In 1977 the Soviet Union seemed a permanent fixture. The Democrats controlled Washington, and the big three networks had 91 percent of television viewers. Philosopher-statesman Daniel Patrick Moynihan lamented that "liberal democracy on the North American model has simply no relevance to the future. It is where the world was, not where it is going."

Twenty-five years later, the world has changed so much that we may have forgotten what a different era 1977 was. Within a few years Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were moving public policy in the direction of lower taxes, less regulation, and privatization.

Today, the conventional wisdom is that Anglo-American democratic capitalism is the only viable model left in the world. After the tyrannies and central planning of the 20th century, true liberalism is making a comeback.

Everywhere that governments will allow it, people are choosing open markets, open societies, and responsibility for their own lives. Information, commerce, and investment increasingly flow in response to the choices of free people, not the dictates of politicians.

But the triumph of liberalism is by no means inevitable. There never was a golden age of liberty, and there never will be. Although we seem to have left behind some of the worst forms of government, we must remember that within the past century we have endured communism, fascism, and national socialism.

In this book are some of the people and ideas associated with the Cato Institute in its first 25 years. ­­Karl Popper on the failure of communism, Peter Bauer on economic development, Helen Suzman on the end of apartheid, F. A. Hayek on money and information, Milton Friedman on markets in China, Mario Vargas Llosa on "neoliberalism," Carolyn Weaver and José Piñera on Social Security, Antonin Scalia and Richard Epstein on the role of judges, Alan Greenspan on globalization, Nadine Strossen on Clinton's constitutional conduct, P. J. O'Rourke on rights and responsibilities, and Walter Williams on affirmative action.

Twenty-five years after Moynihan's dirge, the anti-liberal scholars Stephen Holmes and Cass Sunstein complain that libertarian ideas are "astonishingly widespread in American culture." These essays show why they will continue to be. 


About the author:
 Cato's executive vice president David Boaz is a provocative commentator on a broad range of political and cultural issues; he has played a key role in the development of the Cato Institute and the libertarian movement. He is the author of Libertarianism: A Primer, published in 1997 by the Free Press and described by the Los Angeles Times as "a well-researched manifesto of libertarian ideas," the editor of The Libertarian Reader, and co-editor of the Cato Handbook for Congress (2001). He is a leading authority on domestic issues like education choice, drug legalization, the growth of government, and the rise of libertarianism and is a frequent guest on national television and radio shows. Boaz's March 1988 New York Times article on the futility of the drug war touched off a national debate over the decriminalization of drugs. Some of Boaz's op-eds have been published in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, National Review, and Slate. He also has appeared on ABC's "Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher," CNN's "Crossfire," NPR's "Talk of the Nation," Fox News Channel, BBC, Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and other media