Voices of reason - excerpts of interviews with various personalities from 1968 to 1998 - Interview

Reason, Dec, 1998

July 1990

From "The New Mr. Chips," an interview with Cypress Semiconductor CEO T.J. Rodgers

Reason: The new argument is, "OK, we'll have an industry-led industrial policy. We'll allow the captains of industry to get together and essentially decide how the government money should be allocated." Is that what happened with Sematech [a government-financed consortium of computer-chip manufacturers]?

T.J. Rodgers: Who's the captain of industry? The captain of industry is the guy who's got the best lobbyist in Washington. I'm absolutely sure saving America is the equivalent to saving Intel in [Intel CEO] Andy Grove's mind - and he's a bad guy to pick because he runs a good big company. And I'm quite sure saving America is saving National Semiconductor in [National Semiconductor CEO] Charlie Sporck's mind. It's not at all clear to me that America's better off by using government money to save National Semiconductor.

October 1990

From "Champion of Choice," an interview with Wisconsin state Rep. Polly Williams, the legislator behind Milwaukee's school voucher program

"White liberals feel guilty about blacks, and they do things to convince themselves they are helping blacks. It's feel-good politics, which is really just helping themselves. Poor people becomes the trophies of white social engineers. We have to be saved from our saviors. They have been feeding us pablum for so long, we are finally tired and demand some real meat. We want self-sufficiency, self-determination, and self-reliance, not a hand-out."

"None of the people who oppose my [voucher] plan lack choice in education themselves. They have no idea what the lack of choice in education means, the damage it does when you have to go to an inferior school that will trap you for life."

May 1991

From "Capitalist Tool II," an interview with publisher Steve Forbes

"Growth is like creativity, it doesn't go along very neat, precise plans. You get clogged highways before you figure out a way to open up capacity. You get pollution before you figure out a way to fight it. With automobiles you get accidents, you get carnage. With anything new you have benefits and costs. But that doesn't mean you should say, 'Gee, it's bad.' It's much better to have those problems than the problems of stagnation, where nothing happens."

December 1991

From "Of Mice and Men," an interview with cancer researcher Bruce Ames

"I'm incredibly optimistic because science is growing so fast. There are millions of scientists in the world, and every new rich country needs them and trains them. And everybody's communicating. Life expectancy gets longer every year, and it's going to get even longer, and it's due to modern science and technology. All these romantics are trying to paint science and technology as the thing that's dooming the world - I just don't believe that either. Everything I know says the opposite.

July 1992

From "The Road from Serfdom," an interview with F.A. Hayek (conducted in 1978 and published posthumously)

Reason: Are you optimistic about the future of freedom?