Sebastian Mallaby is the Paul A. Volcker Senior Fellow for International Economic Relations at the Council on Foreign Relations. One can be sure, then, that his new comprehensive book, The Man Who Knew: The Life and Times of Alan Greenspan, reflects an Establishment point of view. As if this were not enough to tell us where the book is coming from, Mallaby informs us that he had Greenspan's full cooperation in writing it. "This book is based on almost unlimited access to Alan Greenspan, his papers, and his colleagues and friends, all of whom were generous in their collaboration.

Though the book is hardly a panegyric to Greenspan, Mallaby views his subject with considerable favor. Nevertheless, the book contains ample material for a more severe verdict: Greenspan abandoned the free market convictions he effectively defended early in his career as an economist. To uphold economic truth was not the path to the power and influence Greenspan sought; and he readily adjusted his beliefs to fit with his ambitions.

Greenspan attached himself to Ayn Rand's inner band of disciples; but his adherence to free-market economics did not stem from his alliance with Objectivism. Greenspan learned economic theory from Arthur Burns at Columbia University. For Greenspan, like his mentor Burns, statistics had primary importance: economic theory emerged from discerning patterns in the data and was strictly subordinate to its empirical sources. "Burns was the chief heir to Wesley Mitchell's empiricist tradition, and his influence restrained any enthusiasm that Greenspan might have felt for the new trends that had begun to stir in economics. … Even the cleverest econometric calculation was limited because yesterday's statistical relationships might break down tomorrow; by contrast, finer measures of what the economy is doing are more than just estimates — they are facts."

From his studies of the data, Greenspan arrived at an important conclusion. Financial markets played a crucial role in the genesis of the business cycle: "Squarely confronting the notion that financial markets are merely a casino of meaningless side bets, he laid out an insight for which Nobel laureate James Tobin would later capture the credit. Stock prices drive corporate investments in fixed assets. … In turn, these investments drive many of the booms and busts in a capitalist economy."