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OWL HOOTS

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# When I see you alone

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# I see what's in your mind

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# You want me, yes, you do

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# You don't need to tell me

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# I know you love me most

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# No-one else take my place

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# You need me, yes, you do

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# Forever and ever

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# We are in love, baby love child

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# I take you so high
groovy love child

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# Give me a kiss, baby love child

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# Do it again... #

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Ayn Rand, 225-1, take two.

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BEEPING

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Who are you, Ayn Rand?
When I say that,

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I would like to know
just a little bit.

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You have an accent which is...
Russian. Russian.

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You were born in Russia? Yes.

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Came here... Oh, about 30 years ago.

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And whence did this philosophy
of yours come?

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Er...out of my own mind.

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With the sole acknowledgement of
a debt to Aristotle,

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who is the only philosopher
that ever influenced me.

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Uh-huh. I devised the rest of
my philosophy myself.

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Ayn Rand had left Russia
in the 1920s

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and gone to live in California.

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By chance, she met the film director
Cecil B DeMille,

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who gave her a job
as an extra on his epic films.

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All right now, give me everything
you've got, you people!

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Ready now? Speed, 957.
Places, everybody, this is a take!

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Clear the set! Camera!

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Then DeMille gave her a screenplay
to write called The Skyscraper.

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Rand hated the characters
and the plot,

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but the idea
was going to make her famous.

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She started to write
her own stories,

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and in 1943 she published a novel
called The Fountainhead.

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Its hero is an architect
called Howard Roark who refuses

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to compromise in his vision of how
to build a skyscraper in New York.

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It was a bestseller,
and was made into a film.

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Ayn Rand used Roark
to express her philosophy,

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that she called objectivism.

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Human beings, Rand said,
were alone in the universe.

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They must free themselves
of all forms of political
and religious control

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and live their lives guided
only by their selfish desires.

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If they did this,
they would become heroic figures.

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I am primarily the creator
of a new code of morality

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which has so far
been believed impossible,

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namely a morality not based on
arbitrary edict, mystical or social.

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I hold that if man wants to
live on earth,

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his highest moral purpose is
the achievement of his own happiness,

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and that he must not
force other people

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nor accept their right to force him,

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that each must man must live
as an end in himself,

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and follow his own
rational self-interest.

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May I interrupt now? You may.

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In the 1950s,
Rand moved to New York.

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She lived next to her
favourite skyscraper,
the Empire State Building.

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Rand's ideas were seen as
mad and dangerous.

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Selfishness and greed had led
to the financial chaos

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and the Depression of the 1930s.

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The job of politics
was to manage and control

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the selfish desires
of the individual.

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But Rand continued to write,

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and a small group of followers
began to form round her

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who believed in her vision
of another kind of world,

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where everyone was free.

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I was 19 when I met Ayn.

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I was very idealistic,

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and she appealed to everything
that was idealistic in me.

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We are heroic,
we can know the world,

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we can tame nature,
we can achieve our goals.

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We can do what we want.

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What does it matter that
we're alone? Who do we need?

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Why do we need anyone?

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We have ourselves.

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And that was enough?
And that was...for sure enough, yes.

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Definitely enough.

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Even at 19, I knew, "I'm not going
to meet anyone else like this.

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"This is once in a lifetime."

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Rand had died in 1981,
but by the start of the 1990s

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her novels had become a phenomenon
in America.

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A Library of Congress survey showed
that one of them, Atlas Shrugged,

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was now the second most influential
book in the country.

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The first was the Bible.

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And the group most inspired by her

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were the new entrepreneurs
of Silicon Valley,

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including some of the most powerful,
like Larry Ellison of Oracle.

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Many of them named their companies
and even their children
after Rand and her novels.

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They set up reading groups
to spread her ideas.

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But above all, they saw themselves
as Randian heroes.

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I really felt like an Ayn Rand hero!

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I really did
feel like an Ayn Rand hero.

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I was one. I didn't just
feel like one, I was one!

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I was building the products.

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I was thinking independently,
I was...being rational.

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I was taking pride in what I did.

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Those are Ayn Rand
heroes' characteristics -
I was an Ayn Rand hero.

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I wasn't in the book,
but I was an Ayn Rand hero.

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Just to give you an example, my...

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my six-year-old boy,
his middle name is Rand,

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and I was talking to someone
in...a classmate's dad,

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and we were talking about Ayn Rand
and this interview, and he said,

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"Oh, I'm a huge Ayn Rand fan, in
fact my girl's middle name is Ayn."

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And it's funny
when you see people,
you see companies all the time

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called Fountainhead
or the Galt Group, and you see

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little evidence that Ayn Rand
has heavily influenced people.

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Many of the people here in Silicon
Valley were greatly inspired by
Ayn Rand.

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Entrepreneurs who were
building computers,

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entrepreneurs in biotech,
entrepreneurs in software,
in internet, networking.

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Many here were...were inspired by
Ayn Rand. It presented a vision.

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It presented a vision of
a...morally exciting enterprise,

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a morally glorious project.

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But the project was about more
than just the entrepreneurs
being Randian heroes,

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because an idea was emerging
in California

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that said that
the new computer technologies

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could turn everyone
into heroic individuals.

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It was a vision of a society
where the old forms of political
control would be unnecessary

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because computer networks
could create order in society
without central control.

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This had never happened before,

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because at the heart of of
western political thought

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had always been a fear that
if you allowed individuals too
much freedom, you would get anarchy.

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But ever since the 1970s,
computer utopians in California

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believed that if human beings
were linked by webs of computers,

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then together they could create
their own kind of order.

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It was a cybernetic dream which said
that the feedback of information

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between all the individuals
connected as nodes in the network

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would work to create
a self-stabilising system.

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The world would be stable,
yet everyone would be
heroic Randian beings,

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completely free
to follow their desires.

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Now, in the 1990s,
the technologies had been built,

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and in 1991 a leading computer
engineer from California

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gave a dramatic demonstration.

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He was called Loren Carpenter.

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He invited hundreds of people
to a large shed.

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On each seat was a small paddle,

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and in front of them
was a giant screen.

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We told them nothing for a while.
We just left the things on the seats,

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and people would pick this up and
look at it and say, "What's that?"

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And then somebody noticed that
there's little red and green dots
up there on the screen,

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and this is red and green, so maybe
that has something to do with that.

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It would be that. "OK, there I am."

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And when that happened,
the room erupted.

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Just totally spontaneous,
we didn't say anything.

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Carpenter then began an experiment.

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He projected the early
computer game Pong.

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Each half of the audience
jointly controlled the bat

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on their side of the screen.

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If an individual held up
red on their paddle,

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a computer sensor picked it up and
the bat on the screen went down.

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If they held up green, it went up.

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But they had to operate it together.

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When the game is being played and
the ball is going back and forth,

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if it's down here
and it's headed that way,

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some people are going to have to
show red

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to keep it from going
all the way to the top.

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If everybody just showed green,
it would slam up to the top
and the ball would miss.

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So something happened
in that group of people,

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where some decided to show green
and some decided to show red

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to cause it to stop
in the right place.

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And we had no idea what did that.

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All right! Red, red, red, red, red!

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Oh, baby! Oh, yeah!

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Red!

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Carpenter believed that what he had
created was a model of a society

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where there was no hierarchy,

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where everyone made their own
decisions without guidance.

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Yet because they were linked by
the machines,

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out of it came a stability
and an order.

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So they're all acting as individuals,

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because each one of them can decide
what they're going to do.

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They have total freedom about what to
decide to do, but there's an order.

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There's an order that emerges
that gives them a kind of

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an amoeba-like effect,
where they surge and then they play.

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It was kind of
in the nature of an experiment.

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I wanted to see, if no hierarchy
existed at all, what would happen.

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And what did happen?

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They formed a... A kind of a...
A subconscious consensus.

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Out of these kinds of ideas

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came what was called
the Californian ideology.

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It was an odd fusion of
radical individualism

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and utopian theories
about computer systems,

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and an international priesthood
rose up to promote it.

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What united them was was a vision

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that the world
was now one interconnected system,

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that nation states were irrelevant

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and politicians should not
try and control the system,

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they should let it free
to create a new kind of democracy.

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All the mechanisms
that we are creating

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are connecting everything
to everything else.

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They let the individual
do their thing.

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The internet, as it spreads,
is going to

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radically accelerate that process of
network formation -

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a different kind of
global governance.

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Really, the fundamental evolution
of the global system

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in the post-Cold War era.

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And people, as consumers,
have moved into the 21st century -

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new citizens, networkers
who'll reshape the world.

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You have citizens forming
networks, global, you know,
the planetary consciousness.

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They are absolutely liberating
for the individual.

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The power has shifted
to the citizens,

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and the government
must be a facilitator.

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They should not, in the traditional
sense, control and regulate.

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But at this very moment,
a new President of the United States

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was elected
who believed the opposite.

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He was convinced that
he could use political power

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in its traditional way, to
transform the world for the better.

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You have to realise
that Alan Greenspan

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was and is a brilliant mind, doing
brilliant things in the real world,

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but in his twenties, he's sitting
with me in New York in our apartment,

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in my apartment, and telling me
that he cannot say for a certainty

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that he exists, and he cannot say for
a certainty that I, Nathaniel, exist.

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And he cannot say for a certainty
that this conversation exists.

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That aside, he's got lots of opinions
about everything, how the economy
works, how the world works,

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but he denies the possibility
of being certain about anything.

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Even, and this, of course,
is reductio ad absurdum,

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even he cannot be certain
that he exists.

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So my challenge became
to persuade him

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that he can be certain
that he exists.

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Alan Greenspan
believed in a philosophy
called logical positivism.

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It was an extreme form
of rationality
that questioned everything

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and used logic
to reach absurd conclusions.

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To try and save him from this,

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Nathaniel Branden
introduced Greenspan to Ayn Rand.

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Branden and his wife Barbara

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were the leaders of the small group
that had formed around Ayn Rand.

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They jokingly called themselves
the Collective,

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and they met in Rand's apartment
every Saturday night

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to read the latest section of
the novel that she was writing,
called Atlas Shrugged.

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Nathaniel liked him,
Ayn did not like him at all.

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Nathaniel did,
and began discussing ideas with him.

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And every Saturday night,
the Collective gathered to read
what Ayn had written,

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to read in manuscript what Ayn had
written of Atlas Shrugged that week,

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and finally Nathaniel persuaded Ayn
to include Alan in that.

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And he loved the book, and he was...

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He became a loyal member
of the Collective.

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Atlas Shrugged is set in
a science-fiction world,

238
00:15:30,480 --> 00:15:33,800
but one which is very similar
to 1950s America.

239
00:15:35,320 --> 00:15:38,840
In it, Ayn Rand attacks head-on
the idea of altruism,

240
00:15:38,840 --> 00:15:42,880
the care of others, as an
organising principle for society.

241
00:15:44,400 --> 00:15:48,120
In the story, the government
and the state control everything.

242
00:15:48,120 --> 00:15:51,560
But one by one, the creative
individuals in America -

243
00:15:51,560 --> 00:15:54,440
the industrialists,
the inventors and the artists -

244
00:15:54,440 --> 00:15:56,480
are all mysteriously disappearing.

245
00:15:58,000 --> 00:15:59,720
They have gone on strike,

246
00:15:59,720 --> 00:16:04,480
and they hide out
in a remote mountain valley
as America falls apart.

247
00:16:07,160 --> 00:16:09,680
At the end of the book,
they reappear,

248
00:16:09,680 --> 00:16:13,800
and set out to build Rand's vision
of the world to come,

249
00:16:13,800 --> 00:16:16,080
a world in which politics
has disappeared

250
00:16:16,080 --> 00:16:21,280
and is based instead on what she
called "the virtues of selfishness."

251
00:16:23,760 --> 00:16:25,360
The critics hated it.

252
00:16:27,200 --> 00:16:29,560
And let me start by
quoting from a review

253
00:16:29,560 --> 00:16:32,200
of this novel, Atlas Shrugged,
that appeared in Newsweek.

254
00:16:32,200 --> 00:16:33,960
It said that you are out to destroy

255
00:16:33,960 --> 00:16:38,440
almost every edifice in the
contemporary American way of life -

256
00:16:38,440 --> 00:16:41,040
our Judeo-Christian religion,

257
00:16:41,040 --> 00:16:44,400
our modified
government-regulated capitalism,

258
00:16:44,400 --> 00:16:46,440
our rule by the majority will.

259
00:16:46,440 --> 00:16:49,000
Are these accurate criticisms?
Er, yes.

260
00:16:49,000 --> 00:16:52,720
I'm challenging
the moral code of altruism,

261
00:16:52,720 --> 00:16:57,240
the precept that man's moral duty
is to live for others,

262
00:16:57,240 --> 00:17:01,280
that man must sacrifice himself
to others.

263
00:17:01,280 --> 00:17:05,520
I say that man is entitled
to his own happiness,

264
00:17:05,520 --> 00:17:08,520
and that he must achieve it himself,

265
00:17:08,520 --> 00:17:14,280
and nor should he wish to sacrifice
himself for the happiness of others.

266
00:17:14,280 --> 00:17:16,800
I hold that man
should have self-esteem.

267
00:17:19,000 --> 00:17:22,600
'Atlas Shrugged was the great
disappointment of her life.'

268
00:17:22,600 --> 00:17:27,800
What hurt her terribly
was that when it came out,

269
00:17:27,800 --> 00:17:32,720
not a single person
whom she considered a peer

270
00:17:32,720 --> 00:17:35,120
stood up publicly

271
00:17:35,120 --> 00:17:38,520
to say what an achievement
that book was.

272
00:17:38,520 --> 00:17:40,760
Not one. Nobody.

273
00:17:40,760 --> 00:17:43,600
Vicious, horrible criticisms.

274
00:17:45,160 --> 00:17:47,800
She felt very alienated,

275
00:17:47,800 --> 00:17:51,920
and this small group around her,
the Collective,

276
00:17:51,920 --> 00:17:57,040
were the only people
she had admitted to, in effect,
her private world,

277
00:17:57,040 --> 00:18:00,480
the world that
she wasn't alienated from.

278
00:18:02,160 --> 00:18:06,040
Alan Greenspan remained
fiercely loyal to Ayn Rand.

279
00:18:06,040 --> 00:18:10,120
He married another member
of the Collective,
a painter called Joan Mitchell.

280
00:18:11,680 --> 00:18:15,120
Together, they and the other
members of the group saw themselves

281
00:18:15,120 --> 00:18:19,440
as models for a new kind of world
that they were convinced was coming.

282
00:18:21,520 --> 00:18:23,240
We thought of ourselves

283
00:18:23,240 --> 00:18:27,200
as being instigators of
a revolution that was coming,

284
00:18:27,200 --> 00:18:30,320
and, uh...

285
00:18:30,320 --> 00:18:34,040
we were so enthusiastic about what
a difference it was going to make

286
00:18:34,040 --> 00:18:36,920
to the world, and we were there,
and we were in on it,

287
00:18:36,920 --> 00:18:39,880
and we hoped we were contributing,
even, to it.

288
00:18:39,880 --> 00:18:42,200
And what would that revolution
lead to?

289
00:18:42,200 --> 00:18:44,240
Oh, totally free society.

290
00:18:50,320 --> 00:18:55,600
At the end of 1992, Alan Greenspan
went to see President Clinton.

291
00:18:55,600 --> 00:18:59,400
It was a few days after
Clinton had been elected,

292
00:18:59,400 --> 00:19:02,080
and what Greenspan said
in that conversation

293
00:19:02,080 --> 00:19:04,160
was the beginning of a revolution.

294
00:19:05,680 --> 00:19:10,120
By now, Greenspan was
the head of the US Federal Reserve,

295
00:19:10,120 --> 00:19:11,400
and what he told Clinton

296
00:19:11,400 --> 00:19:16,520
was that his election promises
of social reform were impossible.

297
00:19:16,520 --> 00:19:19,600
The government deficit was so large,
Greenspan said,

298
00:19:19,600 --> 00:19:23,320
that if he borrowed any more
to pay for his political programme,

299
00:19:23,320 --> 00:19:26,800
then interest rates would go up
and damage growth.

300
00:19:28,320 --> 00:19:31,440
But, Greenspan said,
there was a radical alternative.

301
00:19:33,000 --> 00:19:36,400
Clinton should do the very opposite.
Cut government spending,

302
00:19:36,400 --> 00:19:39,480
then interest rates would go down
and the markets would boom.

303
00:19:41,000 --> 00:19:43,040
Greenspan's idea was simple.

304
00:19:43,040 --> 00:19:49,080
Clinton should let the markets
transform America, not politics.

305
00:19:49,080 --> 00:19:52,960
He said later that he was surprised
that Clinton agreed with him.

306
00:19:52,960 --> 00:19:57,480
I had hoped to invest in your future
without asking more of you,

307
00:19:57,480 --> 00:20:02,240
and I worked harder than I've ever
worked in my life to meet that goal.

308
00:20:02,240 --> 00:20:06,680
But I can't, because the deficit
has increased so much.

309
00:20:06,680 --> 00:20:09,960
There will be many more budget cuts.

310
00:20:09,960 --> 00:20:12,280
This is the beginning, not the end.

311
00:20:12,280 --> 00:20:15,520
The house has already embarked
on that course. There will be more.

312
00:20:15,520 --> 00:20:19,800
If our national debt were
stacked in thousand dollar bills,

313
00:20:19,800 --> 00:20:25,040
the stack would
reach 267 miles into space.

314
00:20:33,360 --> 00:20:37,120
As Greenspan had predicted,
a boom began.

315
00:20:37,120 --> 00:20:40,720
And as share prices rose higher
and higher, a belief started to grow

316
00:20:40,720 --> 00:20:43,600
that this time,
the boom would be different.

317
00:20:43,600 --> 00:20:46,040
It wouldn't run out of control.

318
00:20:46,040 --> 00:20:49,200
And the reason was the computers.

319
00:20:49,200 --> 00:20:53,560
The computers allowed the banks to
create complex mathematical models

320
00:20:53,560 --> 00:20:56,800
that could predict the risk of
making any loan or investment.

321
00:20:57,920 --> 00:20:59,840
This had enormous implications,

322
00:20:59,840 --> 00:21:02,200
because if a risk
could be predicted,

323
00:21:02,200 --> 00:21:05,280
then it could be balanced
by hedging against it.

324
00:21:05,280 --> 00:21:09,200
For the banks and the hedge funds,
this was like a new world.

325
00:21:09,200 --> 00:21:12,680
For, in the chaos and
the volatility of the markets,

326
00:21:12,680 --> 00:21:17,160
the computers had -
for the first time ever -
created stability.

327
00:21:17,160 --> 00:21:20,240
It allowed banks to lend money
to millions of people

328
00:21:20,240 --> 00:21:23,480
they would never
have touched in the past.

329
00:21:23,480 --> 00:21:27,400
At the same time, the internet
and other computer networks

330
00:21:27,400 --> 00:21:31,800
allowed businesses to respond to
each others' needs instantaneously -

331
00:21:31,800 --> 00:21:33,960
and to the consumers' desires.

332
00:21:35,400 --> 00:21:38,360
It was the cybernetic feedback

333
00:21:38,360 --> 00:21:41,360
predicted by the Californian
ideologists.

334
00:21:41,360 --> 00:21:46,160
And a belief arose
that America had now entered into
a new age of stability.

335
00:21:49,440 --> 00:21:51,320
It was called the New Economy.

336
00:21:53,840 --> 00:21:57,440
Whether they came from Silicon Valley
or from Washington,

337
00:21:57,440 --> 00:22:02,080
from academia or from Wall Street,
there were a number of

338
00:22:02,080 --> 00:22:07,480
leading individuals who basically
articulated a body of thought

339
00:22:07,480 --> 00:22:10,080
now known fondly as
"the New Economy".

340
00:22:11,520 --> 00:22:15,360
It was based on the premise of
a dramatic and permanent increase

341
00:22:15,360 --> 00:22:17,240
in the rate of productivity growth,

342
00:22:17,240 --> 00:22:21,520
sparked by new information
technologies that would
let this thing go on forever.

343
00:22:21,520 --> 00:22:24,080
'This is manna from heaven -

344
00:22:24,080 --> 00:22:27,640
'this is the candy
that politicians only dream of.

345
00:22:27,640 --> 00:22:29,760
'You don't have to do anything - '

346
00:22:29,760 --> 00:22:31,600
you just push a button and presto!

347
00:22:31,600 --> 00:22:35,160
You've got a brand new economy
that creates jobs and prosperity.

348
00:22:35,160 --> 00:22:37,640
It's the rising tide
that lifts any and all boats,

349
00:22:37,640 --> 00:22:40,240
even if there's no water
in the ocean.

350
00:22:40,240 --> 00:22:43,880
But Alan Greenspan was worried.

351
00:22:43,880 --> 00:22:47,800
Every morning in his bath,
he read page after page of data

352
00:22:47,800 --> 00:22:51,880
about what was really
happening in the factories
and businesses of America.

353
00:22:51,880 --> 00:22:55,200
What puzzled him was that
the figures showed that, actually,

354
00:22:55,200 --> 00:22:58,640
there was hardly any increase
in productivity,

355
00:22:58,640 --> 00:23:02,080
yet reported profits
kept on going up.

356
00:23:02,080 --> 00:23:04,520
There was something wrong.

357
00:23:04,520 --> 00:23:10,800
And in 1996, Greenspan
made a speech that warned that
the market might be overvalued.

358
00:23:10,800 --> 00:23:14,640
That a dangerous speculative
bubble was being created.

359
00:23:14,640 --> 00:23:19,080
Early December of 1996,
Alan Greenspan warned

360
00:23:19,080 --> 00:23:21,480
that the US stock market

361
00:23:21,480 --> 00:23:25,200
may be in a period of
irrational exuberance,

362
00:23:25,200 --> 00:23:28,560
and you would have thought
the world had come to an end.

363
00:23:28,560 --> 00:23:32,640
Politicians attacked him
from the left, from the right,

364
00:23:32,640 --> 00:23:36,480
mainstream was upset with him,
Wall Street was upset with him.

365
00:23:36,480 --> 00:23:39,680
And at that point, there was
a very unfortunate turn of events,

366
00:23:39,680 --> 00:23:42,880
because he knuckled under
to political pressure.

367
00:23:42,880 --> 00:23:44,280
He changed his mind.

368
00:23:52,840 --> 00:23:56,200
Greenspan decided he was wrong.

369
00:23:56,200 --> 00:24:02,000
That the computers were increasing
productivity in ways that were
so new his data couldn't see it.

370
00:24:03,520 --> 00:24:08,280
And he went to see President Clinton
to tell him the good news.

371
00:24:08,280 --> 00:24:10,080
It really was a New Economy.

372
00:24:12,360 --> 00:24:17,320
Greenspan described it to Clinton
as like discovering a new planet.

373
00:24:17,320 --> 00:24:19,640
# There's a monkey on my back

374
00:24:19,640 --> 00:24:23,320
# Makes me talk like that

375
00:24:23,320 --> 00:24:27,400
# There's a monkey on my back

376
00:24:27,400 --> 00:24:31,080
# Makes me talk like that

377
00:24:31,080 --> 00:24:34,680
# There's a monkey on my back

378
00:24:34,680 --> 00:24:38,640
# Makes me act like that

379
00:24:38,640 --> 00:24:41,040
# There's a monkey on my back

380
00:24:41,040 --> 00:24:44,560
# Makes me talk like that... #

381
00:24:46,440 --> 00:24:50,480
(MUSIC DROWNS SPEECH)

382
00:24:55,080 --> 00:24:57,200
The boom continued,

383
00:24:57,200 --> 00:25:00,080
and Time magazine described
how a sense of lethargy

384
00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:02,840
and quietness
came over the White House.

385
00:25:04,440 --> 00:25:07,720
It was as if the President
didn't have anything to do.

386
00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:18,920
# There's a monkey on my back

387
00:25:18,920 --> 00:25:22,480
# Makes me act like that

388
00:25:22,480 --> 00:25:25,920
# There's a monkey on my back

389
00:25:25,920 --> 00:25:28,040
# Makes me act like that

390
00:25:28,040 --> 00:25:31,040
# There's a monkey on my back... #

391
00:25:31,040 --> 00:25:36,200
This was a woman who was very
powerful in a great many ways,

392
00:25:36,200 --> 00:25:40,440
who was mentally more powerful
than anyone she met,

393
00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:44,560
who was more determined,
who was more hardworking

394
00:25:44,560 --> 00:25:46,800
than anyone she met.

395
00:25:46,800 --> 00:25:49,920
What she would have loved

396
00:25:49,920 --> 00:25:53,320
would be to find a man
who was stronger than she.

397
00:25:54,520 --> 00:25:58,760
She would have loved to meet
someone who was smarter than she,

398
00:25:58,760 --> 00:26:02,360
braver than she, a greater genius.
She never met him.

399
00:26:02,360 --> 00:26:05,840
But she longed for him
all her life.

400
00:26:05,840 --> 00:26:10,160
And I think this accounts for
her sexual psychology.

401
00:26:10,160 --> 00:26:14,560
In the 1940s, Ayn Rand had married
an actor called Frank O'Connor.

402
00:26:14,560 --> 00:26:18,400
But now, faced with
the hostility to her ideas,

403
00:26:18,400 --> 00:26:23,800
Rand turned to the leading member of
the collective, Nathaniel Branden.

404
00:26:23,800 --> 00:26:26,480
She told him that she had
fallen in love with him,

405
00:26:26,480 --> 00:26:29,680
and, despite the fact
that he was married to Barbara -

406
00:26:29,680 --> 00:26:32,320
another member of the collective -

407
00:26:32,320 --> 00:26:35,160
Rand told him that
the only rational course

408
00:26:35,160 --> 00:26:38,160
was for Nathaniel
to have an affair with her.

409
00:26:38,160 --> 00:26:41,960
Ov...I don't think...

410
00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:45,040
I must be failing to make
a certain point clear to you, sir.

411
00:26:45,040 --> 00:26:51,000
Ayn Rand thought that
she was being rational

412
00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:54,800
about anything or everything
that she did.

413
00:26:54,800 --> 00:26:59,080
So it would never occur to me to ask,

414
00:26:59,080 --> 00:27:02,960
"Did Ayn Rand think she was being
rational about that?"

415
00:27:02,960 --> 00:27:05,880
She would say, if she were here,
I can feel her,

416
00:27:05,880 --> 00:27:08,920
she would say, "Why, yes,
do you think I would do something

417
00:27:08,920 --> 00:27:11,120
"if I didn't think it was rational?"

418
00:27:17,480 --> 00:27:19,640
In your book, you talk about love

419
00:27:19,640 --> 00:27:22,360
as if it were
a business deal of some kind.

420
00:27:22,360 --> 00:27:28,200
Isn't the essence of love
that it is above self-interest?

421
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:30,880
In love, the currency is virtue.

422
00:27:30,880 --> 00:27:34,360
You love people not for
what you do to or for them,

423
00:27:34,360 --> 00:27:36,160
or what they do for you.

424
00:27:36,160 --> 00:27:39,480
You love them for their values,
their virtues,

425
00:27:39,480 --> 00:27:42,120
which they have achieved
in their own character.

426
00:27:42,120 --> 00:27:44,640
You don't love causelessly.

427
00:27:44,640 --> 00:27:47,560
You don't love everybody
indiscriminately.

428
00:27:47,560 --> 00:27:50,680
You love only those who deserve it.

429
00:27:50,680 --> 00:27:52,880
And then if a man is weak,
or a woman is weak,

430
00:27:52,880 --> 00:27:55,200
then she, he is beyond love?

431
00:27:55,200 --> 00:27:57,360
He certainly does not deserve it.

432
00:27:57,360 --> 00:27:59,840
She was attempting to portray it,

433
00:27:59,840 --> 00:28:03,040
that affair between them,

434
00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:06,520
as totally rationally justified.

435
00:28:08,200 --> 00:28:10,520
She said it was nobody's business,

436
00:28:10,520 --> 00:28:13,560
and we were sworn to
absolute secrecy,

437
00:28:13,560 --> 00:28:16,240
but she said since they were
such unusual people,

438
00:28:16,240 --> 00:28:18,920
it was inevitable that they feel
what they felt -

439
00:28:18,920 --> 00:28:21,560
that there could be
no objection to an affair.

440
00:28:24,840 --> 00:28:27,800
I also felt... I was very aware

441
00:28:27,800 --> 00:28:33,480
of how little Ayn Rand had
had in her life from the outside,

442
00:28:33,480 --> 00:28:34,800
from other people.

443
00:28:36,200 --> 00:28:41,120
And I thought, OK,
if I could press a button,

444
00:28:41,120 --> 00:28:44,200
and make Ayn romantically happy,

445
00:28:44,200 --> 00:28:47,600
would I do it?
And I thought, yes, I would.

446
00:28:47,600 --> 00:28:49,400
That's altruism. >

447
00:28:49,400 --> 00:28:53,320
I know. I know.

448
00:28:53,320 --> 00:28:57,920
It was. I'm not proud of saying yes,
but I said yes.

449
00:28:59,920 --> 00:29:02,240
Well, this is the second floor.

450
00:29:04,760 --> 00:29:07,680
And this is one of my favourite
parts of the house.

451
00:29:08,800 --> 00:29:11,960
This is a beautiful,
central corridor up here.

452
00:29:11,960 --> 00:29:14,800
Must be a bear keeping
this carpet clean, huh?

453
00:29:14,800 --> 00:29:17,720
Well, the main things that...
(VOICE FADES)

454
00:29:17,720 --> 00:29:22,360
LEONARD COHEN:
# ..You can spend
the night beside her

455
00:29:22,360 --> 00:29:25,600
# And you know that she's half crazy

456
00:29:25,600 --> 00:29:29,200
# But that's why you
want to be there

457
00:29:29,200 --> 00:29:32,760
# And she feeds you tea and oranges

458
00:29:32,760 --> 00:29:36,760
# That come all the way from China

459
00:29:36,760 --> 00:29:39,920
# And just when you mean to tell her

460
00:29:39,920 --> 00:29:43,200
# That you have no love to give her

461
00:29:43,200 --> 00:29:46,880
# Then she gets you on her wavelength

462
00:29:46,880 --> 00:29:50,400
# And she lets the river answer

463
00:29:50,400 --> 00:29:53,920
# That you've always been her lover

464
00:29:56,880 --> 00:30:00,480
# And you want to travel with her

465
00:30:00,480 --> 00:30:03,680
# And you want to travel blind

466
00:30:03,680 --> 00:30:07,160
# And you know she will trust you

467
00:30:07,160 --> 00:30:10,200
# For you've touched her perfect body

468
00:30:10,200 --> 00:30:12,120
# With your mind... #

469
00:30:12,120 --> 00:30:15,640
'First time I ever
looked into his eyes,

470
00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:19,680
'I saw somebody totally different
than I had expected to see.

471
00:30:19,680 --> 00:30:23,360
'And that's the person
I fell in love with.'

472
00:30:23,360 --> 00:30:26,840
# And you want to travel with him

473
00:30:26,840 --> 00:30:30,080
# And you want to travel blind

474
00:30:30,080 --> 00:30:33,560
# And you think
maybe you'll trust him

475
00:30:33,560 --> 00:30:38,680
# For he's touched your perfect body
with his mind. #

476
00:30:52,760 --> 00:30:56,880
By 1997, the American boom
was reshaping the whole world.

477
00:30:56,880 --> 00:31:02,240
Economists and bankers
who saw the world as
one giant economic system

478
00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:05,400
now dominated
the American government.

479
00:31:05,400 --> 00:31:08,760
They believed that the way
to achieve global economic stability

480
00:31:08,760 --> 00:31:11,400
was for nations
to open themselves up

481
00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:13,400
to the free flow of capital.

482
00:31:13,400 --> 00:31:17,000
And the laboratory that they had
created for this experiment

483
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:18,240
was South East Asia.

484
00:31:23,960 --> 00:31:25,800
Under American pressure,

485
00:31:25,800 --> 00:31:28,160
countries like
South Korea and Thailand

486
00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:31,800
had given up all restrictions
and Western capital flooded in.

487
00:31:31,800 --> 00:31:35,120
It helped fuel what was called
"The Asian Miracle".

488
00:31:35,120 --> 00:31:39,680
But a group within the White House
were worried that

489
00:31:39,680 --> 00:31:42,120
much of the Western money
was going to fund

490
00:31:42,120 --> 00:31:44,960
a giant speculative bubble
in property.

491
00:31:44,960 --> 00:31:49,720
And when the boom collapsed,
the money would flee,

492
00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:53,440
leaving the countries like Thailand
and South Korea decimated.

493
00:31:53,440 --> 00:31:59,400
The group were led by the economist
Joseph Stiglitz.

494
00:32:00,960 --> 00:32:04,240
The Council of Economic Advisers
was very worried

495
00:32:04,240 --> 00:32:08,240
about these short-term
speculative capital flows

496
00:32:08,240 --> 00:32:13,000
because while the countries benefit
a little bit when the money comes in,

497
00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:16,600
when the money goes out,
the countries are devastated.

498
00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:19,280
So, it was not
in the interest of Korea.

499
00:32:19,280 --> 00:32:22,080
And it was not in the interest
of the US.

500
00:32:22,080 --> 00:32:26,640
It was in the interest of
a very small group of people

501
00:32:26,640 --> 00:32:31,880
who make their money from
these short-term capital flows.

502
00:32:31,880 --> 00:32:34,040
Bankers, and hedge funds.

503
00:32:34,040 --> 00:32:36,920
It was a very small group
in whose interest it was.

504
00:32:38,760 --> 00:32:42,400
The Council of Economic Advisors
decided to warn the President.

505
00:32:42,400 --> 00:32:46,560
They wanted to persuade him to
stop some of the more excessive

506
00:32:46,560 --> 00:32:49,880
short-term speculation
in the Asian countries.

507
00:32:51,640 --> 00:32:53,200
But they came face to face

508
00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:56,320
with the Secretary of the Treasury,
Robert Rubin.

509
00:32:56,320 --> 00:32:59,880
Rubin had previously
run Goldman Sachs
and under his leadership

510
00:32:59,880 --> 00:33:04,080
the bank had created
many of the computer models
that underpinned the boom.

511
00:33:05,880 --> 00:33:10,440
Rubin had a revolutionary vision
of a world system

512
00:33:10,440 --> 00:33:13,040
completely open to the free flow
of capital.

513
00:33:13,040 --> 00:33:17,000
Joseph Stiglitz, who headed
the Council of Economic Advisers,

514
00:33:17,000 --> 00:33:18,840
was convinced that the Treasury

515
00:33:18,840 --> 00:33:22,680
was stopping the warnings
reaching the President.

516
00:33:22,680 --> 00:33:26,560
He believed that Rubin and
the Treasury had effectively become

517
00:33:26,560 --> 00:33:30,320
agents of the financial world
embedded in the heart of government.

518
00:33:30,320 --> 00:33:35,040
Treasury had close connections
with the financial markets.

519
00:33:35,040 --> 00:33:36,920
The Secretary of the Treasury

520
00:33:36,920 --> 00:33:39,680
had come from
the largest investment bank,

521
00:33:39,680 --> 00:33:42,880
and went afterwards into
the largest commercial bank.

522
00:33:42,880 --> 00:33:48,920
These are the people with whom
the US Treasury naturally interacts.

523
00:33:50,080 --> 00:33:54,400
To Wall Street, we were threatening
a bursting of the bubble.

524
00:33:54,400 --> 00:33:57,160
To Wall Street,
we were threatening their profits.

525
00:33:57,160 --> 00:33:59,200
The Treasury worked extremely hard

526
00:33:59,200 --> 00:34:03,840
to make sure the President
never got to consider the issues.

527
00:34:03,840 --> 00:34:08,560
Making sure that perspectives of
the Council of Economic Advisors...

528
00:34:08,560 --> 00:34:12,520
Which was you?
Yes. ..Never reached the president.

529
00:34:12,520 --> 00:34:16,400
So they kept your arguments from
the President? Effectively, yes.

530
00:34:21,320 --> 00:34:23,520
What some people
were beginning to see

531
00:34:23,520 --> 00:34:27,360
was that the computer networks
and the global systems

532
00:34:27,360 --> 00:34:30,240
that they had created
hadn't distributed power.

533
00:34:30,240 --> 00:34:32,160
They had just shifted it,

534
00:34:32,160 --> 00:34:35,640
and, if anything,
concentrated it in new forms.

535
00:34:37,840 --> 00:34:40,840
And some of the computer utopians
from Silicon Valley

536
00:34:40,840 --> 00:34:43,800
were also beginning to realise
that the World Wide Web

537
00:34:43,800 --> 00:34:47,960
was not a new kind of democracy,
but something far more complicated

538
00:34:47,960 --> 00:34:53,600
where power was exercised
over the individual
in new and surprising ways.

539
00:34:53,600 --> 00:34:57,040
Carmen Hermosillo had been
one of the earliest believers

540
00:34:57,040 --> 00:35:00,400
in the new communities
of cyberspace.

541
00:35:00,400 --> 00:35:06,200
Her online name was Humdog
and she lived on the West Coast.

542
00:35:06,200 --> 00:35:09,640
But then she lost faith,
and she posted an attack

543
00:35:09,640 --> 00:35:12,120
which caused a sensation online.

544
00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:14,520
"It is fashionable to suggest",
she wrote,

545
00:35:14,520 --> 00:35:17,160
"that cyberspace is some island
of the blessed

546
00:35:17,160 --> 00:35:21,280
"where people are free to indulge
and express their individuality.

547
00:35:21,280 --> 00:35:27,120
"This is not true. I have seen many
people spill out their emotions,

548
00:35:27,120 --> 00:35:31,040
"their guts online,
and I did so myself,

549
00:35:31,040 --> 00:35:34,200
"until I began to see that
I had commodified myself.

550
00:35:34,200 --> 00:35:39,400
"Commodification means that
you turn something into a product

551
00:35:39,400 --> 00:35:41,080
"which has a money value.

552
00:35:41,080 --> 00:35:44,920
"In the 19th century,
commodities were made in factories

553
00:35:44,920 --> 00:35:49,280
"by workers
who were mostly exploited.

554
00:35:49,280 --> 00:35:53,000
"But I created my interior thoughts
as commodities for the corporations

555
00:35:53,000 --> 00:35:59,160
"that owned the board I was
posting to, like CompuServe or AOL,

556
00:35:59,160 --> 00:36:01,160
"and that commodity
was then sold on

557
00:36:01,160 --> 00:36:04,520
"to other consumer entities
as entertainment."

558
00:36:09,760 --> 00:36:13,120
"Cyberspace", she wrote,
"is a black hole.

559
00:36:13,120 --> 00:36:15,480
"It absorbs energy and personality

560
00:36:15,480 --> 00:36:19,280
"and then re-presents
it as an emotional spectacle.

561
00:36:19,280 --> 00:36:21,360
"It is done by businesses

562
00:36:21,360 --> 00:36:25,320
"that commodify human interaction
and emotion.

563
00:36:25,320 --> 00:36:28,080
"And we are getting lost
in the spectacle."

564
00:36:30,120 --> 00:36:36,600
# She wore blue velvet

565
00:36:38,240 --> 00:36:42,760
# Bluer than velvet
was the night... #

566
00:36:44,800 --> 00:36:51,480
'The navy blue dress. My cousin
is a genetic whatchamacallit.

567
00:36:51,480 --> 00:36:57,680
'He said if she has preserved
a pinprick size of crusted semen,

568
00:36:57,680 --> 00:37:00,160
'they can match the DNA.'

569
00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:03,960
In 1997, Bill Clinton

570
00:37:03,960 --> 00:37:07,680
made it clear to Monica Lewinsky
that their love affair was over.

571
00:37:07,680 --> 00:37:11,920
Hurt and bewildered,
Lewinsky poured out her feelings

572
00:37:11,920 --> 00:37:15,080
to her colleague Linda Tripp -
who had become her friend.

573
00:37:17,240 --> 00:37:20,160
But in September of that year,
Linda Tripp

574
00:37:20,160 --> 00:37:23,440
secretly began to
record their phone conversations.

575
00:37:23,440 --> 00:37:26,600
At the very same time,
on the other side of the world,

576
00:37:26,600 --> 00:37:30,280
the property bubble
in South East Asia finally burst.

577
00:37:31,920 --> 00:37:35,840
Two enormous crises
were about to engulf the world.

578
00:37:35,840 --> 00:37:39,680
One would strip the last remnants
of power from Bill Clinton.

579
00:37:39,680 --> 00:37:43,080
The other would bring the global
economic system to its knees.

580
00:37:43,080 --> 00:37:47,080
The dream of a stable world
was about to be assaulted

581
00:37:47,080 --> 00:37:51,120
by the two uncontrollable forces
of love and power.

582
00:37:57,920 --> 00:38:00,080
The Asian crisis began in Thailand.

583
00:38:00,080 --> 00:38:04,040
Hundreds of thousands of offices
and apartments had been built.

584
00:38:04,040 --> 00:38:06,200
But no-one wanted them.

585
00:38:06,200 --> 00:38:09,560
As the developers went bust
and defaulted on their loans,

586
00:38:09,560 --> 00:38:11,120
Western investors panicked

587
00:38:11,120 --> 00:38:13,800
and rushed to take their money
out of the country.

588
00:38:13,800 --> 00:38:17,720
The panic began to spread,
first to South Korea.

589
00:38:17,720 --> 00:38:20,680
Housewives queued
to give their spare dollars

590
00:38:20,680 --> 00:38:23,520
to the government
to rescue the country.

591
00:38:23,520 --> 00:38:25,600
But it wasn't enough.

592
00:38:26,600 --> 00:38:29,200
Teams from the IMF flew in

593
00:38:29,200 --> 00:38:31,720
and they offered billions
of dollars in loans

594
00:38:31,720 --> 00:38:34,720
to stabilise the economies.
But there was a price.

595
00:38:34,720 --> 00:38:38,400
The IMF said that the reason
the crisis had happened

596
00:38:38,400 --> 00:38:42,200
was because the Asian economies
weren't Western enough.

597
00:38:42,200 --> 00:38:43,480
In return for the loans,

598
00:38:43,480 --> 00:38:46,960
they would have to turn themselves
into models of the free market.

599
00:38:46,960 --> 00:38:50,160
This meant cutting
government spending

600
00:38:50,160 --> 00:38:54,320
and getting rid of corruption
and nepotism in the ruling elites.

601
00:38:54,320 --> 00:38:56,800
CHANTING

602
00:38:56,800 --> 00:39:00,360
Then the crisis got worse.
It spread to Indonesia.

603
00:39:01,440 --> 00:39:05,400
Indonesia was ruled by
President Suharto.

604
00:39:05,400 --> 00:39:09,720
He was an autocrat surrounded
by a corrupt clique
of advisers and family members.

605
00:39:09,720 --> 00:39:12,360
He refused to do
what the IMF wanted.

606
00:39:15,640 --> 00:39:20,000
So the IMF turned to
the US Secretary of the Treasury,
Robert Rubin.

607
00:39:21,080 --> 00:39:24,720
Our objective was not to reform
the country for the sake of reform.

608
00:39:24,720 --> 00:39:28,400
The problem the international
community faced was that both

609
00:39:28,400 --> 00:39:30,280
the international markets

610
00:39:30,280 --> 00:39:36,880
and the domestic holders of capital
were very quickly losing confidence

611
00:39:36,880 --> 00:39:39,960
in the Indonesian regime.

612
00:39:39,960 --> 00:39:43,080
By that time, it was our view

613
00:39:43,080 --> 00:39:47,640
that if President Suharto was
going to re-establish confidence,

614
00:39:47,640 --> 00:39:49,280
he had to deal with corruption.

615
00:39:49,280 --> 00:39:51,520
That was something
he was unwilling to do.

616
00:39:53,720 --> 00:39:55,880
Robert Rubin and the US Treasury

617
00:39:55,880 --> 00:39:59,360
were determined to force Suharto
to their will.

618
00:39:59,360 --> 00:40:02,440
In an atmosphere of growing panic
in Washington,

619
00:40:02,440 --> 00:40:06,160
Rubin's team began to argue
that the overthrow of Suharto

620
00:40:06,160 --> 00:40:08,200
might be the only way
to solve the crisis.

621
00:40:08,200 --> 00:40:11,800
President Clinton
was now increasingly enmeshed

622
00:40:11,800 --> 00:40:14,400
in the crisis over Monica Lewinsky,

623
00:40:14,400 --> 00:40:18,320
and enormous political power
was passing to Rubin

624
00:40:18,320 --> 00:40:20,760
and his Treasury team.

625
00:40:20,760 --> 00:40:22,840
They, and not the State Department,

626
00:40:22,840 --> 00:40:27,160
were now running
America's foreign policy.

627
00:40:27,160 --> 00:40:30,280
And everything was judged by
whether it was a threat

628
00:40:30,280 --> 00:40:32,560
to the global economic system.

629
00:40:32,560 --> 00:40:37,280
There is no question that
the Treasury Secretary,

630
00:40:37,280 --> 00:40:41,360
in this case, me, got involved
in sensitive issues

631
00:40:41,360 --> 00:40:45,120
that went way beyond
what Treasury Secretaries
ordinarily got involved in.

632
00:40:45,120 --> 00:40:48,600
But the reason was that
there was real risk

633
00:40:48,600 --> 00:40:52,280
that if Indonesia had chaos,
political chaos I'm talking about,

634
00:40:52,280 --> 00:40:57,360
that could spread, threatening
the interest of the global economy.

635
00:40:58,680 --> 00:41:04,440
In January 1998, Suharto gave in
and signed the IMF agreement,

636
00:41:04,440 --> 00:41:08,880
watched over by the head of the IMF,
Michel Camdessus.

637
00:41:08,880 --> 00:41:14,040
Indonesia received a massive loan
to stabilise the economy.

638
00:41:14,040 --> 00:41:17,680
For a moment it worked. But then
the strangest thing happened.

639
00:41:17,680 --> 00:41:21,440
Indonesian's currency has collapsed,
losing 80% of its value

640
00:41:21,440 --> 00:41:23,160
and the economy is in ruins.

641
00:41:23,160 --> 00:41:26,520
With riots and looting
breaking out across the country,

642
00:41:26,520 --> 00:41:29,800
there are fears that
it's now on the brink of anarchy.

643
00:41:29,800 --> 00:41:32,840
Indonesia's exchange rate
crashed disastrously

644
00:41:32,840 --> 00:41:35,280
and the economy went into freefall.

645
00:41:35,280 --> 00:41:39,080
But Indonesia was not alone.

646
00:41:39,080 --> 00:41:41,640
In every country
that the IMF bailed out,

647
00:41:41,640 --> 00:41:43,720
like Thailand and South Korea,

648
00:41:43,720 --> 00:41:46,280
for a moment there was stability,

649
00:41:46,280 --> 00:41:48,240
and then the exchange rate
collapsed.

650
00:41:48,240 --> 00:41:52,880
Rubin's critics in
the White House began to argue

651
00:41:52,880 --> 00:41:56,040
that there was another agenda
also at work in the bail-outs -

652
00:41:56,040 --> 00:42:00,120
that part of their real function
was to rescue the western investors,

653
00:42:00,120 --> 00:42:03,800
not the countries.

654
00:42:03,800 --> 00:42:08,200
Billions of dollars were paid
into the Asian banks by the IMF,

655
00:42:08,200 --> 00:42:11,600
but many of those same dollars
were immediately used

656
00:42:11,600 --> 00:42:13,480
to pay off western investors

657
00:42:13,480 --> 00:42:16,760
who wanted to get their money
out of the country.

658
00:42:16,760 --> 00:42:20,560
And once that had happened,
the economy crashed.

659
00:42:20,560 --> 00:42:24,280
It was another illustration
that the interest

660
00:42:24,280 --> 00:42:27,880
of the financial community

661
00:42:27,880 --> 00:42:30,440
dominated over other interests.

662
00:42:32,240 --> 00:42:35,080
By providing mega-billion-dollar
loans,

663
00:42:35,080 --> 00:42:38,120
the IMF was bailing out
the Western investors

664
00:42:38,120 --> 00:42:43,440
and leaving the taxpayers
in the countries further in debt,

665
00:42:43,440 --> 00:42:46,000
because they had to repay the IMF.

666
00:42:46,000 --> 00:42:49,240
The effect of the cuts was
devastating throughout the region.

667
00:42:49,240 --> 00:42:53,000
In Indonesia,
government subsidies were removed,

668
00:42:53,000 --> 00:42:55,880
as instructed by
the Western bankers.

669
00:42:55,880 --> 00:42:58,560
Prices soared, and within months,

670
00:42:58,560 --> 00:43:00,680
in a country of 200 million people,

671
00:43:00,680 --> 00:43:04,600
15% of the male workforce
lost their jobs.

672
00:43:04,600 --> 00:43:09,680
Economic output fell by 14%.

673
00:43:09,680 --> 00:43:14,360
As Robert Rubin had wanted,
Suharto was forced from power,

674
00:43:14,360 --> 00:43:17,000
but at a very high price.

675
00:43:17,000 --> 00:43:18,760
The economy now lay in ruins

676
00:43:18,760 --> 00:43:22,520
and ethnic and religious strife
began.

677
00:43:22,520 --> 00:43:26,320
The same thing happened
in Thailand and South Korea.

678
00:43:26,320 --> 00:43:30,320
Millions and millions of people
fell back into the poverty

679
00:43:30,320 --> 00:43:34,960
that they thought
they had escaped forever.

680
00:43:34,960 --> 00:43:38,200
By the middle of 1998,
the Asian economies had collapsed.

681
00:43:38,200 --> 00:43:41,360
It was the most catastrophic
economic disaster

682
00:43:41,360 --> 00:43:45,480
suffered by any countries
since the depression of the 1930s.

683
00:43:49,920 --> 00:43:52,040
Many people cannot have the money,

684
00:43:52,040 --> 00:43:53,880
don't have the money.

685
00:43:53,880 --> 00:43:55,800
Millions of people are unemployed.

686
00:43:55,800 --> 00:43:57,560
They don't have jobs, education.

687
00:43:57,560 --> 00:43:59,560
Education and hospitals
are expensive.

688
00:43:59,560 --> 00:44:01,920
Everything's expensive
for the common people.

689
00:44:08,280 --> 00:44:12,400
If Monica Lewinsky says that while
you were in the Oval Office area,

690
00:44:12,400 --> 00:44:15,240
you touched her breast,
would she be lying?

691
00:44:18,360 --> 00:44:22,160
Bill Clinton had become President
with the vision

692
00:44:22,160 --> 00:44:25,840
of using political power
to transform America.

693
00:44:25,840 --> 00:44:28,480
But he had been persuaded
to give away that power

694
00:44:28,480 --> 00:44:30,000
to the financial markets,

695
00:44:30,000 --> 00:44:31,920
with the promise that this time

696
00:44:31,920 --> 00:44:34,400
they would create
a new kind of stability,

697
00:44:34,400 --> 00:44:36,640
a new kind of democracy,

698
00:44:36,640 --> 00:44:40,800
free of the corruption
of elite politics.

699
00:44:40,800 --> 00:44:43,960
But it was now becoming clear
that in reality,

700
00:44:43,960 --> 00:44:47,680
America's political power had just
been transferred to another elite -

701
00:44:47,680 --> 00:44:51,560
the financiers and Wall Street.

702
00:44:51,560 --> 00:44:53,040
And when faced by a crisis,

703
00:44:53,040 --> 00:44:56,120
they had simply used that power
to rescue themselves.

704
00:44:58,080 --> 00:45:01,000
In the process, far
from creating stability,

705
00:45:01,000 --> 00:45:04,200
their actions were
leading to a chaotic

706
00:45:04,200 --> 00:45:06,560
and far more unstable world.

707
00:45:06,560 --> 00:45:08,520
To the leaders of
the Asian countries,

708
00:45:08,520 --> 00:45:11,040
this was just as much
a corruption of power

709
00:45:11,040 --> 00:45:13,920
as anything their governments
were guilty of.

710
00:45:17,080 --> 00:45:18,480
Power corrupts.

711
00:45:18,480 --> 00:45:21,920
As much as government
can become corrupt

712
00:45:21,920 --> 00:45:24,880
when invested with absolute power,

713
00:45:24,880 --> 00:45:27,600
markets also can become corrupt

714
00:45:27,600 --> 00:45:31,000
when equally absolutely powerful.

715
00:45:31,000 --> 00:45:35,840
We are seeing the effect
of that absolute power today.

716
00:45:35,840 --> 00:45:39,960
The impoverishment and misery
of millions of people

717
00:45:39,960 --> 00:45:42,040
and their eventual slavery.

718
00:45:42,040 --> 00:45:45,440
What did you tell your
cabinet, Mr President?

719
00:45:45,440 --> 00:45:47,760
Ask him.
Are you considering...?

720
00:45:47,760 --> 00:45:50,320
Do you think it went well?

721
00:45:50,320 --> 00:45:53,560
Are you considering resignation,
Mr President?

722
00:45:53,560 --> 00:45:57,680
OK, I don't know
if you saw that.

723
00:45:57,680 --> 00:46:00,920
Did you see that look on his face?
Great, great.

724
00:46:00,920 --> 00:46:02,440
Come in.

725
00:46:10,120 --> 00:46:11,520
I love you, Rourke.

726
00:46:11,520 --> 00:46:15,680
Would it please you to hear
that I've lived in torture
all these months,

727
00:46:15,680 --> 00:46:17,720
hoping never to find you again

728
00:46:17,720 --> 00:46:20,760
and wishing to give my life
just to see once more?

729
00:46:20,760 --> 00:46:22,920
But you knew that, of course.

730
00:46:22,920 --> 00:46:25,040
That's what you wanted me
to live through.

731
00:46:25,040 --> 00:46:26,920
Yes.

732
00:46:26,920 --> 00:46:29,600
Why don't you laugh
at me now? You won.

733
00:46:29,600 --> 00:46:31,600
I've no pride left to stop me.

734
00:46:31,600 --> 00:46:35,160
I love you without dignity,
without regret.

735
00:46:35,160 --> 00:46:37,000
I came to tell you this

736
00:46:37,000 --> 00:46:39,560
and to tell you that
you'll never see me again.

737
00:46:40,760 --> 00:46:42,600
By now, I've had
a lot of time to think.

738
00:46:42,600 --> 00:46:44,640
I'm four, five years older

739
00:46:44,640 --> 00:46:49,120
and I realise I've made
a terrible, terrible mistake.

740
00:46:49,120 --> 00:46:53,360
But the trouble is, I've become
very, very important to Ayn.

741
00:46:53,360 --> 00:46:55,600
She tells me,
"You are my lifeline to reality.

742
00:46:55,600 --> 00:46:58,080
"I don't know how I would
have survived without you.

743
00:46:58,080 --> 00:47:00,440
"You started the
Nathanial Brandon Institute."

744
00:47:00,440 --> 00:47:03,800
That's how the philosophical
movement of Ayn Rand got launched,

745
00:47:03,800 --> 00:47:06,680
was by this institute I created.

746
00:47:06,680 --> 00:47:09,800
So my idol is telling me every day...

747
00:47:11,840 --> 00:47:13,560
..I'm her lifeline to reality.

748
00:47:18,720 --> 00:47:21,040
I don't know what to do.
I didn't know what to do.

749
00:47:21,040 --> 00:47:22,680
And then...

750
00:47:25,400 --> 00:47:28,360
..a young woman comes to
my lectures and I meet her

751
00:47:28,360 --> 00:47:32,640
and I fall in love with her.

752
00:47:32,640 --> 00:47:35,200
And now the situation
has got even worse.

753
00:47:52,160 --> 00:47:55,920
She then launched into
a tirade against him

754
00:47:55,920 --> 00:48:00,160
that was so shocking,

755
00:48:00,160 --> 00:48:04,040
accusing him of utter irrationality,

756
00:48:04,040 --> 00:48:07,800
of betraying objectivism,
betraying her.

757
00:48:10,240 --> 00:48:12,920
It went on and on indefinitely.

758
00:48:12,920 --> 00:48:17,000
And it ended with her saying...

759
00:48:20,320 --> 00:48:23,280
.."If he had an ounce
of morality left,

760
00:48:23,280 --> 00:48:27,000
"he would be impotent
for the next 10 years."

761
00:48:27,000 --> 00:48:30,520
And then slapped him
across the face three times

762
00:48:30,520 --> 00:48:32,000
and said "Get out."

763
00:48:34,080 --> 00:48:36,200
He got out.

764
00:48:36,200 --> 00:48:37,760
And that was the end.

765
00:48:39,560 --> 00:48:43,840
And ultimately, it ended
an absolute disaster for everybody.

766
00:48:47,600 --> 00:48:49,680
Ayn Rand's anger and despair

767
00:48:49,680 --> 00:48:54,360
destroyed the small, perfect world
that she had built around her.

768
00:48:54,360 --> 00:48:57,520
The Collective was torn apart
by the revelation of her affair

769
00:48:57,520 --> 00:49:01,440
and by her violent
reaction at her betrayal.

770
00:49:03,160 --> 00:49:08,160
And by the early 1970s,
Ayn Rand was left almost alone.

771
00:49:08,160 --> 00:49:11,480
She still lived in her apartment
by the Empire State Building

772
00:49:11,480 --> 00:49:13,440
and she took up stamp collecting.

773
00:49:15,360 --> 00:49:19,760
One of the few people who remained
loyal to her was Alan Greenspan,

774
00:49:19,760 --> 00:49:22,960
who worked in New York as an
economic consultant to Wall Street.

775
00:49:24,240 --> 00:49:27,680
It's feasible in the way
in which it stays down

776
00:49:27,680 --> 00:49:31,120
and does not merely drop
and bounce around

777
00:49:31,120 --> 00:49:35,480
and have within it,
in a sense, an unstable future.

778
00:49:37,000 --> 00:49:40,800
In 1974, President Ford
made Greenspan the chairman

779
00:49:40,800 --> 00:49:45,080
of his Council of Economic
Advisers in Washington.

780
00:49:45,080 --> 00:49:48,440
It was the beginning of
Greenspan's rise to power.

781
00:49:50,920 --> 00:49:53,480
Rand was left alone in New York,

782
00:49:53,480 --> 00:49:56,160
but she wasn't lonely, she said.

783
00:49:56,160 --> 00:49:58,760
In her philosophy,
all you needed was yourself,

784
00:49:58,760 --> 00:50:01,560
because you were the world.

785
00:50:04,200 --> 00:50:06,600
I kind of think of this
whole thing as ongoing,

786
00:50:06,600 --> 00:50:08,160
that there is an eternity,

787
00:50:08,160 --> 00:50:10,960
and that we are going
to be a part of that eternity

788
00:50:10,960 --> 00:50:14,440
that we aren't just
corpses in graves when we die.

789
00:50:14,440 --> 00:50:18,920
But we aren't corpses in graves,
we are not there.

790
00:50:18,920 --> 00:50:21,960
Don't you understand that
when this life is finished,

791
00:50:21,960 --> 00:50:26,160
you're not there to say, "Oh, how
terrible that I'm a corpse"?

792
00:50:26,160 --> 00:50:28,400
No. Well, this is true.
It's finished.

793
00:50:28,400 --> 00:50:32,240
And what I've always thought

794
00:50:32,240 --> 00:50:34,720
was a sentence from
some Greek philosopher,

795
00:50:34,720 --> 00:50:37,200
I don't unfortunately
remember who it was.

796
00:50:37,200 --> 00:50:40,520
I read it at 16 and
it's affected me all my life.

797
00:50:40,520 --> 00:50:44,320
"I will not die.
It's the world that will end."

798
00:50:44,320 --> 00:50:46,240
And that's absolutely true.

799
00:51:00,760 --> 00:51:02,760
Oh, my God!

800
00:51:08,400 --> 00:51:11,520
The attack on the World Trade Center

801
00:51:11,520 --> 00:51:15,120
was an assault by political
Islamism on American power,

802
00:51:15,120 --> 00:51:18,800
and on what the Islamists believed
was the destructive force

803
00:51:18,800 --> 00:51:22,440
that drove that power,
radical individualism.

804
00:51:25,520 --> 00:51:28,360
When the World Trade Center
towers collapsed,

805
00:51:28,360 --> 00:51:31,000
everyone knew that
everything had changed.

806
00:51:32,480 --> 00:51:34,280
But then it didn't.

807
00:51:34,280 --> 00:51:37,360
The system returned to normal.

808
00:51:37,360 --> 00:51:40,160
And the heroic individual
who did this,

809
00:51:40,160 --> 00:51:44,240
and who bent history to his will,
was Alan Greenspan.

810
00:51:44,240 --> 00:51:48,840
And he became the most
powerful man in the world.

811
00:51:48,840 --> 00:51:51,640
As we struggle to make
sense of our profound loss

812
00:51:51,640 --> 00:51:55,360
and its immediate
consequences for the economy,

813
00:51:55,360 --> 00:51:59,360
we must not lose sight
of our longer-run prospects,

814
00:51:59,360 --> 00:52:03,960
which have not been significantly
diminished by these terrible events.

815
00:52:03,960 --> 00:52:06,720
But it started badly.

816
00:52:06,720 --> 00:52:10,480
A week after the attacks,
the American markets opened again.

817
00:52:10,480 --> 00:52:12,520
Dealers waited to see
what would happen.

818
00:52:12,520 --> 00:52:15,880
Our heroes will now
open the marketplace.

819
00:52:15,880 --> 00:52:17,640
The green button.

820
00:52:17,640 --> 00:52:20,080
It was a disaster.

821
00:52:20,080 --> 00:52:24,280
Immediately, the market suffered the
largest fall ever in its history.

822
00:52:27,800 --> 00:52:31,680
Two weeks later,
the Enron scandal was revealed.

823
00:52:31,680 --> 00:52:33,280
And it quickly became clear

824
00:52:33,280 --> 00:52:37,480
that it was only one example
of a vast corporate fraud.

825
00:52:37,480 --> 00:52:41,400
Since the early '90s, many major
corporations had faked profits

826
00:52:41,400 --> 00:52:44,480
and hidden their debts,

827
00:52:44,480 --> 00:52:47,280
helped by some of the
major accounting firms.

828
00:52:47,280 --> 00:52:51,640
It seemed as if the American
economy might collapse.

829
00:52:51,640 --> 00:52:54,480
Greenspan took action.

830
00:52:54,480 --> 00:52:57,880
He dramatically cut interest
rates again and again.

831
00:52:57,880 --> 00:52:59,160
His aim was simple,

832
00:52:59,160 --> 00:53:02,360
to encourage American consumers
to borrow and spend.

833
00:53:02,360 --> 00:53:05,320
They and their desires were
going to be the machine

834
00:53:05,320 --> 00:53:07,040
that stabilised the system.

835
00:53:10,640 --> 00:53:13,040
Huw, today's rate cut
is the culmination

836
00:53:13,040 --> 00:53:16,560
of an extraordinary few
days for central banks.

837
00:53:16,560 --> 00:53:18,760
It's all part of a
concerted global effort

838
00:53:18,760 --> 00:53:20,560
to bolster consumer confidence

839
00:53:20,560 --> 00:53:23,400
and make sure those consumers
carry on spending money

840
00:53:23,400 --> 00:53:26,200
because that is what's keeping
economies afloat at the moment.

841
00:53:27,920 --> 00:53:30,360
It was an enormous risk.

842
00:53:30,360 --> 00:53:32,360
By cutting the rates
to almost zero,

843
00:53:32,360 --> 00:53:36,120
Greenspan was unleashing a flood
of cheap money into the economy,

844
00:53:36,120 --> 00:53:38,040
and in the past this had always led

845
00:53:38,040 --> 00:53:40,480
to inflation and
dangerous instability.

846
00:53:42,240 --> 00:53:44,120
But this time it didn't.

847
00:53:44,120 --> 00:53:46,280
A vast consumer boom began,

848
00:53:46,280 --> 00:53:49,560
bigger than anything
ever before in history.

849
00:53:49,560 --> 00:53:51,400
But there was no inflation.

850
00:53:51,400 --> 00:53:53,960
Everything remained stable.

851
00:53:56,720 --> 00:54:00,000
It seemed that the system
could manage itself

852
00:54:00,000 --> 00:54:03,600
without direct political control.

853
00:54:03,600 --> 00:54:06,240
But it was an illusion.

854
00:54:06,240 --> 00:54:10,800
The reason for the extraordinary
boom was the very opposite.

855
00:54:10,800 --> 00:54:14,520
It happened because of a giant
exercise of political power

856
00:54:14,520 --> 00:54:19,200
by an elite thousands of miles
away on the other side of the world.

857
00:54:20,480 --> 00:54:23,320
HE SPEAKS IN CHINESE

858
00:54:25,560 --> 00:54:27,720
The Asian countries, led by China,

859
00:54:27,720 --> 00:54:29,400
had decided that never again

860
00:54:29,400 --> 00:54:32,280
would they put themselves
at the mercy

861
00:54:32,280 --> 00:54:34,160
of America and its
financial elites,

862
00:54:34,160 --> 00:54:36,120
as had happened two years before.

863
00:54:36,120 --> 00:54:41,840
So the Chinese Politburo
created a system to manage America.

864
00:54:43,320 --> 00:54:47,440
They deliberately held their
currency's exchange rate
at a low level.

865
00:54:47,440 --> 00:54:50,800
This meant that their
exports were cheap,

866
00:54:50,800 --> 00:54:53,600
and Chinese goods
flooded into America.

867
00:54:53,600 --> 00:54:56,160
And to pay for them,

868
00:54:56,160 --> 00:54:59,480
American dollars flooded into China.

869
00:54:59,480 --> 00:55:02,520
But instead of spending
the money on their population,

870
00:55:02,520 --> 00:55:06,880
the Chinese leaders immediately
lent the money back to America,

871
00:55:06,880 --> 00:55:10,360
by buying government bonds.

872
00:55:10,360 --> 00:55:13,360
It was a perfect system of
cheap goods and cheap money

873
00:55:13,360 --> 00:55:20,000
flowing into America, all
controlled by the Chinese Politburo.

874
00:55:20,000 --> 00:55:24,080
And it was this that
created the stability.

875
00:55:28,160 --> 00:55:31,720
From it came an orgy of lending
by the banks to the poorest

876
00:55:31,720 --> 00:55:35,240
and least credit-worthy
borrowers in the US.

877
00:55:35,240 --> 00:55:38,120
It was a mirror image of
what the West had done

878
00:55:38,120 --> 00:55:41,400
in East Asia in the 1990s,

879
00:55:41,400 --> 00:55:43,680
and just like then,

880
00:55:43,680 --> 00:55:46,000
out of it came
a vast property bubble.

881
00:55:47,880 --> 00:55:51,080
"It is as if over a trillion
dollars has been recycled"

882
00:55:51,080 --> 00:55:55,080
wrote one economist, "to a third
world developing economy

883
00:55:55,080 --> 00:55:58,000
"that exists within
America's own borders."

884
00:56:09,520 --> 00:56:15,080
The Chinese money had led
America into a dream world,

885
00:56:15,080 --> 00:56:19,080
but the reason that so few bankers
and politicians questioned it

886
00:56:19,080 --> 00:56:21,280
was because of their
faith in computers.

887
00:56:23,400 --> 00:56:26,400
They were convinced
that it was the computers

888
00:56:26,400 --> 00:56:29,080
that had brought the
stability to the system.

889
00:56:29,080 --> 00:56:33,120
The machines created mathematical
models that parcelled out the loans,

890
00:56:33,120 --> 00:56:36,960
and then hedged and balanced
them so that there was no risk.

891
00:56:44,400 --> 00:56:49,200
But then, in 2008,
that dream collapsed.

892
00:56:49,200 --> 00:56:52,200
Alan Greenspan's
vision of a new planet,

893
00:56:52,200 --> 00:56:54,920
and Gordon Brown's promise
of no more boom and bust

894
00:56:54,920 --> 00:56:56,920
were revealed to be fantasies

895
00:56:56,920 --> 00:56:59,600
built on a wave
of financial speculation.

896
00:57:01,440 --> 00:57:03,600
That speculation had happened

897
00:57:03,600 --> 00:57:07,480
because those running the financial
sectors in America and Britain

898
00:57:07,480 --> 00:57:11,040
had promised that they could create
a new kind of market democracy

899
00:57:11,040 --> 00:57:14,080
that would be stable.

900
00:57:14,080 --> 00:57:17,360
But again and again,
it had led to the opposite,

901
00:57:17,360 --> 00:57:20,240
chaos and instability
around the world.

902
00:57:20,240 --> 00:57:24,680
And now, finally, that had happened
in the very heart of the west.

903
00:57:28,440 --> 00:57:32,520
But yet again, just as in south
east Asia ten years before,

904
00:57:32,520 --> 00:57:37,520
those running the financial sector
now mobilised political power

905
00:57:37,520 --> 00:57:41,600
to rescue themselves
and protect their supremacy.

906
00:57:41,600 --> 00:57:44,000
They asked the politicians
to bail them out,

907
00:57:44,000 --> 00:57:46,240
and they agreed.

908
00:57:47,920 --> 00:57:51,280
And again, just as
in south east Asia,

909
00:57:51,280 --> 00:57:54,680
the price is being paid by the
ordinary people of the countries.

910
00:58:01,960 --> 00:58:05,640
And we are now living through
a very strange moment.

911
00:58:05,640 --> 00:58:08,600
We know that the idea of
market stability has failed,

912
00:58:08,600 --> 00:58:11,880
but we cannot imagine
any alternative.

913
00:58:13,800 --> 00:58:16,240
The original promise
of the Californian Ideology

914
00:58:16,240 --> 00:58:18,640
was that the computers
would liberate us

915
00:58:18,640 --> 00:58:23,040
from all the old forms
of political control

916
00:58:23,040 --> 00:58:27,040
and we would become Randian heroes
in control of our own destiny.

917
00:58:28,760 --> 00:58:32,120
Instead, today we feel the opposite,

918
00:58:32,120 --> 00:58:36,440
that we are helpless components
in a global system,

919
00:58:36,440 --> 00:58:39,840
a system that is controlled
by a rigid logic

920
00:58:39,840 --> 00:58:43,080
that we are powerless
to challenge or to change.

921
00:59:07,600 --> 00:59:10,640
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

922
00:59:10,640 --> 00:59:13,680
E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk