At the close of the old year this magazine lost three contributors, all distinguished and influential public intellectuals who brought passion and erudition to the search for a better world.

RICHARD J. BARNET

With Marcus Raskin he co-founded in 1963 the Institute for Policy Studies, which has produced the research and analysis that nourish campaigns for economic and social justice, environmental preservation, civil rights and disarmament. Dick Barnet brought intelligence, wide-ranging curiosity and moral commitment to his work and was a superb popularizer. According to the writer Peter Kornbluh, who had once been his research assistant, he "could take rocket science and, very very quickly, translate it into something we all could understand, appreciate, debate and mobilize around." In the 1974 book Global Reach, according to IPS colleague John Cavanagh, he "provided the first road map to the international corporations who drive economic globalization," framing the issues that would bring thousands into the streets in the 1990s. Today his writings in our pages read like Globalization 101. In 1994 he warned: "'Competitiveness' is the mantra of this new economy, and the winning strategies involve 'downsizing'.... About a third of the jobs in the United States are at risk to the growing productivity of low-wage workers in China, India, Mexico and elsewhere." In a 1996 article he said that "international terrorism serves as the successor myth to international Communism" and noted that "in the post-cold war world, terrorism is being privatized."

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