Evolution  

Liberty at Fifteen

by R.W. Bradford

Fifteen years ago, Liberty published its first issue. Things don't always work out as you plan them.

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There is a tendency for libertarian enterprises to engage in self-congratulation — witness the gala celebrations staged this year by Laissez-Faire Books for its 30th anniversary and by the Cato Institute for its 25th anniversary, not to mention the festivities arranged by Reason magazine for its various anniversaries. Liberty has never done much of this: it's not that we think there's anything wrong with such celebrations, we've simply been too busy editing and publishing a magazine — that is, doing what we like to do. We do notice our anniversaries. But we celebrated pretty much only in print. On our fifth anniversary we published a brief account of how we started Liberty, reprinting a couple of past articles, and publishing a complete index. Our tenth anniversary was marked by an account of the magazine's history. We also billed our 1997 editors' conference as our "10th Anniversary Celebration," but aside from some brief remarks by David Friedman and me at our customary Saturday night banquet, it wasn't any different from our usual editors' conference.

Still, 15 years is a milestone for any magazine, and it seems appropriate to look back at how the magazine was founded, how it has grown, and how it has changed. Fifteen years is a long time, long enough for international communism to change from an enormous organized threat to human liberty to a bad joke, long enough for George W. Bush to change from a party-loving businessman prospering on government subsidy to the head of the government itself, long enough for Bill Clinton to grow from being governor of a small state to president of the United States to the most embarrassing ex-president in our nation's history, long enough for the Libertarian Party to change from a party that had lost four presidential elections by large margins to one that has lost eight by even larger margins, long enough for me to change from a vigorous dark-haired 30-something to a gray-haired 50-something, long enough for Elizabeth Merritt to grow from a precocious 6-year-old girl to a precocious 21-year-old managing editor.

It's also long enough for a magazine to grow from a fledgling bimonthly with a circulation of barely 1,000 to a well-established monthly read by tens of thousands. That's what I'm writing about here: what we were trying to do, where we succeeded and where we failed, and where things turned out differently from what we had expected.

A Gleam in the Eye

Sometime in the mid-1970s, I began to think that the world needed a magazine that offered analysis of the political and economic situation from an unapologetically libertarian perspective, discussion of serious intellectual issues — including political philosophy, economic theory, political strategy — and commentary and reviews of a broader cultural nature than any libertarian or libertarian-oriented magazine had ever offered. I was, at the time, mired in the world of business, working over 80 hours each week, so the magazine I was thinking about remained nothing more than a gleam in my eye for the next several years.

By 1980, my success as an entrepreneur had enabled me to retire and turn my energy to ends other than making money and I naturally began to think more seriously about Liberty. But it took me several years to extricate myself sufficiently from the business enterprise I had started, and there were personal matters to attend to as well. I continued to develop a business plan for the hypothetical journal, but it was 1985 before I felt ready to try to complete the plan and begin to implement it.

From the very beginning, I discussed my proposal with two people who are still intimately involved with Liberty: Stephen Cox, whom had been a close friend since my undergraduate days and was by now a professor of English literature at the University of California, and my wife Kathleen. It is not the slightest exaggeration to say that Liberty would never have existed, much less blossomed into the magazine you hold in your hands today, if both hadn't provided their formidable critical intelligence and just plain hard work to our effort. For more than 15 years, Kathy, Steve, and I have been the bedrock of the enterprise, people who could count on each other to do what needed to be done.

The next person I recruited was Murray Rothbard. At the time, Rothbard was perhaps the most influential living participant in the libertarian movement. He was a first-rate writer who devoted incredible energy to shaping libertarian opinion. He had formerly been associated with both Reason and the Cato Institute, but his querulousness had resulted in his being cut adrift. I thought he might be looking for an outlet for his writing. I sent him a letter outlining my plan, and he quickly agreed to come on board.

The next person to join our effort was Timothy Virkkala, a young Oregon "book junkie" and libertarian, at the time an obviously underemployed gas station attendant. I hired him as my personal assistant, and soon he was helping with Liberty's development.

The next two people I recruited were prominent figures in two very different fields. Doug Casey was (and remains) a prominent investment analyst, who had recently published the best-selling financial advice book in history. Ross Overbeek was a leading computer scientist, though a few years later, he turned his considerable intellectual energy to genetics. Liberty had never been thought of as a strictly political magazine, and Casey and Overbeek brought a wider perspective and expertise.

The first issue of Liberty appeared on July 5, 1987. Today's reader would have no trouble recognizing it. Its cover featured a larger logo and less color than today's, but it was still basically the same. Its masthead listed the names of eight individuals, six of whom are still there for this issue. It was enlivened by wonderful cartoons by Rex F. May, whose work continues to delight our readers. It concluded with a page of "Terra Incognita," the absurd news clips that still remind us that life is real, and not entirely earnest.

The best laid schemes o' mice and men . . .

On page 4, there appeared Liberty's first and only editorial, titled "Why Liberty?" It was mostly the portion of Liberty's business plan that today might be called its "mission statement." It began by asking "Does the world really need another libertarian magazine?" and surveying existing libertarian publications. It concluded that all were either outreach publications, house organs, or scholarly journals, and that none of them "offer[ed] the kind of lively, provocative analysis that the intelligent libertarian craves." It went on to spell out our intentions (see "Liberty's Mission Statement" below). It was signed by all five editors.

The first few issues of Liberty pretty much reflected this agenda. We published, for example, important original research on Ayn Rand, at the time the most powerful influence on libertarian thinking. We looked back at the origin of the contemporary libertarian movement and at a pioneer leader who moved underground, literally, to avoid the state. We challenged the fundamentals of libertarian ethical thinking in a controversial essay parodically supporting Robert Nozick's using rent controls to extort money from his landlord. We looked at the libertarian implications of the then-nascent micro-computer revolution. We offered independent analysis and commentary about the Libertarian Party, something which virtually no other publication was doing.

But things didn't work out as we planned for long.

. . . gang aft agley

The first major change in editorial policy occurred quickly. Shortly after publishing our second issue, we did a reader survey. We asked our readers to rate how well they liked various kinds of articles we'd published. The highest ranked kind of article was "analysis of current events." Second was "articles that analyze public policy." This was a huge surprise to us because at this point we had never published any articles analyzing public policy and the only thing we'd ever published about current events was our analysis of what was going on within the Libertarian Party.

We discussed this at some length, and hypothesized that many of our readers were telling us that what they'd like to see in Liberty was analysis of current events and public policy. Our original business plan specifically called for Liberty to refrain from publishing anything on public policy, on the theory that other libertarian publications, notably Reason (whose editor called it a "policy magazine") and the Cato Institute's publications were doing plenty of good work in this area. But it was plain that our readers wanted public policy analysis, and we decided to provide it, though we also insisted on publishing only the most interesting and best-written policy analysis we could find. This remains our standard to this day.

The same was true with commentary on current events. We had originally planned to limit our commentary to topics of special interest to libertarians — that is, to subjects about which our libertarian readers would have trouble finding commentary published elsewhere. Plainly our readers wanted more, and we intended to give them what they wanted. .

We quickly found that such commentary often could not be expressed in article-length features. So in the final issue of our first year, we inaugurated Reflections as a front-of-the-book feature, consisting of commentaries long and short. It immediately became the most popular and widely read portion of the magazine, a position it has never lost.

There was another important development that motivated us to publish more commentary about current events. In late 1987, I met Bill Kelsey, a magazine distributor, at a conference. He told me that he thought Liberty would sell just fine on newsstands. This dumbfounded me: I had assumed that a magazine of such radical libertarian sentiment would have little appeal to general readers. But I figured he knew his market better than I did, so I went along with his suggestion that we print an extra 500 copies of our third issue and ship them to him. To my further surprise, he sold over 90% of those copies.

We didn't have any idea what it was about Liberty that appealed to newsstand browsers, but we figured that they were probably more interested in current events or public policy than in say, the arcana of libertarian theory or the goings-on inside the Libertarian Party. Consequently, we have tended to feature more current events and public policy material on our cover and early in the magazine while putting inside-the-beltway libertarian material later, in the features section.

Overshooting our targets

Our failure to anticipate the excellent newsstand sales that Liberty has enjoyed was far from the only non-editorial aspect of our original plan that altered our perspective. We originally figured that the number of libertarians who would subscribe to a genuinely intellectual magazine was around 2,000, so we set a circulation target at that level. It turned out that demand for Liberty was much greater: we exceeded this target before our sixth issue was published. We revised our business plan accordingly, and have expanded our subscription base.

Alas, the increased revenue from increased circulation did not show up on our bottom line, because our costs also rose. One factor was inflation. The cost of everything — especially postage, printing, and the salaries paid to our small staff — escalated, and we were reluctant to raise the magazine's price. Liberty's cover price of $4.00 has never changed, and during our first twelve years as a bimonthly, our subscription price rose only once and by a very small amount. When we converted to monthly publication, we raised the subscription rate from $19.50 to $29.50 — which had the effect of lowering the per copy cost from $3.25 to $2.45. We also found it necessary to add to our staff, simply because the amount of labor needed to handle our burgeoning circulation increased.

But another major factor was that we underestimated how much quality writing we could find. Our original plan called for publishing six issues of averaging 40 pages each per year. Our first two issues had 48 pages, our third had 56 pages, our fourth and fifth had 64 pages, and our sixth had 80 pages. During the next few years we averaged more than 72 pages per issue. Printing and mailing longer issues costs more money.

Resisting temptation

If we are to believe what is published in trade journals about magazine publishing, the past decade and a half have been terrible for magazine publishing, with both subscriber and newsstand sales declining and advertising revenues down. The advice most often given to magazine publishers to fight this trend is simple: attract more readers with shorter articles, more pictures, glossier look, and more color. The theory is that in this age of remote controls for changing channels, people just don't have the attention spans they once had. The poster child for this formula is USA Today.

Anyone who compares Reason magazine as published in 2001 to Reason as published in 1987 can plainly see the change, which has become even more evident since Reason's most recent makeover. And the trend continues: Rolling Stone just announced an editorial change that The New York Times describes as signalling "the end of Rolling Stone's history as a publisher of epic narratives and literary journalism." No longer will it publish the work of writers like P.J. O'Rourke, Tom Wolfe, and Hunter S. Thompson. "Many editors have concluded," the Times reports, "that words in magazines are often beside the point." Now what's in are "funny charts, outrageous photos and articles that are little more than captions on pictures." Rolling Stone's publisher thinks this is the result of the explosion of new media: "Back when Rolling Stone was publishing these 7,000 word stories, there was no CNN, no Internet. And now you can travel instantaneously around the globe, and you don't need those long stories to get up to speed.".

I disagree. While the number of people who read may very well be declining, we at Liberty think that there remains a very substantial market for the kind of good writing that we publish. And we aim to serve that market. .

I think the fact that we continue to provide quality writing may explain our success in newsstand sales, which are generally evaluated in terms of their "sell-through," that is, the percentage of copies distributed to newsstands that actually sell at retail. So far as we are able to determine, Liberty has the highest sell-through of any magazine of its kind. Until 1998, every publication mailed in the U.S. was required to make a public report that included data from which one can easily calculate sell-through, and in every year for which we have found data, Liberty's sell-through has been higher than that of any magazine. For years, our sell-through was over 80%, while none of our competitors even managed to reach 50%. As is the case with other periodicals, our sell-through has fallen off in recent years, in what is generally considered a very bad market for newsstand sales. Even so, as far as we can determine our sell-through remains much higher than that of any competitor.

A fundamental policy

One other aspect of Liberty has never changed, and I hope never will. Liberty is an independent publication, unaffiliated with any other organization or institution. We feel free to publish opinions that are unpopular with any other libertarian entity. Our editorial standard remains the same as it was on the day we began: Liberty publishes good writing of interest to intelligent libertarians. We do not care whom we offend. More than once I've taken angry phone calls from the heads of other libertarian organizations. I always try to be polite and understanding, but I never apologize or promise to tone down future articles. Among those offended by this open policy is me: Liberty frequently publishes writing that I strongly disagree with.

This is not necessarily the policy with other libertarian periodicals. One of Liberty's contributing editors once told me that when he worked for another libertarian magazine, staffers discussed among themselves whether a particular submission followed the "KL," which was an abbreviation for the "korrect line." The editor of another libertarian publication once told me that he considered himself the libertarian movement's biggest expert on foreign policy, and would never publish anything on foreign policy that did not agree with his beliefs. This sort of policy impoverishes any magazine.

Our open editorial policy was the reason that our "Why Liberty?" editorial concluded with a description of each of its editors. We wanted to make it plain that we not only brought very different life experiences to Liberty — we also brought different fundamental political beliefs:.

The bases of our libertarianisms vary as well: One of us (Rothbard) is a leading advocate of Natural Rights philosophy, three of us (Cox, Overbeek and Bradford) are Classical Liberals more or less in the utilitarian tradition, and one of us (Casey) is an anarchist in the neo-Objectivist tradition of the Tannehills.

We acknowledge our differences of experience, of orientation, of approach. In the pages of Liberty we expect we will often disagree, and sometimes disagree with vigor.

But all of us agree on two points:.

1. We believe that the role of government in people's lives should be radically reduced or eliminated altogether (thus we are libertarians);.
2. We believe that libertarians need an "inreach" journal — a periodical in which to sort out their differences, share their thinking, etc.

That is why we publish Liberty.

The business of Liberty

Liberty has undergone one important change that I haven't mentioned yet. When Liberty was launched, it was operated as part of an existing business wholly owned by me. I realized that most intellectual magazines and virtually all libertarian magazines were operated as nonprofits, but operating it as part of my business made it possible for me to write off any losses against the profits made by the other business activities, and it just seemed simpler to operate it that way.

My opinion was reinforced by a conversation I had with Bob Poole shortly after we started publishing, when he was still the editor and publisher of Reason. We were at a convention and there wasn't much going on and we got to chatting. I asked him how he spent a typical day. To my surprise, he told me that he spent most of his time applying for grants and dealing with donors. This didn't seem like much fun to me. And I figured that I really didn't want to edit or publish a magazine that was dependent on donors — I valued Liberty's editorial independence so highly that I didn't even want to be tempted to allow donors to influence it.

And these threats are real. More than one head of a libertarian nonprofit has told me of attempts — some successful — by major donors to get him to change what the nonprofit publishes. I'd like to think that I would have the backbone to stand up against such pressure, even if it means a substantial loss of revenue. But I don't think that anyone can ever know how he'd react in such a situation, and I really don't want even to face such a quandary myself.

Suggestions that Liberty go nonprofit continued — and there were many, including one from the head of a libertarian nonprofit who told me that I could earn a six-figure salary if I'd go nonprofit and seek funding from the sources that fund other libertarian nonprofits.

I resisted whatever temptation this might have been. But in 1993, I donated the magazine to a nonprofit corporation because I was tired of paying outrageously high postage rates. Postage is a magazine's single biggest expense, and the lower rates offered to nonprofits would enable us to expand our circulation substantially. (In fact, our circulation nearly doubled in the following two years.)

Since then we have done a single annual solicitation of donations from our readers, and three individuals have at one time or another made substantial donations. Because we believe our editorial independence should not be endangered by donations, we have used these generous gifts to finance non-core activities, such giving Liberty subscriptions to libraries or to young libertarian scholars, or improving our website. (I am happy to say that no donor has ever hinted at an attempt to influence any editorial matter. I think donors understand our inflexibility on this point.)This helps make Liberty unique among political publications. Indeed, there is a certain sense in which Liberty is extraordinary among all publications.

A different kind of magazine

In the magazine business, publications are generally divided into two categories: circulation-driven and advertising-driven. Circulation-driven magazines are those whose primary source of revenue is sale of the magazine — for example, supermarket tabloids and most newsletters. Advertising-driven magazines are those whose primary source of income is advertising; examples include virtually all daily newspapers, consumer magazines, and trade publications.

But there is another category, one into which nearly all political and intellectual magazines fit: donor-driven magazines — that is, magazines whose primary source of revenue is donations, sometimes from a broad number of individuals, sometimes from a single wealthy donor, sometimes from foundations. I cannot think of a single libertarian publication besides Liberty that isn't in this category.

So what drives Liberty? I think it fits into yet another category, one that it has pretty much to itself. Liberty is writer-driven. We manage to publish a good magazine through the generosity of our writers and our contributing editors, virtually all of whom contribute their efforts without financial remuneration. Indeed, at the present time, Liberty has only a single paid employee.

In theory at least, Liberty will eventually pay its other staffers. But I have yet to collect a dollar from Liberty for the 15 years I've worked here full-time, and while Liberty theoretically rents office space from a building I own, so far it hasn't actually got around to paying any rent.

And that's just fine with me. I'd rather be beholden to our writers, whose work graces our pages, and to our readers, who fork over $29.50 per year, and to those (like me) who make modest donations, than to other nonprofits or to major donors.

Our writers — from intellectual giants like Thomas Szasz to bestselling authors like Doug Casey to subscribers who are inspired to write something extraordinary for us — are happy to be paid in the satisfaction of helping make Liberty the kind of magazine it is. So is Steve Cox, who not only contributes a tremendous amount of excellent writing, but also edits (somebody has to be able to reject writing by me!), advises — and helps in a million ways. So is Kathy Bradford, who takes care of the thankless job of seeing that bills are paid, government forms are filled out, proof-reading corrections are entered, and does another million tasks, great and small. So is Jim Switz, who finds time to manage our database. And so am I.

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Liberty's Mission Statement We propose to publish Liberty as a journal produced by libertarians for libertarians, a journal with the space and inclination to discuss issues that interest libertarians, written from an unapologetically libertarian perspective. We propose to publish lively discussions of these sorts of issues: the intellectual and psychological roots of libertarianism and of the hostility to liberty. the sort of society that libertarianism entails. cultural, social and historical matters from a libertarian perspective. the tactics and strategies of those libertarians seeking to libertarianize the world, as well as the strategy and tactics of those who believe in allowing the world to go its own way. the origin and history of the libertarian movement. We seek to publish uninhibited discussions of these issues, without feeling any need to soft pedal libertarianism or to outline or defend the precepts of libertarianism (except for challenges from within). We seek a periodical that will discuss whatever interests the intelligent, thoughtful libertarian, without feeling any need to apologize for our beliefs or to placate nonlibertarians. We seek a periodical that does not soft-pedal libertarianism one whit.

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