October 21, 2011 8:59AM 

# Living in the Past 

By [David Boaz](https://www.cato.org/people/david-boaz) 

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A year after [Kate Zernike wrote](https://www.cato.org/dusty-bookshelves-and-long-dead-writers/) in the *New York Times* that Tea Partiers were “resurrect\[ing\] once-obscure texts by dead writers”—such as F. A. Hayek, who won the Nobel Prize in 1974 and died in 1992—the *New Yorker*’s [cover](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/toc/2011/10/24/toc_20111017) depicts Wall Streeters in top hats and bushy mustaches. That’s an image from, what, the 1930s? Or maybe the 1870s? Who’s “reach\[ing\] back to dusty bookshelves for long-dormant ideas” now?

![Media Name: NEW-YORKER-COVER-OCCUPY-WALL-STREET-1.jpg](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/pubs_2x/public/wp-content/uploads/NEW-YORKER-COVER-OCCUPY-WALL-STREET-1.jpg?itok=GKG4tHzG) 

##### Related Tags 

[Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics) 

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