, privatization, and free trade.

Greenspan responds by saying the large factor of income inequality sprouts from a poor educational system in a economic time where demand for skilled labor increases the pay between skilled an unskilled laborers. He said in addition, that he wants to open American borders to bring in workers from foreign countries and hence, drive down the wages in order to lessen the gap.

Ok, the average left-winger would notice right away that CEO pay is not the same category as “skilled workers’ pay”. Skilled worker would be upper-middle class to upper-class range, meaning somewhere between 60K - 250K a year. CEO is the range of over 1 million dollars a year. So to say that us laborers will have to compete with foreign countries to lessen the gap of wages will only mean wage suppression without change in CEO pay. In fact, it would increase the gap between CEO pay and worker’s pay, no?

The second thing is that Greenspan doesn’t even talk about improving the educational system. Although personally, I think if everyone did receive a college education, it doesn’t mean everyone will start making more… the nature of capitalism doesn’t permit everyone to make the same amount. Greenspan blames poor education and prescribes opening the borders for wage competition.. doesn’t sound like public interest to me.

Noami Klein goes on to mention the IMF and its policies towards third world countries. She points out that the policies that Greenspan advocates are similar, and it has failed to lift the poverty in those countries. So his policies would not improve the conditions of the average worker in the US either. Populism was systematically removed by the CIA, and Greenspan cannot rest his argument to blame populism for the failures of the IMF’s policies.

According to Greenspan, the problem is in short-term gains that cause damage in the long run.

Greenspan, towards the end, asked if Naomi Klein was implying socialism or populism in the interview, and then finally asked, “…what are you changing in favor of?” Sounds like he does think rather ideologically himself.

Ideology can go two ways - it can sprout out of facts, experience, and idealism (in other words, the way it is now, and the way it could/should be); it can be a perspective that makes someone not surprised at some news stories. Or, it could be a doctrine that one adopts and filters everything through. Y’know… believing is seeing, right?

Klein is obviously the former definition, for she has a lot of facts in her research. In an interview where she asks Greenspan the questions, it is only the process to narrow down the questions to find out what he thinks on certain facts. He started getting defensive towards the end - a nightmare on his conscious resembling true public opinion?

The facts revealed by Greenspan himself… find out more details on the War on Iraq, his ideological policies, his book, and his actual accomplishments at work. He lowered interest rates before the sub-prime crisis, continues to advocate the sub-prime market, he sells contracts to private firms.. and more! In particular, see why! Go look it up on DemocracyNow.org, and think for yourself!

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