This week's cover story on the state of capitalism as the 1980s begin reflects the reporting of correspondents in many of TIME'S bureaus, both in the capitalist world and beyond. But much of the research was done by Associate Editor George M. Taber, who wrote the story as well as an accompanying side bar on capitalism's roots in history.

Taber, who joined TIME'S New York staff last summer after two years as our economics correspondent in Washington, found the assignment absorbing--so much so that at one point he spent a series of eleven-hour days poring over texts on his subject in the stacks of the Princeton University library, which is near his home. "Here at last," says Taber, "was a chance to grapple with the economic problems I had studied in Washington, to explore their complex causes and long-range social implications."

Taber was assisted by Reporter-Researchers Charles Alexander and Robert Grieves, who helped to pin down such fine points as the cost of gasoline in Bulgaria, the distribution of wealth envisioned in Plato's Republic, and whether Marie Antoinette really did say, "Let them eat cake" (she did not). Says Alexander: "Happily, we had to reach out of our accustomed economic niche to become students of history, literature and philosophy." Last week TIME opened its first bureau on mainland China since our office in Shanghai was closed in September 1949, four months after the city was taken over by the forces of Mao Tse-tung. The newest of our 31 bureaus is located in Peking's Qianmen Hotel, ten minutes by car from the Chinese capital's broad Tiananmen Square. Last August TIME became the first U.S. newsmagazine to be circulated in China. Our reporting on that country will be much enriched by the presence there of our new bureau chief, Richard Bernstein.

He began learning his Mandarin while doing graduate work in Chinese history at Harvard in 1966. After writing five cover stories on events in China as a TIME writer from 1973 to 1976, he went to our bureau in Hong Kong. Until last year, when the Peking government began allowing U.S. news organizations to station correspondents in China, American journalists could travel in the country occasionally, but for the most part they had to monitor developments from Hong Kong, through newspapers, broadcasts and talks with returning travelers.

"Editorials in People's Daily will remain an important news source," says Bernstein. "But, as an ancient Chinese proverb says, 'A thousand words of hearsay are not worth a single glance at the reality.' "

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