From the Archives

20 YEARS AGO

October 1997

"Our society's relative wealth and its emphasis on mutually fulfilling marriages make it likely that divorce will remain a prevalent phenomenon. The 'logic of capitalism' turns out to be a tough little conundrum: It gives us the opportunity to get what we want and the opportunity to walk away from it, too."
NICK GILLESPIE
"Family Ways"

"I have a term that I use in my seminars. I call it the 'false-nostalgia-for-shitty-jobs phenomenon': Oh for the halcyon days when I could sit on the 37th floor of the General Motors Tower passing memorandums from the left side of the desk to the right side of the desk for 43 years. It's just total shit. It really is. Life was not as glorious as imagined."
"Reason Interview: Tom Peters"

"Liberal game ranching laws now accommodate the lucrative business of crocodile farming. Crocodile eggs are collected in the wild, and the hatchlings are raised for domestic slaughter. A significant percentage, though, are returned to the wild to seed new populations. Once on the edge of extinction, crocodiles are now thriving in areas of Southern Africa where their commercial exploitation is allowed."
KARL HESS JR.
"Wild Success"

30 YEARS AGO

October 1987

"Sometimes the censors speak for national security, sometimes for public morals. But always they speak for fear. Fear that their opponents' ideas will persuade. Fear that their own arguments, values, and beliefs will be found wanting. Fear that free people, left to their own devices, will fall into evil ways. Americans have come to accept such fears, to readily grant exceptions to the rule of free speech. And that is reason to be afraid."
VIRGINIA I. POSTREL
"Censorship the American Way"

"If (a big if) the Soviet Union is going to attack Western Europe or, for that matter, China, it will be better off attacking America first rather than risking attack by the United States. And if the USSR subdues the United States, it does not need to attack Europe, which will have to capitulate."
AARON WILDAVSKY
"Zeroing in on Peace"

"Now then, young freedom fighter, what records exist that might be summoned by the IRS and used against you? You read Reason, so you probably already know that records of your accounts at U.S. banks and brokerage firms are virtually public documents. But what about other records? You may not realize it, but you've been creating evidence of your activities (and income) all over the place."
WARREN SALOMON
"'You Are Hereby Summoned…'"

"There is no question about the evil of racism. But socialism and communism have never had as bad a name. Something about these systems seems to our intellectuals, including many politicians, to excuse or at least mitigate the horrors perpetrated in their name."
TIBOR R. MACHAN
"If the Contras Were Fighting Apartheid…"

40 YEARS AGO

October 1977

"In just the last five years recombinant DNA research has produced major advances in fundamental knowledge of genetics. Early this year the gene which produces insulin in rats was successfully isolated, transplanted into bacteria, and produced in large quantities. The potential applications of this new technology are truly awesome. In the face of this potential, the U.S. Senate is considering legislation to slap controls on all recombinant DNA research."
ROBERT W. POOLE JR.
"The Scientists' Faustian Bargain"

"Of Chesapeake's 100,000 residents I stand alone in trying to keep to my well and avoid drinking asbestos fibers. To a person, those who have inquired about my violating the city ordinance and about the progress of my lawsuit, have commented: 'Well, you gotta die from something.' To which I reply: 'Yeah, but I reserve the right to choose my own poison.'"
CARL CAHILL
"Illegal Water"

"Aid is an inflow of subsidized or gratis resources and in this sense enriches the recipients. But, unlike manna from heaven, it does not descend indiscriminately on everybody. It sets up a whole variety of repercussions, and these have to be taken into account."
P.T. BAUER
"Foreign Aid Hasn't Worked…And It Never Will"