Time on "the committee to save the world" (1999)

Greenspan has a theory about what holds them together: "In analytical people self-esteem relies on the analysis and not on the conclusions." That must be it. The three men have a mania for analysis that has bred a rigorous, unique intellectual honesty. In the Reagan Administration economic policymaking was guided not by analysis but by conclusions--specifically a belief in so-called supply-side economics. No matter what the data showed, the results among Reagan-era economists like Arthur Laffer were always the same: tax cuts and less regulation were the solution. Rubin, Greenspan and Summers have outgrown ideology. Their faith is in the markets and in their own ability to analyze them. "It's unusual," Greenspan says. "In Washington usually you come to the table, and everyone meets, and no one changes their mind. But with us, you have something else."

This pragmatism is a faith that recalls nothing so much as the objectivist philosophy of the novelist and social critic Ayn Rand (The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged), which Greenspan has studied intently. During long nights at Rand's apartment and through her articles and letters, Greenspan found in objectivism a sense that markets are an expression of the deepest truths about human nature and that, as a result, they will ultimately be correct.

~ Time, "The Committee to Save the World," (a.k.a. "The Three Marketeers"), February 15, 1999, by Joshua Cooper Ramo