40 Years of Free Minds and Free Markets

An oral history of reason

Brian Doherty from the December 2008 issue

(Page 10 of 10)

The optimism that’s part of my worldview and that of the magazine comes from a deep appreciation that freedom wins, but it can win faster or slower. For example, the Communications Decency Act in ’96 would have choked off the Internet, turned it into a fourth broadcast network subject to bullshit regulation, with the cooperation of both Democrats and Republicans. If courts hadn’t struck that down, we’d be in a much shittier place—but it would still be better than if there wasn’t an Internet.

Postrel: I would say that things improved from '89 to '99. reason became much more visible, the staff became more visible, but ultimately I don’t think I succeeded. I succeeded in putting together a good staff and a good magazine and doing interesting journalism and in a few issues having an effect on what happened in the world. But I don’t think reason during my tenure ever made it into the short list of serious magazines that people take seriously, and the easiest piece of evidence is when The Future and Its Enemies [her first book] was not reviewed in The New York Times or TheWashington Post.

Gillespie: When I took over there was this explosion not only of alt media but “alternativeness” in American culture, and everything about individuation and proliferation was big. reason was able to reconnect with an earlier sense of being alternative in a world where being alternative was the baseline condition. As a result we got great props from publications like National Journal, The Washington Post—the same way everyone wanted to be a WASP 50 years ago, now everyone wanted to be alternative, and libertarianism brought something new and fun to the table, not burdened by the historical stupidities of the left or the mean-spirited small-mindedness of the right. It offered this open-ended vision of the future.

Another sign that we were reaching people on a higher level, an experience that was both exhilarating and dispiriting, was at the American Enterprise Institute dinner in 2001. I went to introduce myself to Karl Rove, but before I could finish saying my name he said, “You’re with reason. I read it all the time. I just sent in my change of address card to Mt. Morris, Illinois.”

I thought it was great to have the ear of this guy who was a main adviser in a new administration that promised to cut the size and scope of government and push a humble foreign policy. For a while I was thinking it was cool that what we were writing was read at the highest levels of power. Then I realized early on in the administration that either Rove stopped reading reason or he didn’t understand what we were saying.

Machan: Essentially we embarked on a Commentary-like magazine that turned out to be more of a Wired-like magazine. I now call it the hip-hop magazine of libertarianism. It has an emphasis on a certain kind of light-hearted cleverness that didn’t use to be there. I admit it may very well have been market-driven. It’s one thing to say I am displeased, another to say it shouldn’t have gone that way.

Klausner: reason has evolved. It has gotten far greater stature and impact and quality. But what we have shed that makes me a little uneasy is that the magazine is less movement-oriented. We covered the Harry Browne [Libertarian Party presidential] candidacy [in 1996]. The nonlibertarian press covered Harry Browne with far more sympathetic and supportive journalism than we did. I think treating the L.P. as if it were any other party is not fair to this, not embryonic, but undercapitalized party. I think as an ideological magazine we should know who our friends are and who our enemies are and not use the same standard. We should be respectful of people on our side of the debate. We can accentuate the positive.

Machan: The only regret I have is I was eventually cast aside by the Nick Gillespie crowd completely, so they didn’t even review any books of mine, ran no letters to the editor. I thought some personnel became what I refer to as the “loft crowd”—the people who like loft parties and always dressed Hollywood-like. There was a big change in style.

Matt Welch was a staff writer from 2004 to 2005, then became editor in chief in 2008.

Matt Welch: When I wrote my book about John McCain [McCain: The Myth of a Maverick], I was still working at the Los Angeles Times. But the news organization I praised effusively in the first paragraph of the book was reason, for being the best and most consistently interesting political magazine out there. And I think that even more now that I’m back!

As I was planning my return to reason, I was also in a position to be offered a job being op-ed editor of the Los Angeles Times, and that offer did happen a few months later. When I announced to my colleagues at the Times that reason had offered me a job as editor in chief, unanimously, everyone said: “That’s great! You should go.”

That’s a great sign of how far the magazine has progressed, in terms of quality of course, but also reputationally. Media professionals recognized that it’s better to be editor of reason than op-ed editor of a major U.S. newspaper. That’s something you couldn’t say in 1968. I think it’s a real testament to the ethos of Nick Gillespie in large part and also to the staff of weirdos that he and Virginia Postrel assembled over the past two decades.

Poole: What we’ve done with the magazine and with the Reason Foundation was directly inspired by Tibor and me being really energized by reading Rand at an early age. And Rand’s vision that you have to change the minds before you can change the policies was a big part of the animating vision for why we thought a magazine that promoted individualism and liberty and the ideas of the Enlightenment in a modern and hip way would be a vehicle for that kind of change—changing minds first, thus laying the preconditions for political change.

My views are modified by our success in the political arena. I learned you don’t have to convert everyone to being libertarians to get important free market changes implemented. I think our ideas are better than centralized, collectivist ideas, and to the extent that’s true and we can demonstrate it, people don’t have to buy the whole package. We’ve seen successes in selling things like road pricing, privatization, on the terms that they offer real benefits and people can adopt them without sharing our views on other things. But it takes a combination; it’s still important to do that sort of mind changing, but you don’t have to change the whole culture to make a positive difference.

I’m surprised how many people quietly tell me, “I’m really libertarian; I love that magazine of yours.” It’s also definitely true I encounter lots of people in the policy world who know the magazine and read it but don’t think of themselves as libertarians. Part of the measure of our success is we can reach people even if they don’t buy the whole package.

Senior Editor Brian Doherty ([e-mail]) is the author of Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement (PublicAffairs).

Comments

Lefiti|11.17.08 @ 12:21PM|#

But this marginal right-wing shit doesn't sell very well. Donate now!

Lefiti|11.17.08 @ 12:22PM|#

My breath smells like cat food! Donate now!

Lefiti|11.17.08 @ 12:33PM|#

I have not posted on this thread yet, you circle-jerkers!

Franklin Harris|11.17.08 @ 12:40PM|#

Oliver: An example I recall of how reason was breaking into a more mainstream thing: I was watching Cinemax, one of those late-night films with Shannon Tweed. She played a psychiatrist. In a scene to demonstrate how brainy she was, she was carrying a couple of magazines, and the one on top was reason. That was the early '90s.

"Indecent Behavior" (1993), I think. Or possibly one of the sequels.

|11.17.08 @ 12:42PM|#

40 years. Wow. And to think that in all that time you've achieved nothing. Time for plan B.

|11.17.08 @ 12:44PM|#

The Spreading Circle of Campus Terror

Now THAT's what I'm talking about. Get an editor with some Rick James in him.

Leftitti|11.17.08 @ 12:54PM|#

I'm a Unitard!

|11.17.08 @ 1:00PM|#

My breath smells like cat food! Donate now!

Whoever is spoofing Lefiti, you aren't very good at it. Everyone knows Lefiti's breath smells like Sterno and Milk Bones.

TallDave|11.17.08 @ 1:02PM|#

I like to think that fist is punching a socialist.

the innominate one|11.17.08 @ 1:21PM|#

Everyone knows Lefiti's breath smells like Sterno and Milk Bones.

no, no, no. Everyone knows lefiti's breath smells like santorum. I saw it written on the men's room wall, and that's confirmation enough for me.

the innominate one|11.17.08 @ 1:23PM|#

hmmm, for some reason the server squirrels are inserting their own html into my hyperlink to www.spreadingsantorum.com

|11.17.08 @ 1:24PM|#

Ok, on a serious note.

I enjoyed this article. As someone who discoved Reason when I went to college in the early 80s (and soon subscribed starting in the mid-80s), I'll been trying to build up a collection of them. Back in the 80s they used to sell back issues (either originals or xerox copies), but I was too poor to get them. I've been getting a few off ebay (including a dozen or so from the first 5 years or so).

I really wish Reason would do something I've seen a few other mags have done: make available a CD or DVD of ALL their back issues scanned into PDF. If such was made available for a reasonable cost, I'd get it.

(on a related note, I've been trying to get back issues of Inquiry, and recently put together a complete set of Liberty, thanks to their recent back issue blowout. I was also lucky to score off eBay the hardcopy of Liberatarian Forum in 2 volumes put out by the Ludwig von Mises Institue.)

NoStar|11.17.08 @ 1:32PM|#

As a sometimes subscriber going back to the early to mid seventies, this article brought back many fond memories.

|11.17.08 @ 2:44PM|#

... more people than ever recognize that top-down planning by force isn't the best way to run the world.

If by that you mean, "people keep turning out in droves to vote for politicians who take away our freedom", then sure.

Not That Michael|11.17.08 @ 2:45PM|#

I would be absolutely thrilled if reason brought back whatever designers were responsible for those incredible early covers from the mag's inception up until around '77. At least make the images in the website's cover archive able to be enlarged. Wow.

Andy|11.17.08 @ 4:44PM|#

You guys did help in my conversion. Unfortunately, the comments threads tend to help my deconversion lol. Also, I have no power whatsoever. I shudder to think how many Democrats in my age group have been created from the combination of Bush's incompetence and Obama's charisma. You've got your work cut out for you.

stay classy reason.

File under \"S\" for Subject-h|11.17.08 @ 4:48PM|#

"able to be enlarged. Wow."

|11.17.08 @ 9:47PM|#

Libertarianism minus Ayn Rand equals kooky lightweights.

|11.17.08 @ 9:58PM|#

I have subscribed, on and off, to reason for most of its history. One of the best reasons to subscribe to the print edition now is so that you'll have something to read when you're forced to step away from the computer and go to the bathroom.

SIV|11.17.08 @ 11:32PM|#

"Lefiti" at 12:21 FTW

An excellent article but you should have included some thoughts from former intern Taranto

the innominate one|11.18.08 @ 12:49AM|#

An excellent article but you should have included some thoughts from former intern Taranto

AKA SIV?

leviramsey|11.18.08 @ 1:22AM|#

Now I know where Howard Stern got his fist logo from...

Death to tyrants|11.27.08 @ 11:15AM|#

End the fed!