From the Archives

John Hull

20 YEARS AGO January 1998

"At the risk of simplifying a complex story (if only by reducing it to two players), the bottom line is this: Apple acted—and continues to act—like a smug, self-righteous monopolist. Microsoft acted—and continues to act—like a scrambling, sometimes vicious competitor."
VIRGINIA POSTREL
"Creative Insecurity"

"China's dictatorship will corrode with the drip of free trade water torture far faster than by ill-fated attempts at isolation."
THOMAS WINSLOW HAZLETT
"Peking Duck"

"The 30th anniversary of Che's death occasioned a fistful of adulatory reminiscences here and abroad.…Unsurprisingly, the legends surrounding Che—including the inevitable one that he escaped death—shroud a mundane legacy of failure. As Castro's one-time top economic planner, he helped preside over the demise of the Cuban economy. And his subsequent attempts to foment revolution in Africa and South America failed miserably. That history may explain why, in eulogizing her father, Guevara's 36-year-old daughter could only sum up his life thusly: 'In this moment, the entire world remembers a man who was very much alive.'"
NICK GILLESPIE
"Che Pasa"

30 YEARS AGO January 1988

"'Over the years, the Japanese, unimpeded by the huge costs of defending themselves (as long as the United States will do it for free), have built a strong and vibrant economy.…We are supporting—we are literally supporting—Japan.…It's time for us to end our vast deficits by making Japan, and others who can afford it, pay.' So says New York real estate magnate Donald Trump."
ROBERT W. POOLE JR.
"Why Not A Rearmed Japan?"

"The greatest economic change of the past century is the declining number of farm workers—from 53 percent of the work force in 1870 to 11.8 percent in 1950 to just 2.7 percent today. These workers found better, more productive jobs—and so will displaced manufacturing workers, if we only allow markets to work."
DAVID BOAZ
"Meet the New Left, Same as the Old"

"Morley, an effervescent woman whose sole source of income is rent from the other half of the duplex and a small unit in the back of the house, was hardly comforted when [Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency] staff member Diana Webb assured her that redevelopment wouldn't reach her neighborhood for another 20 years. 'I told her I would be around for more than 20 years and at that age would not want my home to be taken by eminent domain,' Morley said in a sworn declaration."
SARAH E. FOSTER
"Invasion of the City Snatchers"

"The fashions worn by men of power and influence—as opposed to the leisure-suit crowd—have proven remarkably resistant to sweeping fads. Once a man reaches a certain station in life, he is no longer consumed with the urge to wear something simply because he saw it in a magazine. But every now and then, a fad rips through the sober-sided male population like a virus. Power ties are that fever-pitch right now."
T. KEATING HOLLAND
"The Ties That Blind"

45 YEARS AGO January 1973

"Science fiction demands intelligence and adaptability, both of its heroes and of its readers. It can be a fascinating intellectual game, even when it lacks literary pretensions. In fact, it is the most intellectual sort of fiction being written today, for it deals seriously with vital issues about the future of mankind."
JOHN J. PIERCE
"Science Fiction in Perspective"

"Hopefully it won't be long before such journalists realize that the only way to remove government control of broadcasting is to return ownership of the frequency spectrum to private enterprise, ending the fiction that the 'airwaves' are a 'public good.'"
ROBERT W. POOLE JR.
"Freedom from Broadcasting"

"One of the unpleasant by-products of a technological society is the close interaction of science and politics, as technical issues become politically relevant. This is gradually bringing the 'real' sciences down to the level of, say, economics—where a Paul Samuelson gets the Nobel Prize, and a Ludwig von Mises is an unknown."
RONALD E. MERRILL
"The New Anti-Science Movement"