We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata quote of the day I tend to have a “half empty” view of the world – but even I do not believe that the British population contains no pro freedom people. Indeed I believe that there are millions of pro freedom people in Britain – and basically the British book trade was telling us all to bugger off, that we were not welcome in the book shops.
Well we got the message – it is not all “the internet” that is the reason for the decline of the British book trade, basically they were telling non-socialists that our custom was not wanted.
– Paul Marks
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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US Exhibit A: Borders Books. Bye Bye!
To those who say “but Paul, most visits to book shops are for non political books….”
I agree with you.
However, there is such a thing as “atmosphere”.
If one visits a place where pro Obama books (or works by “Vince” Cable or whatever) are pushed in your face and books that dissent are hidden away (or are not there at all) then there is a hostile atmosphere created for people who do not see the world from that side of the political divide.
Even if one has entered the book shop to look in the cookery section, or the travel section, or the fantasy section – or with no clear aim (just “having a look” in a way that is nice to do as one walks along).
So one leaves the shop – and learns not to enter such shops.
Also political opinions can hit a lot more than what political books are pushed (and which are not).
It can hit the economics section, or the history section, or even the fiction section (with new works by writers who do not “fit” not pushed – or not even there). It can certainly hit books on travel and on entertainment – again it is the “feel” (the “atmosphere”) of these sections…..
Of course not everyone who is involved in this thinks they are biased, but then neither does Rowen Williams – or the Bishop of Leicester, who I just heard saying how “balanced” and “even handed” Rowen Williams was.
A few Christmases back our local bookshop had a whole raft of anti-Bush books in the front window.
I didn’t get upset. I didn’t feel that soon to be ex-president Bush particularly needed my protection. I just walked on by.
I won’t even claim it led to my making permanent boycott; as it happened I needed a book in a hurry a while later and that shop was handy. I also took a look at its closing down sale.
Here in NZ the bookshop bias is very visible in the SF section, with virtually no representation of writers such as Heinlein, Pournelle, or any of the Baen writers for that matter (except Anne McCaffrey’s dragon fantasy, which is published elsewhere).
Hell, even Orson Scott Card is hard to find!
To be fashionable you have to adhere to the elite-controlled, within-the-pale, mindset (narrative, meta-context) or you have no place.
The narrative has been so well established that I notice most commentators in MSM take the “difference of views” between Rowen Williams and David Cameron seriously.
Cameron, naughty man, is depriving all the needy says Williams. Williams does not understand we must save Brtitain, says Cameron.
Cameron’s cuts? Yes, well, he may have cut out some meat to make a few people scream, but fat? Puleeze, as my Jewish NY-born neighbour would say.
It’s the elite con show. All about sustaining the narrative. Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
And the narrative has to be fashionably left wing or you are an extremist!!
Truth is an extreme when falsehood occupies the centre ground of consensus.
That people believe and live this stuff is truly scary.
It is one of the reasons I fear that man’s rationality is not enough to save us from ourselves.
It seems we just ain’t up to it.
Way back in 2001 – at Books Etc on Islington Green – I foolishly sought a copy of Theodore Dalrymple’s ‘Life At The Bottom’. Amazon already had the lion’s share of my business by that time and after the debacle of ‘Searching For Dalrymple’ they had all of it.
Little did I know, at the time, that the good Dr.Daniels had had to approach American publishers for his works.
Maybe it’s not political bias but normal commercial practice. Merchants display their wares in the manner that produces most sales.
Maybe there aren’t that many buyers interested in libertarian books.
have you actually been reading the thread? Who is talking about just ‘libertarian’ books? Conservatives books also get the short end.
As a bookseller in a thriving independent bookshop I can say that this view is not yet omnipresent. We stock a range of books from Booker’s ‘Real Global Warming Disaster’ to ‘Atlas Shrugged’, as well as the odd copy of Blair or Cable (we don’t sell many, partly because we never display them, partly because they’re available at 50% off or more in the likes of WH Smith.)
We’re situated in a rural, affluent area, so perhaps it’s easier to be more conservative in our choice that most places, but we’re going from strength to strength because of it.
I should say, however, that we never make customers feel unwelcome, no matter what their political leanings. That way is simply business suicide. The customer might not always be right, but if they want to spend money in my bookshop then I’m not going to tell them they’re wrong.
Jacob – the ways of the book trade (from what books are pushed in the stores to the love-ins at lefty publishing events) do not seem to have much to do with making money.
“A man is seldom so innocently engaged as when is after money” – Dr Johnson. People are often not so innocently engaged (they are after all sorts of other things).
And, in reality, whether it be shop assistants or the Managering Director, the book trade is full of university folk who take what might be called the “Miller line” .
I refer to the letter Miller sent to Crouch (then head of the University of Chicago Press) about Hayek’s “Road To Serfdom”.
Miller hoped (indeed assumed) that Crouch would not publish the book – after all the “distiquished house I represent” had not published the book which, of course,would “sell very well” (for a book to “sell very well” was not considered a positive thing).
Well Crouch did not play ball – in fact not only did he publish “Road To Serfdom” he published Miller’s letter as well (in “Freeman” magazine – in an article called “The Sacred Bookburners”). Oh no! He violated Miller’s privacy (well no more invitations to elite social events for Crouch).
There was minor scandal and it helped new conservative publishing houses develop.
Sadly the book trade in Britain was just as leftist – but more subtle (not so blatent). So the magic circle of elite (and leftist) publishers and so on is stronger than ever.
Would a book like Hartley’s “Facial Justice” even get published today? It certainly would not get pushed in the shops.
Even in the literary histories (when writers like Hartley are remembered at all – normally, regardless of sales, as soon as conservative writer dies the literary establishment shove them down the Memory Hole, they are not taught in the universities, so memory of them goes) declare Facial Justice was “a satire on the medical profession” (actually, of course, it is a satire on “Social Justice”).
“But Paul – such an attitude would cost them money”.
Yes Jacob – that was exactly my point.
Want an example that puts the matter beyond reasonable doubt?
Yale University Press was obliged to produce the second edition of Ludwig Von Mises’ “Human Action”. The first edition having been published by Yale in 1949 (I used to have a copy of the first edition – silly me for lending it to someone….).
They knew the second edition would likely sell well (because of the success of the first edition) and although the head of the press had moved on, they could not get out of publishing the second edition.
So what did they do?
Simple – the published, full of spelling errors, and grammatical mistakes (and so on).
Basically it looked as if the book had been written by me – not by Ludwig Von Mises.
Oh yes – they PUT all the errors and mess ups in their (to reduce sales of the book – to make it vile).
They did that cold bloodely and with full knowledge it would cost them money.
If the elite will do that – then “spiking” a book (rejecting the work from publication – or not pushing it) is easy – second nature to them (indeed first nature to them).
It was the same with Hollywood scripts in the 1930s.
Or did you not know that it was the LEFT that invented “black lists”?
What was done in the early 1950s was a half hearted (and short lived) fight back against the left.
Hollywood studios will make and push any film that will make money, is a hopelessly innocent view of the film business.
Just as publishers and book chains will publish and push any book that will sell well – is a hopelessly innocent view of the book trade.
The best one can say for them is as follows…
Sometimes it is not deliberate – not a knowing effort to cost themselves (or rather the stockholders – because the employees of the company lose nothing, at least in the short term, by their actions) money.
Sometimes they just think “would I like this book” (or film or ……) and decide “no – therefore, no one else would like it”.
It was not “incompetent” Alisa (or rather Henry Hazlitt) the leftist scumbags were doing it on purpose.
However, in 1963 people were still innocent of the nature of the left.
For example, the “Free Speech movement” (busy destroying books they did not agree with, and shouting down speakers they did not want to be heard) had not really started yet.
Today people would not be stupid enough to hand over such a book to a publisher without first checking on the political opinions of the staff.
Just as today one is not surprised when an organization called “Free Press” turns out to be working crush political dissent (“Free Press” being an openly Marxist organization founded by University of Wisconsin people – many of whose key staff have gone on to work in the Obama Administration).
But 1963 was a more innocent time.
Portland, Oregon. Our flagship bookstore, Powells, is huge and pretty mad left. Specializes in left, green, bikes, heroism of marginalized, and erotica.
Powell’s website review and info of Michael Yon’s first book on Iraq was enlightening. It marketed it as Sergent Rock comic book material, then it scrubbed that nonsense and put in a review for a completely different book. Yon’s work is a classic story of war – Powells absolutely failed to give it respect and treated it as an object of fun and scorn. Just one example of many.
ABE Books for me now, always.
I have a copy of the 1963 edition of Human Action. The previous owner did a good job of correcting the mistakes with the errata sheets that were put out by Yale U. Press, but the arbitrary boldface and missing headers are still pretty obvious. Does anyone know how I could find out how many copies of the second revised edition were printed by Yale Press? I feel fortunate that my copy was signed by Mises. I wonder what was going through his mind as he signed copies of this mistake laden edition for people?