Inflation devastated the middle class and transformed the structure of the family. The welfare state corrupted the morals of the lower class. Cheap credit got American business hooked on debt finance. The ability to fund wars turned the U.S. into a global empire. The philosophy of government that Greenspan alludes to is the theory of the egalitarian, redistributionist state, in which no property is outside the grasp of the leviathan and no aspect of our economic lives outside its control.
Fiat money is the financial foundation of all aspects of the social democratic welfare disaster.
One of many things government could not do under a gold standard was engage in willy-nilly bailouts of bankrupt foreign governments. Every government in the world would have to obtain its financing through the private sector, with its bonds subject to a market-based risk premium. Greenspan is often given credit for running a sound money program at the Fed. And given his favorable comments about the gold standard, one might expect he might go along with a different attitude toward government. People say it is unrealistic to seek the restoration of gold as the foundation of the American monetary system, since that would require a complete rethinking of the nature of government.