25 years at the Cato Institute...th e e a r l y d a ys Reviving aTradition cato 25 2001 annual...
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the 2001 annual report 25 years at the Cato Institute the 2001 annual report 25 years at the Cato Institute
Transcript of 25 years at the Cato Institute...th e e a r l y d a ys Reviving aTradition cato 25 2001 annual...
t h e 2 0 0 1 a n n ua l r e po r t
25 years at the Cato Institutet h e 2 0 0 1 a n n ua l r e po r t
25 years at the Cato Institute
ment at the expense of individual liberty. Someof our more important critical studies have con-tributed to the case against proposals for nation-alizing medical care, for a national energy pol-icy, and for a premature commitmentto reduce the still uncertain threat ofglobal warming.
Cato’s principled noninter-ventionist approach to foreign af-fairs, consistent with the Founders’admonitions about entangling al-liances, has weathered the test oftime. The dangers of accepting the role of theworld’s policeman are clearly evident, even asour government undertakes the necessarytask of eliminating the al-Qaeda terroristthreat to our liberty and security.
We take great pride in the clusters of tal-ented policy analysts that Cato now has in vari-ous fields. Our Center for Constitutional Stud-ies has a group of scholars committed torestoring respect for the Constitution, therights it protects, and the limits it places on thepowers of government. Our Center for TradePolicy Studies has become one of the most re-spected promoters of free trade in the world.Our newest groups, the Center for Represen-
tative Government and the Centerfor Educational Freedom, continueto leverage the prominent policyplatform that Cato has become. TheCato Institute continues to make astrong, nonpartisan case for limitedgovernment and individual liberty.
The year 2001 was a particu-larly productive year for Cato, asmeasured by both the quality andthe quantity of our policy output,fueled by record funding of more
than $15 million in a weak economy. We re-main grateful for the privilege of working withour dedicated colleagues, now more than 100strong, in this important endeavor. Finally, as
always, we express our appreciation for thetens of thousands of Cato Sponsors around thenation (and the world!) whose generosity andencouragement over the past quarter centuryhave made possible the pursuit of our mission.On this, our 25th anniversary, we are dedi-cated to maintaining your trust, your confi-dence, and your support. �
The challenges confronting Cato today are for-midable. Twenty-five years ago, however, theywere more formidable; at that time, the primarychallenge was to earn the attention of a policyaudience. We now have that attention—a conse-quence of our dedication to principle, prepara-tion, and patience; now, our primary challenge isto make the case for major policy reforms toincrease liberty. Since the founding of the CatoInstitute in San Francisco in 1977 there hasbeen significant progress on a range of issues. Wehave taken advantage of this important anniver-sary in Cato’s history to devote a good portion ofthis report to a retrospective on some of theInstitute’s most notable accomplishments.
Standing back a bit from the various pol-icy debates in which we have gained someground, and perhaps lost some ground, wethink it is worthwhile to note that the Cato In-stitute has, above all, created a respected pres-ence for the classical-liberal ideas that ener-gized the American revolution. Here in ourgleaming glass and steel headquarters in theheart of the nation’s capital is an institutionthat takes seriously the ideal of human liberty.We also take seriously Thomas Jefferson’swarning that “the natural progress of things isfor liberty to yield and government to gainground.” That is why “eternal vigilance” isnecessary to protect and extend our liberty.And that is what the Cato Institute is all about.
Most prominent among our specific pol-icy achievements has been our work to pro-mote replacing Social Security with a systemof individual retirement accounts that are per-sonally owned and fully funded. We take nosmall amount of satisfaction in the fact thatCato pioneered the early policy work pointingto the benefits of Social Security privatization.
In other areas, such as school choice andfundamental tax reform, Cato has played aleading role in making the intellectual case forchange. Few groups have done more to defendthe First Amendment against those who wouldlimit campaign expenditures or to promote therestoration of the constitutional limits on theenumerated powers of the federal government.
We are also proud of the major confer-ences we have held in China and the former So-viet Union. Cato was among the first organiza-tions to hold in either of those countriesconferences to promote individual liberty, therule of law, private property, and civil society.The appreciation of the people who attendedthe Chinese and Russian conferences was verygratifying to us. The distribution of our publi-cations in Chinese, Russian, and Polish alsomade a contribution to the struggle for libertyin those nations.
A substantial share of our activities is nec-essarily defensive, to try to slow or stop propos-als that would increase the powers of govern-
m e s s ag e f r o m t h e pr e s i de n t
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01.77 : The Cato Institute is founded by EdwardH. Crane and Charles G. Koch in San Francisco.
11.77 : Cato begins publishing Inquiry magazine.Authors include Nat Hentoff, Karl Hess, David Wise,
and Penny Lernoux.
1977
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2001 : william a. niskanen and edward h. crane
“Liberty is not a means to ahigher political end. It is itselfthe highest political end.”
—Lord Acton
Edward H. Crane & William A. Niskanen
edward h. crane william a. niskanen
“Mr. Gorbachev, teardown this wall.
— Ron a l d R e ag a n
the opening of the berlin wall signals
the end of 75 years of soviet communism.
”
Getty Im
ages
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new york’s financial district.
“America’s abundancewas created not by
public sacrifices to ‘thecommon good,’ but
by the productivegenius of free men.
— Ay n R a n d
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milton friedman receives the 1976 nobel prize
in economics from the king of sweden.
“Peace, easy taxes,and a tolerableadministrationof justice.”
— A da m S m i t h
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t h e e a r l y d a y s
Revivinga Tradition
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industrialist Charles G. Koch toset up the Cato Institute, whichopened its doors in January 1977.The other members of the Boardof Directors included libertarianscholars Murray Rothbard andEarl Ravenal; San Franciscobusinessman Sam H. HusbandsJr., who had served in Gov.Ronald Reagan’s administration;and Chicago businessman DavidH. Padden, who remains onCato’s Board.
The Institute’s early pro-gram involved publications, semi-nars, college lectures, and publicpolicy research. Inquiry, a bi-weekly political affairs magazine edited first byWilliamson Evers and later by Glenn Garvinand Doug Bandow, featured such writers asNat Hentoff, Thomas Szasz, J. AnthonyLukas, Karl Hess, Jack Shafer,Nikolai Tolstoy, Penny Lernoux,Geoffrey Wheatcroft, MauriceCranston, Jonathan Kwitny,Thomas M. Disch, John O’Sul-livan, Anthony Burgess, P. J.O’Rourke, Martin Gardner,George F. Kennan, Rose Styron,William Shawcross, MarinaWarner, Auberon Waugh, Wal-ter Karp, David Osborne,Christie Hefner, Eugene Mc-Carthy, Ivan Illich, WarrenHinckle, and Simon Leys. In-quiry promised “unconventional,provocative, lively” commentary that would“defy the traditional left-right political analy-sis.” Its editors chuckled over being called “thebest of the right-wing rags” by the New Republicand “a lively, lefty magazine” by William Safire.In The Next Whole Earth Catalog, Jay Kinney
called it “the most consistently interesting polit-ical magazine around.”
Literature of Liberty, an academic quar-terly, was edited by Leonard P. Liggio. Each
issue combined a major bibliographical essayby such distinguished scholars as Robert Nis-bet, John Lukacs, Eric Foner, Forrest McDon-ald, Isaac Kramnick, John Hospers, HenryVeatch, and Karen Vaughn with reports onscholarly research in a variety of fields.
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02.78 : Cato launches Byline, its daily public affairs radioprogram. The program is broadcast in more than 260 cities,
including most of the nation’s largest markets.
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When a young california investmentmanager, Ed Crane, spent 1976 in Wash-ington, he noticed how much influence afew think tanks had
despite their relatively small budgets.He thought there ought to be a publicpolicy research organization, or“think tank,” dedicated to the Ameri-can principles of liberty and limitedgovernment. He was willing to startone, but only if he didn’t have to live inWashington. When he returned toSan Francisco, he joined the Kansas
1978
“Here at last is a clear, thoughtfuleconomic analysis at a time whenso many Americans, including somany members of Congress, arebewildered by the problems ofexcessive government spendingand exploding inflation.”
— Sen. William Proxmire on Cato’s Policy Report, 1979
1989 : cato’s cofounders, ed crane and charles koch, talk
at a reception for the board of directors.
1982 : cato moves into the
watterston house on capitol hill.
03.78 : Cato publishes The Ultimate Foundationof Economic Science by Ludwig von Mises, part of a
series of books on Austrian economics.
on Pollution” in Palo Alto, California.Participants included R. M. Hartwell,Arthur Laffer, Richard Epstein, AaronWildavsky, David R. Henderson, JohnBaden, Richard Stroup, Terry L. Ander-son, P. J. Hill, and R. J. Smith.
Cato’s earliest Policy Analysis stud-ies were a good indication of the Insti-tute’s continuing interests. They dealtwith corporate welfare, education taxcredits, campaign finance regulation, andthe risks of the conflict in Afghanistan. InPolicy Analysis no. 7, in February 1982,future Wall Streeter Joe Stilwell warnedthat the savings-and-loan industry “has anegative net worth in excess of $70 bil-lion [and] numerous S&Ls will be unableto meet their financial obligations.”
As Cato defined its mission moreclearly, public policy analysis took centerstage. Inquiry and Literature of Libertywere transferred to other foundations(both eventually went out of business).The Cato Journal, an interdisciplinary journalof public policy analysis, was launched in 1981under the editorship of Robert L. Formaini. Hewas succeeded in 1982 by James A. Dorn, whoremains editor. Cato Journal has published thepapers from many Cato Institute conferencesalong with many other articles. Contributorshave included Alan Greenspan, Milton Fried-man, Charles Murray, Václav Klaus, Antony deJasay, Douglass C. North, Judy Shelton, AnnaM. Schwartz, Mancur Olson, Justin Yifu Lin,James M. Buchanan, Garrett Hardin, RobertMundell, Charlotte Twight, Mwangi S. Ki-menyi, Antonin Scalia, June O’Neill, Steven N.S. Cheung, J. Bradford DeLong, Lawrence H.Summers, and Donald N. McCloskey.
At the end of 1981, it had become obvious,even to devout Californian Ed Crane, that a pub-lic policy institute ought to be in Washington,
D.C. The Institute left behind its San Franciscoorigins and opened up shop on Capitol Hill earlyin 1982, in the home of the first Librarian of Con-gress, George Watterston. Appropriatelyenough, it was the building in which Thomas Jef-ferson’s books were catalogued when they be-came part of the Library of Congress. It became apopular venue for policy debate in the nation’scapital, featuring lively postevent discussions andreceptions in its spacious garden. As the Institutegrew, its Capitol Hill home became cramped.Cato undertook a capital campaign, hired an ar-chitect, and built its own building in downtownWashington. Milton Friedman, NadineStrossen, and Rep. Dick Armey spoke at theGrand Opening in 1993. The Washington Post’sarchitectural critic called the Cato building “a lit-tle jewel” with “quite a visual-intellectual punch.”Cato was in Washington for good. �
Cato took to the airwaves with Byline, adaily radio commentary from liberal, conserva-tive, and libertarian viewpoints. At its peak, By-line was aired by more than 200 radio stations,from WNYC in New York and WTOP inWashington to KING in Seattle and KCBS inSan Francisco. Nashville’s WLAC said, “By-line never fails to get our phones ringing.” Overthe years the regular commentators includedSen. William Proxmire, Howard Jarvis, NatHentoff, Julian Bond, Walter Williams,Nicholas von Hoffman, Joan Kennedy Taylor,Stephen Chapman, Don Lambro, Tom Bethell,Susan Love Brown, and Ed Crane.
Cato’s newsletter, Policy Report, waslaunched in 1979. In its first issue, CarolynWeaver questioned the solvency of Social Secu-rity and suggested privatization as an alterna-tive. Future issues of Policy Report (later CatoPolicy Report) included articles by suchthinkers as Karl Popper, Peter Bauer, MiltonFriedman, Alan Greenspan, Norman Macrae,Alan Reynolds, Earl Ravenal, James M.Buchanan, Thomas Sowell, E. G. West, IdaWalters, Julian L. Simon, Nathaniel Branden,Catherine England, and Louis Rossetto.
The Institute launched its Summer Semi-nar in Political Economy in 1978 with confer-
ences at Stanford University and Wake ForestUniversity and added conferences for histori-ans, journalists, and business leaders the nextyear. The faculty included Alan Greenspan,Murray Rothbard, Roy A. Childs Jr., WalterGrinder, Ralph Raico, Leonard Liggio,Thomas Sowell, and Israel Kirzner. Cato alsosponsored lectures by those scholars and manyothers on college campuses.
Cato’s public policy program got underway in earnest in 1980, with the publication offour policy monographs. Most notable was So-cial Security: The Inherent Contradiction by Pe-ter J. Ferrara, which laid the groundwork for22 years of subsequent research on Social Se-curity privatization. The other 1980 mono-graphs were Balanced Budgets, Fiscal Responsi-bility, and the Constitution by Richard E.Wagner and Robert D. Tollison, Rent Control:The Perennial Folly by Charles W. Baird, andThe Regulation of Medical Care: Is the Price TooHigh? by John C. Goodman. Cato Institutescholars have returned to all those subjects.
Early policy conferences included “Taxa-tion and Society” at the University of Chicago;“Property Rights and Natural Resources: ANew Paradigm for the Environmental Move-ment” in Big Sky, Montana; and a “Symposium
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06.78 : Cato holds its first Summer Seminarin Political Economy. Among the speakers are
Murray Rothbard, Roy Childs, Leonard Liggio,
Israel Kirzner, and Walter Williams.
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01.79 : Cato publishes its first issue of Policy Report.In that inaugural issue is Carolyn Weaver’s article, “Social
Security: Has the Crisis Passed?” in which she argues that
privatization of the system should be considered.
1979
1979 : thomas sowell explained economic concepts
to historians at a seminar held at the university of oregon.
1979 : cato’s early books and periodicals included inquiry,
literature of liberty, and a series on austrian economics.
1978 : an early board meeting in cato’s san
francisco offices.
“The New Deal isshowing its age....It’s
time to move on.— Th e New De mocr at
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president franklin d. roosevelt,
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p r i v a t i z i n g s o c i a l s e c u r i t y
A Nationof Owners
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The first issue ofPolicy Report in January1979 set the tone forCato’s work on pensionreform, featuring the ar-ticle “Social Security:Has the Crisis Passed?”by Carolyn Weaver, inwhich she argued thatprivatization could solvethe system’s long-termfinancial problems. In1980, the Institute pub-lished its first policybook, Social Security:The Inherent Contradic-tion by Peter J. Ferrara.Ferrara argued that So-cial Security’s attemptto provide both retire-ment insurance and so-cial welfare had resultedin a pay-as-you-go struc-ture that would becomeincreasingly deficit rid-den. He predicted thatfurther tax increases,beyond the one enactedin 1977, would be nec-essary to keep the sys-tem solvent. And he proposed to “privatize”Social Security by allowing younger workers toput their Social Security taxes into a corporatepension plan or an individual retirement ac-count instead of the Social Security system.The book was launched at Cato’s first CapitolHill forum.
Late in 1982, Ferrara, by then a policyaide in the Ronald Reagan White House, pro-duced a shorter and updated version of his book,published by Cato as Social Security: Averting theCrisis. That generated a headline in the Washing-
ton Post: “White House Adviser RecommendsDismantling Social Security.” The Post re-ported, “The White House was quick to statethat the views expressed in the book do not rep-resent White House policy.” And as Ferrara hadpredicted, taxes were raised again in 1983 atthe recommendation of the so-called GreenspanCommission. The Post reported, “The old-ageand disability funds were put in secure positionfor a number of years and perhaps for manydecades into the next century.” Later that year,Cato held a conference that concluded that the
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05.79 : Cato publishes two classic manuscripts by Nobellaureate F. A. Hayek: A Tiger by the Tail: The Keynesian Legacy of
Inflation and Unemployment and Monetary Policy: Government as
Generator of the “Business Cycle.”
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Social security privatization has been oneof the major themes of the Cato Institute for morethan 20 years. Cato’s founders saw Social Secu-rity as the largest element of the American welfare
state, a program that drew all Americans, rich and poor, intodependence on the federal gov-ernment for retirement secu-rity. This fundamental flaw isonly compounded by the sys-tem’s impending insolvency,which has kept the issue in thepublic’s and Cato’s eye for thelast two decades.
01.80 : First issue of Policy Analysis takeson corporate welfare—the Chrysler bail-out.
1980
2000 : andrei illarionov, adviser to russian president vladimir putin, and josé
piñera, co-chair of cato’s project on social security privatization, hold a news
conference in moscow after discussing pension reform and other economic issues.
1981 : rep. claude pepper, “mr. social security,”
listens as peter ferrara presents his idea for
social security privatization at cato’s first
capitol hill forum.
“Any who’s who of Social Securityprivatizers has to begin with the CatoInstitute, the free-market think tankthat looks to private markets to solvemany social-policy problems that othersregard as the province of government.”
— National Journal, 1997
rity, an issue to which the administration wasgiving serious thought.
Even beyond the borders of the UnitedStates, Cato has become known as the leadingauthority on pension reform.Institute scholars have metwith more than 75 foreign gov-ernments on the subject, andmore than 40 of those coun-tries have sent delegations toCato’s headquarters in Wash-ington. Among the countriesthat have sent delegations areBrazil, Bulgaria, China, Ger-many, Israel, Italy, Japan,Lithuania, Pakistan, Russia,Slovenia, South Africa, Spain,Thailand, and Zambia. TheInstitute held three interna-tional conferences on pension reform, in Lon-don in 1997, in New York in 2000, and in Bei-jing in 2001. Reporting on the Beijingconference, the Asian Wall Street Journal wrote:“The experts seem to agree about what needs tobe done. In November, at a conference cospon-sored by the U.S.-based Cato Institute andPeking University’s China Center for EconomicResearch, there was near-universal agreement
that fully funded universal accounts were theway to go. Most important, a consensus amongbureaucrats at the Ministry of Labour and SocialSecurity seemed to be spreading.”
Over the course of 22 years, the ideaof Social Security privatization has made whatSen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, co-chairmanof President Bush’s Commission to StrengthenSocial Security, called a “remarkable transi-tion from white papers from libertarian thinktanks to the mainstream of policy thinkers.”The Cato Institute has played a major role inthat transition. �
problems of Social Security had been exacer-bated rather than solved.
Since then, Cato has published threemore books on Social Security and 31 morepolicy studies. In total, Cato’s work on SocialSecurity, if bundled together, would approxi-mate the size of two New York City phonebooks. All of these materials have been distrib-uted to reporters, members of Congress, andthe executive branch.
In 1995, on the 60th anniversary of thecreation of Social Security, Cato launched theProject on Social Security Privatization underthe direction of Michael Tanner. Co-chairs ofthe project were José Piñera, the architect ofChile’s social security privatization, andWilliam G. Shipman of State Street Global Ad-visors. In the years since the project’s founding,Cato has convened nine separate policy forums
and three major conferences on Social Securityreform. More than 45 nationally known policyauthorities on the subject—both supporters anddetractors of privatization—addressed thesepublic forums as guest speakers.
Through its efforts, Cato has attained acentral place in the current debate over privati-zation, which was renewed by the current ad-ministration. Cato’s relationship with the cur-rent administration dates back to 1997, whenEd Crane and José Piñera met with GovernorGeorge W. Bush in Austin, Texas, to discussSocial Security reform. And Cato has alwaysfollowed a nonpartisan approach. Former Rep.Tim Penny (D-Minn.) has been a leading advo-cate of Cato’s plan, and in the last two years ofthe Clinton administration, Cato scholars wereinvited by senior administration aides to meetand share ideas on how to privatize Social Secu-
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12.80 : Cato publishes Peter Ferrara’s 500-pageSocial Security: The Inherent Contradiction, which makes
the case for privatization.
“The largely Cato Institute-staffedpresidential commission owes itsexistence to the Cato Institute itself.For the last quarter of a century, theWashington, D.C.-based libertarianthink tank has been campaigning forthe privatization of Social Security.”
—Chicago Sun-Times, 2001
2000 : boris nemtsov, vice speaker of the russian duma, listens as chinese social-insurance administrator sun
jianyong discusses the need for personal retirement accounts at cato’s second international conference
on pension reform.
carolyn weaver and peter ferrara were cato’s first authors on social security reform.
11.80 : Cato publishes John Goodman’s The Regulationof Medical Care: Is the Price Too High? which chronicles the
damaging effects of medical licensing and regulation.
“I have sworn upon thealtar of God eternal
hostility against everyform of tyranny over
the mind of man.— Thom a s J e f f e r s on
fireworks over new york harbor, july 4, 1976.
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p r o m o t i n g f i r s t p r i n c i p l e s
Liberty vs. Power
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University, under the direction of Tom G.Palmer, who holds a doctorate in politics fromOxford University.
In recent years, seminars have been heldin cities across the United States and Canadaand have focused on topics such as“The American Enlightenment”and “A World of Trade, Peace, andFreedom.” In addition to Cato’sown policy staff, scholars in atten-dance over the years have includedDavid Friedman, Charlotte Twight,George Ayittey, Deroy Murdock,Charles Murray, Alan Kors,Nathaniel Branden, and ChristinaHoff Sommers.
Cato University’s home study courseconsists of books and audiotapes for those whowish to undertake their education in libertyfrom home. Participants are educated in the
works of such crucial thinkers as John Locke,Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Ludwig vonMises, F. A. Hayek, and Ayn Rand.
Cato’s commitment to first principles wasalso reflected in its support for F. A. Hayek.
Hayek was more than a distinguished scholarand Nobel Prize–winning economist. His best-selling 1944 book, The Road to Serfdom,warned the world that state control of theeconomy was incompatible with personal and
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03.81 : Cato publishes the first issue of the Cato Journal.Among the contributors to that inaugural issue are Arthur
Ekirch, D. N. McCloskey, and Arthur Laffer.
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Promoting the first principles of libertyand limited government is a vital part of Cato’s mis-sion. In 1978, the Institute began holding summerseminars, designed to bring together scholars and
students of liberty to discuss and debate issues of politics,government, and society. Participants have ranged from
high school and college studentsto doctors and business owners,and instructors have included no-table scholars and thinkers. In1997, after a hiatus, the summerseminars were combined with ahome study course to create Cato
12.81 : Cato holds symposium on pollutionwith Richard Epstein and Aaron Wildavsky.
“If you’re looking for a consistentcommitment to preserving allforms of individual liberty, jointhe Cato Institute.”
— Wendy Kaminer, American Prospect, 1999
1981
1985 : stuart warner lectures on the ethics of liberty at cato’s summer seminar at dartmouth college.
2000 : tom g. palmer discusses the history
of constitutionally limited government
at cato university near san diego.
for a Complex World explains why basic classicalliberal rules are the indispensable foundationfor today’s complex society. P. J. O’Rourke’sEat the Rich, of which Cato distributed a highschool version, explains the basics of a free-market economy and the folly of socialism, inentertaining, accessible prose. Last but notleast, the first section ofeach edition of the biennialCato Handbook for Congresslays out the founding prin-ciples of our limited consti-tutional government andties the book’s policy pro-posals to that framework.
Cato has also put agood deal of effort into dis-tributing pocket-sized Con-
stitutions to politicians and others around thecountry and the world. Cato has distributedmore than two million Constitutions, includingone to every member of Congress and everystate legislator.
Cato scholars also work to educate stu-dents first hand in the principles of limited gov-
ernment. Cato’s internshipprogram brings in studentsfrom around the countryand the world to work withour scholars and participatein rigorous seminars inclassical-liberal thought.Cato scholars such as TomPalmer and Roger Pilonroutinely give talks at col-leges and universities. �
political freedom, whichhelped to turn the intel-lectual tide against totali-tarianism and towardfree markets and consti-tutionally limited gov-ernment. Cato providedfinancial support toHayek in his later years,during which he wroteThe Fatal Conceit and lec-tured around the world.
The Institute hasalso promoted Hayek’sworks where they wereneeded most. Toward the end of the Cold War,Cato made a concerted effort to get copies ofHayek’s writings, along with those of a few otherscholars, into the Soviet Union and Poland. In1984, Cato used various underground channelsto send Solidarity with Liberty (in Polish) and
Friedman and Hayek on Freedom (in Russian) intothose two communist countries. Cato’s confer-ences in Russia and China featured much discus-sion of the basic principles of freedom along withmore specific issues of public policy and transi-tion to capitalism.
Cato has also published anumber of books promotingits first principles. In the late1970s, it sponsored a series ofbooks on Austrian econom-ics. Freedom, Feminism, and theState edited by Wendy McEl-roy and Reclaiming the Main-stream: Individualist FeminismRediscovered by Joan KennedyTaylor helped to revive an oldtradition of classical-liberalfeminism. David Boaz’s Lib-ertarianism: A Primer and TheLibertarian Reader introducereaders to the basic tenets oflibertarianism and documentthe procession of liberty-minded writers and philoso-phers since ancient times.Richard Epstein’s Simple Rules
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1990 : at cato’s seminars, students and
other participants have a chance to
talk directly with leading scholars,
such as charles murray (left).
05.82 : Cato publishes Solidarnosc z Wolnoscia [Solidarity with Liberty],which contains essays by F. A. Hayek, Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises,
Michael Polanyi, and others, and smuggles it into Poland. The Polish
embassy tells CNN that such a project is “insane.”
1982
1985 : cato executive vice president david boaz presents a copy of cato’s russian-language book, friedman
and hayek on freedom, to walter polovchak, “the littlest defector,” right after he was sworn in as a u.s.
citizen, ending a five-year battle to avoid being sent back to the soviet union.
1982 : nobel laureate f. a. hayek, a cato distinguished senior fellow, talks
with cato journal editor james a. dorn at a cato reception for hayek.
“Cato-ites believe that society wouldprogress more smoothly towardfairness and tolerance, economiccompetition and environmentalresponsibility without governmentintervention.… Cato’s skepticismtoward bureaucracies is consistent.…In 17 years the institute has made the case that government’s functionis to protect life, liberty andproperty. Period.”
— Los Angeles Times, 1995
02.82 : Cato publishes Freedom, Feminism, and the State,with contributors including Wendy McElroy, Rose
Wilder Lane, Sarah and Angelina Grimké, Lysander
Spooner, and Jean Bethke Elshtain.
We start with firstprinciples. TheConstitution created a Federal Governmentof enumerated powers.”
— U . S . v. L ope z , 19 9 5
“
are you now or have you ever been a libertarian?
senator biden asked clarence thomas.
are you now or have you ever been a libertarian?
senator biden asked clarence thomas.ABAJ/Lis
a Berg
r e s t o r i n g c o n s t i t u t i o n a l g o v e r n m e n t
EnumeratedPowers
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To promote that vi-sion, Cato established itsCenter for ConstitutionalStudies in 1989. Underthe direction of Roger Pi-lon, the center has pub-lished 10 books and manypapers on issues rangingfrom constitutional the-ory to judicial philoso-phy, federalism, propertyrights, term limits, andthe Microsoft antitrustcase. The center’s bookshave included The Rights
Retained by the People: The His-tory and Meaning of the NinthAmendment (1989) edited byRandy Barnett, which helpedrevive the idea of unenumeratedrights; Forfeiting Our PropertyRights (1995) by Rep. HenryHyde, which led to the reformof our nation’s civil asset for-feiture laws; Simple Rules fora Complex World (1995) byRichard Epstein, which arguedthat an increasingly complexworld requires law based on afew simple principles; and TheRule of Law in the Wake of Clin-ton (2000) edited by Roger Pi-lon, which documented how theClinton administration’s poli-cies, actions, and legal briefshad systematically abused theConstitution, common andstatutory law, our legal institu-tions, and the rule of law itself.
Cato has also gone to thefront lines to uphold constitu-
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The constitution authorizes limitedgovernment designed to protect individual lib-erty. Over time, however, both federal and statepowers have expanded to touch almost every as-
pect of life. A major part of Cato’s mission, therefore, hasbeen to argue for restoring constitutional government by lim-iting federal powers to those enu-merated in the Constitution and byencouraging judges to better protectliberty. That vision offers an alter-native to both the evolving constitu-tion of the left and the often majori-tarian constitution of the right.
1998 : at a capitol hill press conference
on the line-item veto, sens. carl levin
and robert byrd read from their
cato-supplied pocket constitutions.
sen. pat moynihan looks on.
1984 : judge antonin scalia smiles as law professor richard epstein dif-
fers with his position on judicial protection of economic liberties.
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01.83 : Cato hosts its first annual monetary conference, “The Searchfor Stable Money.” Among the participants are James Buchanan, Fritz
Machlup, Karl Brunner, Allan Meltzer, Anna Schwartz, Gottfried
Haberler, and Leland Yeager.
1983
09.83 : Rep. Phil Gramm and Sen. William Proxmirehighlight conference, “International Trade: Free
Markets or Protectionism?”
“‘The Court is reaching the question at the heart of it all: Did we authorizeall this government?’ said Roger Pilon,an enthusiastic supporter of theCourt’s new focus who runs the Centerfor Constitutional Studies at the CatoInstitute, an influential libertarianresearch organization here.”
— New York Times, 1995
recent years limiting both federaland state power. In United Statesv. Lopez (1995), for example,the Court found that Congresshad no authority under the Con-stitution to enact the Gun-FreeSchool Zones Act of 1990. Andin Troxel v. Granville (2000), theCourt held that the grandparentvisitation act passed by theWashington State legislature vi-olated the rights of parents underthe Fourteenth Amendment.Decisions such as those show re-newed respect for the limits ofgovernment and for our firstprinciples as a nation. �
tional principles. Center scholars have testifiedbefore Congress on numerous occasions andhave submitted amicus briefs to the SupremeCourt on important cases. In 1999, Cato filedan amicus brief in United States v. Morrison, ar-guing that Congress had exceeded its authorityunder both the Commerce Clause and the Four-teenth Amendment when it passed the Violence
Against Women Act. In 2000,Cato filed a brief in Boy Scouts ofAmerica v. Dale, arguing that theFirst Amendment right of free as-sociation permits private organiza-tions such as the Boy Scouts to settheir own membership and employ-ment policies. The Court agreed inboth cases. Cato also submitted anamicus brief in the Clevelandschool choice case that the Court isexpected to decide in 2002.
Leading jurists such as ChiefJustice William H. Rehnquist, Jus-tice Antonin Scalia, and JusticeClarence Thomas have visited Catoto discuss basic principles of consti-tutional law with our scholars. At aCato conference in 1984, early inthe push to better protect economicliberties, then-judge Scalia andRichard Epstein debated theproper role of the judiciary in up-holding economic liberties. Theconference proceedings were laterpublished as a book, Economic Lib-erties and the Judiciary. Over theyears, the center has held confer-ences on such topics as “RICO,Rights, and the Constitution,”“The Expanding Criminal Law,”and “The Politics and Law of TermLimits.” Speakers at center confer-ences and forums have included
such leading legal thinkers as Judges DouglasGinsburg, Stephen Williams, David Sentelle,and Pasco Bowman; professors Ronald Ro-tunda, Douglas Kmiec, Nadine Strossen, andCharles Ogletree; and attorneys C. BoydenGray, Theodore B. Olson, and Lloyd Cutler.
Cato’s constitutional scholars have been en-couraged by the Supreme Court’s decisions in
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08.84 : In Beyond Liberal and Conservative: Reassessing the Political Spectrum,William S. Maddox and Stuart A. Lilie examine survey data and conclude that the public
cannot be divided into only two ideological camps: liberal and conservative. In fact, a
sizable portion of the public holds views that would be characterized as libertarian.
1984
1998 : roger pilon welcomes chief justice william
rehnquist to cato for lunch with the scholars of
the center for constitutional studies.
1998 : civil rights leader ward connerly speaks at cato’s
10th annual benefactor summit about his efforts to
abolish racial quotas.
1990 : judge douglas ginsburg discusses antitrust laws at a regulation
magazine conference.
11.83 : Cato publishes Telecommunications in Crisis:Technology, Deregulation, and the First Amendment, which
argues for a free market in the frequency spectrum.
“Americans ‘have today ignoredeconomic liberties as a vital part of the rights protected byconstitutional government,’[Clarence Thomas] wrote in an article for the Cato Institute,which has been at the forefront of developing the contemporarynatural-rights philosophy.”
— Washington Post, 1991
1987 : ed crane talks with clarence thomas at
cato’s conference, “assessing the reagan years.”
federal agents seize elian gonzalez in
the wee hours after good friday. AP/W
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“Experience shouldteach us to be moston our guard toprotect liberty whenthe government’spurposes arebeneficent.”
— L ou i s B r a n de i s
“Experience shouldteach us to be moston our guard toprotect liberty whenthe government’spurposes arebeneficent.”
— L ou i s B r a n de i s
c i v i l l i b e r t i e s a n d t h e r u l e o f l a w
RestrainingPower
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all Americans, while doing little to curtail theprevalence of drugs in our society. In 1988,executive vice president David Boaz penned anop-ed in the New York Times titled “Let’s Quitthe Drug War,” arguing thatdrug prohibition is futileand destructive. In 1990,Cato published The Crisis inDrug Prohibition, whichdemonstrated a growingbelief on both the right andthe left that the War onDrugs had failed and shouldbe ended. In 2000, with thecase for ending drug prohi-bition having gained signifi-cant ground in the 1990s,Cato published After Prohibition: An AdultApproach to Drug Policies in the 21st Century edit-ed by Timothy Lynch, which explored how a
more reasonable approach to the problem ofdrug use could be fashioned in the UnitedStates. This book grew out of a Cato conferencethat featured New Mexico’s governor Gary
Johnson and former California attorney generalDaniel Lungren, among others.
Cato has defended industries and corpora-
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The expansion of gover nment over thelast 100 years has posed a continuing threat toAmericans’ civil liberties as creeping bureaucra-cy and lawless
state action have trampledcivil liberties and the ruleof law. For that reason, theCato Institute has dedicat-ed itself to protecting therights of Americans, how-ever they are threatened.
One of the biggest ongoing threats to the civil liberties of all Americans is the War on Drugs.Through civil asset forfeiture, increased surveillance powers, and other intrusions meant to crackdown on drug users and dealers, the federal and state governments have infringed on the rights of
05.85 : William A. Niskanen, formerly of the president’sCouncil of Economic Advisers, becomes chairman of the Cato
Institute’s Board of Directors.
1985
1999 : left, center, and right agree on civil asset forfeiture reform: ira glasser, executive director
of the american civil liberties union; roger pilon, cato’s vice president for legal affairs; and rep. henry hyde,
chairman of the house judiciary committee.
1997 : william f. buckley jr. talks with nat hentoff
at cato’s 20th anniversary celebration.
“The name of the book is ‘AfterProhibition: An Adult Approach toDrug Policies in the 21st Century.’…The essays are among the mostdamning indictments of the drug warever assembled in one volume.”
— Judy Mann, Washington Post, 2001
10.84 : Cato hosts a well-attended conference titled “Economic Libertiesand the Judiciary.” At the conference future Supreme Court Justice Antonin
Scalia and University of Chicago professor Richard Epstein spar over the issue
of economic freedom.
through zoning restrictions andregulatory takings of land. Catoscholars have testified beforeCongress on the issue of environ-mental regulations that unconstitu-tionally take land from propertyowners without providing any com-pensation. The Institute has alsopublished numerous scholarly arti-cles on property rights in itsRegulation magazine as well as inother publications. In addition to achapter on property rights and reg-ulatory takings in the CatoHandbook for Congress, Cato haspublished books on the subject,including Grassroots Tyranny: TheLimits of Federalism by Clint Bolick,vice president of the Institute forJustice, and Forfeiting Our PropertyRights: Is Your Property Safe fromSeizure? by former House JudiciaryCommittee chairman Henry Hyde.
Showing a distinct lack ofrespect for property rights, civil lib-erties, and the rule of law in generalwas the Clinton administration. Catoconsistently criticized the Clintonadministration’s abusive policies,and in The Rule of Law in the Wake ofClinton, the Institute summed upmany of the arguments it made during that eraand offered some historical perspective on justhow dangerous that administration was in termsof twisting the meaning of the Constitution, pro-moting unwarranted searches, expanding prop-erty forfeiture, undermining the common lawby pursuing lawsuits against tobacco and gunmanufacturers, and politicizing the judicialprocess in general. Contributors to that volumeincluded future solicitor general Ted Olson,American Civil Liberties Union president
Nadine Strossen, and University of Californialaw professor John C. Yoo.
Cato has also worked to protect First andSecond Amendment rights. The Institute haspublished papers and articles defending theright to self-defense and to keep and beararms, and Roger Pilon has testified beforeCongress many times about the unconstitu-tionality of campaign finance restrictions aswell as such misguided ideas as a flag desecra-tion amendment. �
tions that have come under unjustattack by the U.S. government.When the Clinton administrationand a handful of state and localgovernments got the idea of suinggun manufacturers for crimescommitted with their products,Cato’s senior fellow in constitu-tional studies Robert Levyunleashed a barrage of articles, inpublications including theNational Law Journal and theWeekly Standard, that exposed the
blatant extortion taking place. Theabusive prosecution of the tobaccoindustry is another area where theInstitute has spoken out, as well asthe unconstitutional settlementbetween the tobacco companiesand the government. Levy testi-fied many times before the SenateJudiciary Committee on the mat-ter, and Cato published a numberof papers and placed a number ofarticles criticizing the processfrom beginning to end. Cato schol-ars have also published a number ofpapers, commentaries, and lawreview articles critical of the feder-al government’s antitrust caseagainst Microsoft.
Over the last century, theproperty rights of Americans havebeen under attack by government
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07.85 : Along with 10 other organizations, Cato publishesJulian Simon’s lengthy study, “How Do Immigrants Affect Us
Economically?” which debunks many of the arguments made
by opponents of liberal immigration policies.
1999 : washington, d.c., police chief charles ramsey and cato’s tim lynch pause as protesters interrupt ramsey's
speech at a cato forum on police corruption.
1999 : former white house counsel c. boyden gray and weekly standard
editor william kristol talk with microsoft corp. chairman bill gates
at a cato reception for gates.
07.85 : In National Economic Planning: What Is Left?Don Lavoie argues that centrally planned economies
are inherently unstable, thus foreshadowing the demise
of communism throughout Central and Eastern Europe.
1997 : roger pilon welcomes justice clarence thomas to a lunch
with the center for constitutional studies.“The ‘less government, morefreedom’ slogans this week echothe libertarian Cato Institute.”
— Wall Street Journal, Nov. 10, 1994
1993 : nadine strossen,
president of the aclu,
discusses freedom at the
grand opening dinner
for cato’s new building.
“Liberty is the onlything you can’t
have unless yougive it to others
— Wi l l i a m A l l e n Wh i t e
”
“It is our true policyto steer clear ofentangling allianceswith any portion ofthe foreign world.”
— G e orge Wa sh i ng t on
terrorists attack america, september 11, 2001.Corbis
/Reuters
p r o t e c t i n g p e a c e a n d s e c u r i t y
AmericanInterests
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they have also confirmed thatprotecting our own shoresshould be America’s first andforemost foreign policy concern.
Cato’s defense and foreignpolicy department has pub-lished a number of books ana-lyzing world affairs and argu-ing for a more restrained U.S.presence abroad. As early as1982, the Institute publishedEarl Ravenal’s analyses of thecosts and risks of U.S. involve-ment in NATO. In 1994, Catopublished Beyond NATO, inwhich Ted Galen Carpenter,vice president for defense andforeign policy studies at Cato,argued that whatever usefulnessNATO might have had hadended with the Cold War andthat Europe should be responsi-ble for its own defense and secu-rity. In 1996, Cato publishedDelusions of Grandeur, a collec-tion of essays critical of theUnited Nations, which arguedthat collective security is nei-ther desirable nor practical andthat the UN’s social and envi-ronmental agenda does not de-serve American support. Alsoin 1996, Cato published Trip-wire: Korea and U.S. Foreign Pol-icy in a Changed World by seniorfellow Doug Bandow. In thebook, Bandow argued that theUnited States should end its mil-itary involvement in South Ko-rea because that country is capable of defendingitself and a U.S. troop presence no longer servesU.S. strategic interests. In 1999, Cato pub-
lished NATO’s Empty Victory edited by TedGalen Carpenter, which criticized interventionin Yugoslavia as bound to mire the United States
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09.85 : Cato publishes Friedman and Hayek on Freedom, a Russian-language collection of essays by those two Nobel laureates. The
book is distributed to Russian émigrés in the United States and
Western Europe and smuggled into the Soviet Union.
40
Cato’s foreign policy vision is guided bythe wisdom expressed in Thomas Jefferson’s firstinaugural address: “Peace, commerce, and honestfriendship with all nations, entangling alliances
with none.” Accordingly, Cato’s foreign policy work hassupported the concept of anational defense based onstrategic independence, astrong military, and nonin-tervention. Although theevents of September 11 havecreated a world that is vastlymore complex strategically,
07.86 : In The New Right v. the Constitution, Stephen Macedoargues that the majoritarianism of many conservative judges
tramples upon constitutionally guaranteed liberties.
1986
1987 : sen. mark hatfield discusses u.s.-soviet rela-
tions at cato’s conference, “collective security or
strategic independence?”
1988 : cato scholars ted galen carpenter and earl ravenal discuss
foreign policy studies.
1999 : cato sponsor donald h. rumsfeld spoke at cato’s chicago seminar.
“Ravenal says that the United Statesshould adopt a ‘noninterventionist’defense policy that would providesufficient national security whilesaving billions of dollars.”
— Christian Science Monitor, 1984
to September 11. In 1998, Cato published astudy by Ivan Eland, director of defense policystudies, titled “Does U.S. Intervention Over-seas Breed Terrorism? TheHistorical Record.” CitingDefense Department re-ports, he argued that “theUnited States could reducethe chances of such devas-tating—and potentially cat-astrophic—terrorist attacksby adopting a policy of mili-tary restraint overseas.” Inthe 1996 study “Why Spy?The Uses and Misuses ofIntelligence,” Cato researchfellow Stanley Kober ar-gued that intelligence agen-cies focus too much atten-tion on economic espionagewhen they should devote
their resources to the most serious securitythreats, principally international terrorism andadverse political trends. �
in an interminable and futile nation-buildingmission in the Balkans.
Cato has also held many Policy Forums ondefense and foreign policy issues. Topics haveincluded the war in Bosnia, NATO expansion,and national missile defense. In 1989, Cato helda conference titled “NATO at 40: Confrontinga Changing World.” The conference assessedthe usefulness of the alliance in view of thecooling of the Cold War. Speakers includedRep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.) and IrvingKristol. In 1991, a week before Operation
Desert Storm began, Catoheld a conference titled“America in the Gulf: VitalInterests or Pointless Entan-glement?” Participants in-cluded Charles WilliamMaynes, then-editor of For-eign Policy, as well as Sen.Brock Adams (D-Wash.) andeconomist David R. Hender-son. Papers from the confer-ence were published in abook titled America Entan-gled: The Persian Gulf Crisisand Its Consequences.
Cato also pointed outthe risk of terrorism prior
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09.86 : Newsweek says Cato “has helped change the terms of debateby challenging Washington’s conventional wisdom with a provocative
appeal for the future.”
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1998 : former senator gary hart discussed the risks
of nato expansion at a cato forum.
1987 : moderator michael kinsley and author melvyn krauss listen as richard
burt, u.s. ambassador to west germany, argues against u.s.
withdrawal from nato at a cato forum.
1991 : more than 300 people attended cato’s conference on the persian gulf war in january.
“The scholars at the Cato Institute,which opposes government meddlingwhether in the economy or abroad,came out early and strongly againstBush’s decision to send troops to SaudiArabia. As a result, their opinionshave appeared in 82 separate radio,television and newspaper outletssince the beginning of the crisis.”
–— Washington Post, 1990
1991 : leading russian liberal grigory yavlinsky
was among the speakers at cato’s second moscow
conference, cosponsored with komsomolskaya pravda.
1999 : adm. stansfield turner, former director of the
cia, tells a cato policy forum that the united states
should reduce its number of nuclear weapons.
10.86 : Cato publishes Scalia vs. Epstein: Two Viewson Judicial Activism, in which the two legal scholars
square off on the role of judges.
lech walesa leads the gdansk shipworkers in
a challenge to communism.
“Democratic libertieshave not yet appeared,
except fleetingly, inany nation that has
declared itself to befundamentally
anticapitalist.— Robe rt H e i l bron e r
”
AP/W
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orld Photos
c a t o a g a i n s t m a r x i s m
SubvertingSocialism
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In 1990, Cato held a week-long conference in Moscow ti-tled “Transition to Freedom:The New Soviet Challenge.”The largest gathering of classi-cal-liberal thinkers ever to takeplace in the Soviet Union, theconference was held as Commu-nists and reformers argued witheach other all over town. Partic-ipants included Nobel laureateJames Buchanan, Charles Mur-ray, and numerous Russianscholars and members of theRussian parliament. At the con-ference, Cato president Ed Crane presented abust of F. A. Hayek to Yevgeny Primakov, chair-man of the Council of the Union of the SupremeSoviet, as more than 1,000 Soviet citizens at-tended their first “open forum.” Both Russianand English editions of the conference papers
on property rights, privatization, nuclear armsreduction, and the future of European securitywere published the following year.
In 1991, Cato returned to Moscow for“All the President’s Men: Perestroika Yester-day, Today, and Tomorrow.” Some 250 repre-
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The greatest threat
to human liberty world-wide over the last cen-tury, and a threat that
continues today, is the Marxist ideol-ogy that gripped Russia for the bet-ter part of a century and still gripscountries such as China, North Ko-rea, and Cuba. Cato has worked tofight that deadening, corrupting, andtyrannical ideology, holding confer-ences and public events in communist countries as well asdistributing pro-liberty literature where it is sorely needed.
05.87 : Cato celebrates its tenth anniversaryat a dinner for more than 600 people at the
Willard Hotel.
1987
1990 : ed crane takes a snapshot at cato’s open forum in moscow, which drew more than 800 participants.
1988 : chinese scholar pu shan com-
ments on milton friedman’s remarks
at cato’s conference in shanghai.
“Since 1988, the Cato Institutehas helped China promote thefundamental principles of freedom,limited government, and civilsociety.… I, as a Chinese liberal,sincerely thank you and wish youfurther success in advancing libertyand justice throughout the world.”
— Mao Yushi, Chairman, Unirule Institute, Beijing
02.87 : Cato co-publishes The Search for Stable Moneywith the University of Chicago Press. it includes essays by
three Nobel laureates and 20 other contributors.
nomic System; WilliamMcGurn, deputy editor ofThe Far Eastern EconomicReview; and China scholarsNicholas Lardy, Kate XiaoZhou, Y. C. Richard Wong,and Barry Naughton. P. J.O’Rourke was there as well,to speak about equality.Conference papers were col-lected in a book in 1998. In2000, Cato held a confer-ence in Hong Kong on“Globalization, the WTO,and Capital Flows: HongKong’s Legacy, China’s Fu-ture.” Joseph Yam, chief ex-ecutive of the Hong KongMonetary Authority, pre-dicted that China’s acces-sion to the WTO would promoteliberalization and expand anddeepen Hong Kong’s capital mar-kets. In 2001, Cato and the ChinaCenter for Economic Research atPeking University held a joint con-ference in Beijing to discuss marketreform of China’s pension system.
Cato has also fought againstMarxism by distributing importantbooks on liberty to countries wherethe public has been deprived of suchideas. Toward the end of the ColdWar, Cato made a concerted effort tosmuggle copies of such books to Rus-sia and Poland. In 1984, Cato usedvarious underground channels to send Solidaritywith Liberty (in Polish) and Friedman and Hayekon Freedom (in Russian) into those two commu-nist countries. The success of this effort was evi-denced at the time by a front-page news article inPoland’s national army newspaper criticizing
Solidarity with Liberty. In 1989, Cato sent copiesof those books directly to new members ofPoland’s parliament and the Soviet Politburo.Ten years later, the Institute presented pocketcopies of the U.S. Constitution to 2,000 Russianpolitical leaders visiting the United States. �
sentatives of the news mediafrom the Soviet Union, East-ern Europe, the United States,and elsewhere attended. Onthe opening day, 16 televisioncameras were lined up torecord the historic event. Theconference was held in the Ok-tyabrskaya Hotel, built in the1970s for the Central Com-mittee of the Communist Partyof the USSR. The opening-night speaker was VladimirBukovsky, making his first trip back to his na-tive land since his exile in the 1970s. The con-ference was dominated by the leading advocatesin the government for market reform. A fewholdover Communists made grudging appear-ances, while the liberals made impassioned dec-larations about the need for private property,free pricing, and individual liberty. Little didthe attendees know that before the year was overthe Soviet Union would cease to exist.
Cato has also held four conferences inChina, the earliest in 1988. Titled “EconomicReform in China: Problems and Prospects,”
the conference, held in Shanghai, fea-tured speakers including Nobel laureateMilton Friedman, economist StephenCheung, and author George Gilder. As afront-page story in the China Daily noted,
the event focused on thequestion “Should Chinareform its economy stepby step or all at once?”The conference enableddistinguished Chineseand Western scholars todiscuss the progress ofChina’s reform move-ment and consider whatkinds of market reformsare essential for furthermodernization and de-
velopment. A book of conference papers waspublished in English and Chinese. The Eng-lish edition came out in 1990, but the Chinesegovernment’s reaction to pro-democracydemonstrations in Tiananmen Square and thefact that Milton Friedman met with a formerhead of the Communist Party who had fallenout of favor prevented the Chinese-language
version from being released until1993. The way to publication wasapparently cleared when Friedmanreturned to China in 1993 and vis-ited with Jiang Zemin, the Com-munist Party’s general secretaryand president.
Cato held subsequent confer-ences in China in 1997, 2000, and2001. The 1997 conference, heldagain in Shanghai, was titled “Chinaas Global Economic Power: MarketReforms in the New Millennium,”and featured speakers included WuJie, vice minister of the State Com-mission for Restructuring the Eco-
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1988
1988 : translator june mei helps milton friedman answer questions
at an impromptu news conference at cato’s shanghai conference.
“When Cato’s president EdwardH. Crane reminded the largeaudience that ‘the governmentthat governs least governs best’…hundreds of Russians clappedand cheered wildly. Only ahandful of die-hard Communistssat glum-faced, arms folded.”
— Wall Street Journal, 1988
1997 : fan gang of the china reform foundation speaks at cato’s second
conference in shanghai. listening are cato’s jim dorn, chinese scholars zhou
mingwei and justin yifu lin, and hong kong publisher yeung wai hong.
1982 : solidarity
with liberty is
smuggled into
poland.
1985 : friedman and
hayek on freedom
goes to russia.
02.88 : The Sixth Annual Monetary Conference is “Dollars,Deficits, and Trade: The Changing World Economy.”
04.88 : Cato’s day-long conference on the privatizationof the postal service is picketed by postal union activists.
repressive policies leave children hungry.
“The quickest way outof poverty is a clear
and resolute decisionfor the market, private
enterprise, andindividual initiative.
— M a r io Va rg a s L l o s a
“The quickest way outof poverty is a clear
and resolute decisionfor the market, private
enterprise, andindividual initiative.
— M a r io Va rg a s L l o s a
””
GettyIm
ages
s p r e a d i n g l i b e r t y o v e r s e a s
A World ofFree People
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its economic progress andthat the best path toward de-velopment is one based onopen markets, private prop-erty rights, and the rule oflaw. Books published by theproject have included GlobalFortune: The Stumble andRise of World Capitalism, TheRevolution in DevelopmentEconomics, and China in theNew Millennium. Confer-ences have included “TheCrisis in Global Interven-tionism,” held in 1999, fea-turing experts from fourcontinents who discussedthe causes of recurring finan-cial turmoil and the impor-tance of moving toward thefree market. “Liberty in theAmericas: Free Trade andBeyond” in Mexico City in1992 was cosponsored withCISLE (El Centro de Inves-tigaciones Sobre la LibreEmpresa) and featured toppolicymakers and market-liberal thinkers from thehemisphere. In 1998, Catocosponsored “Deregulationin the Global Marketplace:Challenges for Japan and theUnited States in the 21stCentury” with Keidanren, Japan’s largest busi-ness association, in Tokyo.
Communist nations have, of course, exhib-ited the starkest absence of economic and otherfreedoms in the last few decades. As noted in“Cato against Marxism,” Cato smuggled Soli-darity with Liberty into Poland and Friedman andHayek on Freedom into Russia. And Cato Insti-
tute conferences in the Soviet Union and Chinabrought classical-liberal ideas to those countriesmore openly than ever before.
The Cato Institute has also focused onpension and economic reform throughout theworld. In 1998, the Institute cosponsored withThe Economist a conference in London on“Solving the Global Public Pensions Crisis:
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While much of the cato Institute’smission is focused domestically, the Institutealso looks to other regions of the world inneed of personal and economic freedom.
Cato has undertaken a num-ber of initiatives to spreadclassical-liberal ideas to placeswhere they have been lacking.
The Project on Global Economic Liberty,directed first by Melanie S. Tammen and since1992 by Ian Vásquez, has published a number ofbooks and studies, as well as held numerous fo-rums and conferences dealing with the problemsof the developing world. The project seeks todemonstrate that a country’s domestic policiesand institutions are the primary determinants of
01.89 : Cato releases An American Vision:Policies for the ‘90s, edited by Ed Crane and
David Boaz.
1989
1991 : ed crane talks with soviet exile vladimir
bukovsky, who returned to russia for the first
time to speak at cato’s second moscow conference.
1992 : think tank president luis pazos, later chairman of the mexican
congress’s budget committee, and milton friedman were among the
speakers at cato’s mexico city conference, “liberty in the americas,”
which drew more than 500 people from across the hemisphere.
10.88 : Oxford University Press publishes Reaganomics:An Insider’s Account by William A. Niskanen, named one of the 10
best business books of the year by Business Week.
“At a conference co-sponsored byShanghai’s Fudan University andthe Cato Institute…MiltonFriedman warned China today thatsoaring inflation could cripple itseconomy unless steps were taken tospeed up the conversion of state-runenterprises to private ownership.”
— New York Times, 1988
World Bank and the Interna-tional Monetary Fund, as in the1994 book Perpetuating Poverty:The World Bank, the IMF, and theDeveloping World edited byDoug Bandow and Ian Vásquez.Other frequent targets havebeen the U.S. war on drugs inLatin America, the futile U.S.embargo against Cuba, and cen-tralized development planning
in Third World countries.Along with the Fraser Insti-tute of Canada, Cato pub-lishes Economic Freedom of theWorld, which rates more than100 countries on their eco-nomic policies. While com-munist and Latin Americancountries have drawn most ofthe project’s attention, Africahas not gone unnoticed, withsuch books as South Africa’sWar against Capitalism byWalter Williams (1989) andAfrica Betrayed by GeorgeAyittey (1992).
People from all over theworld visit Cato’s websites,and the Institute receives aconstant stream of scholars,elected officials, and activistsfrom other countries. Manyof them seek the advice ofCato scholars on bringingfree markets and the rule oflaw to their countries. Thoseideas have also been spreadby the many interns and CatoUniversity attendees fromoutside the United States. �
Opportunities for Privatiza-tion.” Among the speakers wereNobel laureate Gary Becker;Frank Field, Britain’s ministerof state for social security andwelfare reform; José Piñera, co-chairman of the Cato Project onSocial Security Privatization;and Marek Belka, former fi-nance minister of Poland. Also,representatives from four LatinAmerican countries that haveprivatized their public pensionsystems—in full or in part—re-ported that privatization hasproven extremely popular andthat, despite numerous warn-ings to the contrary, workers dopossess enough investmentsavvy to participate fully in thenew systems.
In 2001, Cato cospon-sored another conference withThe Economist, this one in Mex-ico on “Money and Markets inthe Americas: A New Agenda.”Speakers included Mexico’sminister of finance, FranciscoGil Díaz; Robert McTeer Jr.,
president of the FederalReserve Bank of Dallas;Guillermo Ortiz, governorof Banco de México; andRobert Mundell, Nobel lau-reate in economics and pro-fessor of economics at Co-lumbia University. It was thethird major Cato conferencein Mexico City.
Cato has put furtheremphasis on Latin Americawith the launch of its Span-
ish-language website Elcato.org. Elcato.orgprovides original essays in Spanish by Catoscholars and translations of many of Cato’s op-eds and policy studies, as well as additional con-tent, such as essays dealing with globalizationand current events throughout the WesternHemisphere, specifically targeted to a LatinAmerican audience.
Scholars such as Peter Bauer, Hernando deSoto, and Mario Vargas Llosa have worked withthe Project on Global Economic Liberty to im-prove living standards around the world. Pro-ject scholars have often been critical of the
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04.89 : Cato hosts a day-long conference titled “NATO at 40:Confronting a Changing World.” Among the speakers are author
Irving Kristol and Earl Ravenal of Georgetown University.
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1989 : anti-apartheid crusader helen suzman greets guests after her
distinguished lecture on the prospects for change in south africa.
many of cato’s books
have been translated
into chinese, japan-
ese, russian, spanish,
and other languages.
1999 : fernando alessandri, webmaster for cato’s spanish-language
site, www.elcato.org, talks with peruvian novelist mario vargas
llosa, a cato distinguished lecturer.
12.89 : In The Rights Retained by the People: The Historyand Meaning of the Ninth Amendment, editor Randy
Barnett argues that the Ninth Amendment creates a
general presumption in favor of liberty.
“U.S. aid to Third World countrieshas undermined agriculture, createdmassive corruption and contributedto the current starvation problem inthose areas, said a report issuedyesterday by the Cato Institute.”
— United Press International, 1986
1994 : cato’s ian vásquez, federal reserve governor lawrence lindsey,
and gerald p. o’driscoll jr. meet the press at the 12th annual mone-
tary conference, in mexico city.
“Liberty is the onlything you can’t
have unless yougive it to others
— Wi l l i a m A l l e n Wh i t e
1989 : a courageous young man captured the
imagination of the whole world, when he
singlehandedly stopped the advance of a
tank column by standing in its way...
”
Government is theonly agency whichcan take a usefulcommodity likepaper, slap some inkon it, and make ittotally worthless.”— L u dw ig von M i se s
Government is theonly agency whichcan take a usefulcommodity likepaper, slap some inkon it, and make ittotally worthless.”— L u dw ig von M i se s
““
the u.s. bureau of engraving and printing churns
out billions of federal reserve notes every year.GettyIm
ages
m o n e t a r y c o n f e r e n c e s 1 9 8 3 – 2 0 0 1
SoundMoney
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mostly under control, whereas many other na-tions have reached the point of carting worthlesspaper currency around in wheelbarrows. Amer-ica was a long way from the wheelbarrow pointwhen the Cato Institutewas founded in 1977,but the monetary author-ities were doing theirbest to take us there.Recognizing the impor-tance of monetary policyand financial institu-tions, in 1983 Cato be-gan holding annual con-ferences on money and banking.
Cato’s 1983 monetary conference, titled“The Search for Stable Money,” drew 200scholars, journalists, and businesspeople. Sometwo dozen leading authorities on monetary pol-icy presented papers examining alternativemonetary reforms ranging from a monetary
rule to the gold standard to competing privatecurrencies. The conference was widely hailedas one of the best of its kind and was covered insuch publications as the Wall Street Journal and
the Washington Post. Speakers at the conferenceincluded Henry Wallich, a member of theBoard of Governors of the Federal ReserveSystem; Beryl Sprinkel, undersecretary of thetreasury for monetary policy; future Nobellaureates James M. Buchanan and RobertMundell; and Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.). Papers
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Stable money is the foundation of stable gov-ernment, as the Founders of our country knew quitewell. If the value of money is unstable, that instabil-ity makes business planning more difficult and in-
terferes with the smooth operation of the market price sys-tem. In the years before theConstitution was adopted,rampant inflation plaguedstates that were irresponsi-bly gushing newly mintedmoney. Since its foundingdays, America has broughtthe problem of inflation
“Cato’s annual monetary conference isbecoming the forum for presenting newwork on the intersection of monetaryeconomics and monetary politics.”
—William Poole, President, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, 1985
1984 : jan tumlir of gatt talks with economist karl
brunner at cato’s second annual monetary
conference, “world debt and monetary order.”
1997 : reporters surround fed chairman alan greenspan as he leaves the hayek auditorium after his keynote
speech to cato’s 15th annual monetary conference, “money and capital flows in a global economy.”
01.90 : Cato acquires Regulation magazinefrom the American Enterprise Institute.
09.90 : Cato hosts a week-long conference in Moscowtitled “Transition to Freedom: The New Soviet Challenge.”
Participants include Nobel laureate James Buchanan, Charles
Murray, and numerous members of the Russian parliament.
in the Americas: New Challenges for Hemispheric In-tegration, based on the papers presented at the In-stitute’s 1994 monetary conference in MexicoCity and edited by James Dorn and Roberto Sali-nas-León. Papers from Cato’s 1996 monetary
conference were published by the Institute as abook titled The Future of Money in the InformationAge, which examines the possibility that in thefuture, government fiat money may disappear aspeople choose to hold digital money issued byprivate firms rather thannon-interest-bearing papermoney issued by centralbanks. The Future of Money inthe Information Age was trans-lated into Italian as Il FuturoDella Moneta in 1998.
The 20th annual mone-tary conference will be heldin New York City in Octo-ber 2002. The conferenceshave been directed by Cato’svice president for academicaffairs James A. Dorn. �
from the conference were collected inThe Search for Stable Money: Essays onMonetary Reform, published by the Uni-versity of Chicago Press and edited byJames A. Dorn and Anna J. Schwartz,with additional essays from Milton Fried-man and F. A. Hayek.
Subsequent monetary conferenceshave featured such speakers as Federal Re-serve Board chairman Alan Greenspan,then-deputy secretary of the treasuryLawrence Summers, International Mone-tary Fund first deputy managing directorStanley Fischer, Italian economist and for-eign minister Antonio Martino, FederalReserve Bank of Cleveland presidentJerry Jordan, Federal Reserve Bank of St.Louis president William Poole, Harvardprofessor Jeffrey Sachs, Carnegie Mellonprofessor Allan Meltzer, and National Bu-reau of Economic Research economistAnna J. Schwartz. Conferences have beenheld in the United States, London, andMexico and have dealt with topics rangingfrom “Alternatives to Government FiatMoney” to “Money, Macroeconomics,and Forecasting” to “Monetary Policy inthe New Economy.”
In 1989, Cato pub-lished Dollars, Deficits, andTrade, which grew out of the1988 monetary conferenceand was edited by JamesDorn and William A. Niska-nen. In 1995, Cato pub-lished Monetary Reform inPost-Communist Countries inRussia, edited by JamesDorn and Roustem M.Noureev. In 1996, Cato pub-lished Money and Markets
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10.90 : Cato publishes Economic Reform in China:Problems and Prospects edited by James A. Dorn
and Wang Xi.
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01.91 : Cato hosts a conference titled “America in the Gulf: Vital Interestsor Pointless Entanglement?” about a week before Operation Desert Storm
began. The conference papers were later published as America Entangled: The
Persian Gulf Crisis and Its Consequences edited by Ted Galen Carpenter.
1991
1992 : journalists question mexican finance minister pedro aspe after his speech to cato’s mexico city
conference, “liberty in the americas.”
1998 : deputy treasury secretary lawrence h. summers
criticizes capital controls at cato’s 16th annual
monetary conference.
2000 : cato vice president jim dorn and alan greenspan
before the opening session of the 18th annual monetary
conference, “monetary policy in the new economy.”
2001 : nobel laureate robert mundell speaks
at cato’s 19th annual monetary conference, in
mexico city.
1998 : the future
of money in the
information age was
published in italy.
“Cato’s recent conferences on moneyand social security have performed areal service by promoting seriousconsideration of a range of possiblepolicies that have generally beensimply ruled out of court by theconventional establishment.”
—Milton Friedman
aids activists demand that the fda
give them access to life-saving drugs.
”
“He has erected amultitude of new
offices, and sent hitherswarms of officers to
harass our peopleand eat out their
substance.— D e c l a r at ion of I n de pe n de nc e
“He has erected amultitude of new
offices, and sent hitherswarms of officers to
harass our peopleand eat out their
substance.— D e c l a r at ion of I n de pe n de nc e
”
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c h a l l e n g i n g t h e r e g u l a t o r y s t a t e
Command and Control
The centerpiece of Cato’s regu-latory studies program is Regulationmagazine. Acquired from the Ameri-can Enterprise Institute in 1989 andpublished quarterly, Regulation ishome to scholarly work on the costsof government regulation and thebenefits of economic deregulation,presented in a lively and readablemanner. Under a controlled circula-tion system, more than 15,000copies of each issue are distributed topolicymakers, journalists, and repre-sentatives of trade associations andcorporations. Topics tackled by themagazine have included antitrust en-forcement, environmental regula-tion, insurance regulation, the failureof Food and Drug Administration re-form, postal privatization, and airlineand electric power deregulation.
Cato has also published manybooks criticizing the regulatory stateand offering an alternative vision ofan economy characterized by thespontaneous order of the market-place. In 1986, the Institute pub-lished Antitrust Policy: The Case forRepeal by D. T. Armentano. Armen-tano argued that there was no eco-nomic basis for our nation’s antitrustlaws and that they should be repealed.In 1989, the Institute published Gen-erating Failure: Public Power Policy inthe Northwest by David L. Shapiro,who argued that public power provi-sion in the northwestern UnitedStates was wasting billions of dollarsin taxpayers’ money. The book alsomade the case for electric powerderegulation. In 1999, Cato pub-lished Natural Monopoly and Its Regu-
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One of the developments most threatening toliberty and prosperity in the United States andother Western countries has been the rise of theregulatory state. Imbued
with the power of legislators, ever-growing regulatory agencies have be-come virtually a fourth branch of theAmerican system of government. Un-accountable to the public, and scarcelyaccountable to Congress, these agen-cies wield nearly dictatorial powersover the lives of citizens and the ac-tions of businesses.
04.91 : Cato hosts its second conference in Moscow, “All thePresident’s Men: Perestroika Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow.”
The opening night speaker is Vladimir Bukovsky, who is making
his first trip back to his native land since his exile in the 1970s.
“According to the Cato Institute,The United States needs a free-market energy policy, not anebulous national energy policythat invites government fine-tuning with every new eventin the world energy market.”
— Washington Post, 1991
1997 : school-choice lawyer clint bolick listens as joan davis ratter-
ay of the institute of independent education speaks at cato’s con-
ference, “education in the inner city.”
1999 : peter vandoren became
editor of regulation magazine,
which cato acquired in 1990.
03.91 : Cato publishes Liberating Schools: Educationin the Inner City edited by David Boaz. Contributors
argue that only increased choice and autonomy will
improve the plight of urban education.
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that significant deregulation was needed intelecommunications and that the govern-ment should not attempt to build the infor-mation superhighway. In 1997, Cato hosteda day-long conference titled “Beyond theTelecommunications Act of 1996: The Fu-ture of Deregulation.” Among the topics dis-cussed were whether government should en-sure access to the Internet for all citizens, theoptimal way to privatize spectrum, andwhether the Federal Communications Com-mission should be abolished.
Cato’s “Technology and Society” con-ferences, sponsored with Forbes ASAP, havelooked at issues ranging from intellectualproperty to biotechnology. Speakers have in-cluded Milton Friedman, David Friedman, Ora-cle Corp. chairman Larry Ellison, Eric Schmidtof Novell, Scott Cook of Intuit, Christie Hefnerof Playboy, T. J. Rodgers of Cypress Semicon-ductor, Michael L. Robertson of MP3.com, andCato’s own technology scholars.
Cato has also arguedagainst content and privacyregulation on the Internet.Former director of telecom-munications and technologystudies Solveig Singletonmade the case in a number offorums, including testimonybefore Congress, that whilethe government should notcollect an excessive amountof data on its citizens, privatecompanies and their cus-tomers should be able to ex-change data freely.
Cato’s TechKnowledgenewsletter, started in 2001and edited by Adam Thiererand Wayne Crews, dealswith legislation and regula-
tory actions that have the potential to impactthe Internet and telecommunications industry.So far it has tackled such issues as broadbandderegulation, intellectual property rights, andInternet taxation.
Cato scholars have long been critical ofthe government school monopoly. In 1982,
Inquiry published an earlylook at the growth of homeschooling. Cato books oncompetition and freedom ineducation have included Pri-vatization and EducationalChoice by Myron Lieberman,Liberating Schools: Educationand the Inner City edited byDavid Boaz, School Choice:Why You Need It, How YouGet It by David Harmer, Edu-cational Freedom in EasternEurope by Charles L. Glenn,and Why Schools Fail by BruceGoldberg. Cato scholars havechallenged restrictions onhome schooling, day care pro-vision, school choice, and for-profit education providers. �
lation by federal judge Richard A. Posner, inwhich he argues that even a naturally occurringmonopoly does not justify government inter-vention. Cato has also published four books onprivatizing the postal service, including mostrecently Mail @ the Millennium: Will the Postal
Service Go Private? a collection of essays editedby Edward L. Hudgins criticizing the post of-fice and arguing for its privatization in an age ofe-mail, faxes, electronic bill payment, and pri-vate parcel delivery.
Conferences on regulatory reform havebrought together policymakers and experts in
a number of fields. At a 1988 conference titled“Privatization and the Postal Monopoly,”Office of Management and Budget directorJames C. Miller III and Federal Trade Com-mission chairman Daniel Oliver called for a loos-ening of the postal monopoly. Postmaster Gen-
eral Anthony M. Frank disagreed. In1990, shortly after the Institute’s ac-quisition of Regulation magazine, Catoheld a conference titled “A Century ofAntitrust: The Lessons, the Chal-lenges,” with federal judge DouglasH. Ginsburg among the speakers.Future justice Stephen Breyer and fu-ture regulatory “czar” John Grahamhighlighted a 1991 conference,“Making Sense of Safety,” which ad-dressed risk assessment, public per-ceptions of risk, a range of specific
safety policies, and legal and insurance issues.In 1994, on the 25th anniversary of the moonlanding, Cato held a conference that addressedthe question “Is NASA the Greatest Obstacle toSpace Enterprise?” George S. Robinson, as-sociate general counsel of the Smithsonian Insti-tution, and David Gump, president of Lunacorp,
discussed how NASA hinders Amer-ican space efforts and called forgreater private activity.
Cato moved early to examineregulatory issues affecting telecom-munications and, eventually, the In-ternet. In 1980, Arthur S. DeVanyproduced a paper for the Institute ar-guing for a private property systemfor electromagnetic spectrum alloca-tion. This proposal was developedfurther in a 1982 study by MiltonMueller. In 1993, the Institute pub-lished Telecompetition: The Free Mar-ket Road to the Information Highwayby Lawrence Gasman, which argued
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04.91 : Future justice Stephen Breyer is amongthe speakers at a Regulation conference, “Making
Sense of Safety.”
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1992
1993 : john stossel of abc news takes a question from the audience
at his cato forum, “pandering to fear: the media’s crisis mentality.”
1998 : dick cheney criticizes trade
sanctions at cato’s conference,
“collateral damage: the economic
cost of u.s. foreign policy.”
1988 : office of management and budget director james c.
miller iii greets postal union picketers before his speech at
cato’s conference, “privatization and the postal monopoly.”
1990 : lynne cheney discusses
school choice at cato’s conference,
“education in the inner city.”
05.92 : Patient Power by John Goodmanand Gerald Musgrave makes medical savings
accounts a popular and much-discussed idea.
“As he agonized over his effortsto improve the quality ofeducation in Baltimore, [MayorKurt] Schmoke said … he cameback time and again to the workof the Cato Institute.”
— Baltimore Sun, 1996
h. l. mencken enjoys the first legal beer after
the end of prohibition, december 5, 1933.
“Government is abroker in pillage,and every electionis a sort of advanceauction sale ofstolen goods.”
— H . L . M e nck e n
Government is abroker in pillage,and every electionis a sort of advanceauction sale ofstolen goods.”
— H . L . M e nck e n
“
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orld Photos
t h e l i g h t e r s i d e
Pursuit of Happiness
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Best-selling humorist P. J.O’Rourke has helped Catolighten the mood over the years.As the Institute’s first H. L.Mencken Research Fellow,O’Rourke has given a numberof speeches at Cato’s Washing-ton headquarters as well as atCato functions around thecountry, including headliningCato seminars in seven cities in2001. Cato has also involved it-self in promoting O’Rourke’sbooks, such as CEO of the Sofaand Eat the Rich. Cato even cre-ated a student edition of Eat theRich, which condenses and simplifies the book’sexplanation of basic economics and analysis ofeconomies around the world. P. J. regularly con-tributes to Regulation magazine’s back-page es-say, “Final Word,” and serves as a cutting voicefor liberty in all his journalistic endeavors, oftenbringing attention to Cato’s work.
Penn & Teller’s Broadway shows, touringroadshows, movies, TV specials, and televisionseries have drawn acclaim and won multipleawards, including two Emmys and the Interna-
tional Golden Rose. And they have both beennamed Mencken Fellows at Cato. Penn Jillette,“the larger, louder half ” of Penn & Teller, isa regular contributor to Regulation’s “FinalWord.” Topics he’s touched on have includedcampaign finance regulation (“Want to speakyour mind after McCain-Feingold? Learn tojuggle”) and gun control (“To cut down on vio-lence against women . . . give a handgun to everywoman in the United States”). The smaller, qui-eter Teller writes occasionally on free speech is-
sues for Cato. In 1996, Teller penned ascreed against the V-chip, daring thereader to imagine television evenblander than at present and going on toexplain the chilling effect that censor-ing technology would likely have.
Finally, Cato’s longest-runningeffort to inject some levity into the fightfor liberty has been the “To Be Gov-erned . . . ” column at the end of eachCato Policy Report. Highlighting unin-tentionally funny news articles andridiculous quotes from politicians andbureaucrats, the column documents theantics of those who govern us. �
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05.92 : Cato hosts “Liberty in the Americas: Free Tradeand Beyond,” a week-long conference in Mexico City, to discuss
NAFTA and other means to liberalize trade.
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The business of defending
individual liberty and promot-ing free markets, as intellectu-ally engaging as it is, can be a
dry one. No matter how cogent the argu-ment or sound the statistic, in order tograb the public’s attention it is sometimes necessary to makepeople laugh or smile. To that end, the Cato Institute hasmade sure to cultivate a lighter side to help broaden the appealof its message and to catch the ears of those who might other-wise not be listening. Adding an element of humor to the mixwas a natural step for Cato—after all, the missteps of fecklessbureaucrats and pompous politicians are ripe for mocking.
1993
1997 : when ed crane asked all the famous people in the audience at cato’s
20th anniversary dinner to stand up, walter williams obliged.
1999 : ralph nader and stephen moore share a laugh after
testifying against corporate welfare before the house
budget committee.
1997 : kurt russell enjoys cato’s
20th anniversary dinner.
01.93 : Cato publishes Kindly Inquisitors: The NewAttacks on Free Thought by Jonathan Rauch, a ground-
breaking defense of free speech.
We must make thebuilding of a freesociety once more anintellectual adventure,a deed of courage. Ifwe can regain thatbelief in the power ofideas which was themark of liberalism atits best, the battle isnot lost.”
— F . A . H ay e k
the cato institute, washington, d.c.
“We must make thebuilding of a freesociety once more anintellectual adventure,a deed of courage. Ifwe can regain thatbelief in the power ofideas which was themark of liberalism atits best, the battle isnot lost.”
— F . A . H ay e k
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