fagin@ucbvax.ARPA (Barry Steven Fagin) (07/31/85)
A recent issue of Fortune (August 5th, the one with Steve Jobs on the cover) has an excellent article on libertarians and libertarian ideas, headlined "The New Libertarians Make Waves". While the article dismisses the Libertarian Party, calling it "utopian", it is still exciting reading. Finally, a major publication has used the word "libertarian" comfortably and naturally. If you'd like to see how libertarian ideas can and *are* affecting the world in which we live, check out the August 5th Fortune. Some excerpts: "D. Quinn Mills, a Harvard Business School professor and author of a new book about baby-boom executives called 'The New Competitors', extimates that 60% of the young managerial group could be considered libertarian, 35% conservative, and 5% liberal". "[Libertarians'] mind-set borrows heavily from Jeffersonian ideas about a limited role for government and the importance of individual rights. It has been conditioned by what young executives see as the failures of big activist government in the pa[st two decades: Vietnam, the Great Society, Watergate, stagflation economics, and the gaping budget deficit. It has found expression and validation in a resurging entreprenurial spirit in the U.S." "According to Lee Atwater, a political strategist in the Reagan campaign, 'There's no question that the appeal of libertarian views is the fastest growing political phenomenon. There's a consensus out there that's going to bite people in the ass.'" I certainly hope so. --Barry -- Barry Fagin @ University of California, Berkeley