30 Years Ago in Reason

May 1978

From the May 2008 issue

“The luckiest beneficiaries of [Ayn Rand’s] work are the people who read her and never see her, never meet her, never have any reason to deal with her in person. Then they get the best of what she was.”
—Nathaniel Branden, “Thank You Ayn Rand, and Goodbye”

“How many businessmen have you heard in the past 10 years who have been willing to stand up on some public rostrum and take issue with governmental policies? Many a businessman gets up and expresses general sentiments in favor of free enterprise and of competition, but very few get up and criticize particular measures taken by government. And I don’t blame them. They would be fools to do it!”
—Milton Friedman, “Which Way for Capitalism?”

“Ten years ago, all the libertarians in the country could fit comfortably into a medium-sized living room; now we are a large, growing, and multifaceted movement, making an increasingly vivid impact on American thinking, attitudes, and institutions.”
—Murray N. Rothbard, “Out of the Living Room”

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