Letters

From the March 2004 issue

(Page 3 of 4)

Robert Goodman
Bronx, NY

I just completed reading your article on the 35 heroes of freedom since reason's founding. While I enjoyed the article, I noticed two glaring omissions from your list: Robert Nozick and Murray Rothbard. I understand there wasn't room for everyone on the list, but these two men are giants of modern libertarianism.

Nozick accomplished the previously unthinkable when he made libertarianism philosophically acceptable in the academy by publishing Anarchy, State, and Utopia. As for Rothbard, there is probably no one except for Ayn Rand who brought so many people into the libertarian movement, and there is probably no one who has done more for the building of libertarian institutions. Personally, I have found no greater tool in my outreach to friends and neighbors than Rothbard's For a New Liberty.

John Payne
St. Louis, MO

I nominate Greg Ginn of the seminal punk rock group Black Flag and, more important, founder of SST Records, one of the first and most successful of the new breed of independent record labels that transformed the American musical landscape in the 1980s. By bringing a new generation of American rock 'n' roll to a young audience bored with outdated baby boomer butt-rock bands in the '80s, SST was critical in the development of the indie rock DIY movement and brought needed authenticity back to the notion of "rock stardom." Lots of young punks cursed the bane of corporate rock. Ginn actually did something about it.

Rob Salkowitz
Seattle, WA

Kudos for including Curt Flood on the list. But come on guys, including Goldwater, Thatcher, and Havel without the guy who did the most to bring down communism -- a fellow named Reagan -- is like having Peter, James, and John without Jesus.

Paul Trampe
Fredericksburg, VA

Poor Man's Hero

It is fine for Johan Norberg to say "people are dying" because of the West's trade policies ("Poor Man's Hero," December), but he seems to have missed the point of the various successes he cites: The poor countries have something to do with making it work.

Norberg tells us that Taiwan, Vietnam, China, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore have achieved success by going global and developing broad-based economies and that Kenya is now moving in a similar direction. Good for them. But shouldn't their success provide a model for those countries that slavishly adhere to inefficient economic policies? Could he at least tell us why those countries maintain outmoded systems when they, too, could make significant transformations?

Finally, Norberg is too sanguine about the pain suffered when jobs disappear, destined to reappear in cheaper economies. While he did express concern, it was almost pro forma, without any suggestion about how the pain might be minimized. It is, after all, the pain of economic disruption that produces much of the resistance to globalization.

Bertram H. Rothschild
Aurora, CO

Bob Barr, Civil Libertarian

"Bob Barr doesn't fit most people's image of a civil libertarian," writes Jesse Walker ("Bob Barr, Civil Libertarian," December).