Among Ourselves
by Katrina Gulliver
In relaunching The Freeman for readers both new and old, we’ve wanted to bring to our audience a range of economics, culture, and politics, and also, more importantly, to introduce our smart writers to a new crowd.
We came out of the gate in June with an essay from Allen Mendenhall on “What the Market Really Means”: “The market, in its fullest expression, is nothing less than the vast constellation of voluntary exchanges undertaken by acting agents pursuing their respective goals.”
What we have here is a voluntary exchange of ideas between willing participants. In addition to Allen, among our regulars you’ll find Erik Matson, economist, Nicole James, cultural commentator, and Roberto Salinas, a leading voice of liberty in Latin America.
In the ’50s, our editorials often began with “Among Ourselves.” So, just between us, I’ve been thrilled to be running this publication so far, and to have seen our explosive growth even in these first few months.
In July, Nancy Rommelmann gave us her story of setting up a media company during COVID:
It would seem an ideal opportunity to throw open the windows and let in fresh air, an opportunity not taken by the MSM, which pitches hard right or hard left, depending on what they believe will best keep their audience frothing, a condition a cynical person might suggest they’ve incanted just for the moment we are about to come in for.
(And speaking of COVID, we just ran a blockbuster piece by Phil Magness reflecting on the Great Barrington Declaration.)
In August, Johan Norberg wrote about The Freeman’s influence on him in 1990s Sweden. As he wrote: “The Freeman also connected us to something bigger: an intellectual heritage we had barely glimpsed.”
We ran a series of pieces on the family, including Rachel Lu on a better pronatalism and Shelby Kearns on medical freedom.
Magic Wade’s magisterial study on gun violence in America challenged mainstream narratives.
Lauren Kim wrote on the contradictions of French liberty, Will Ogilvie admitted that everyone is stupid, and I bade farewell to AOL dial-up.
We have also highlighted our connection to The Freeman’s heritage, by running classic essays from the print magazine. Max Eastman’s “What to Call Yourself” seems to be just as relevant today as it was when it was first written.
By covering such a range of topics, we want to keep our readers engaged and thinking about different ideas on society and culture. So thank you for being here and joining us.
Readers have sent notes about how much they value our proposition, and have signed up to pay—even though you don’t have to. Everything here is free, but any paid subscription does help us continue the work that we do.
If you jumped on right at the start, thank you for sticking around; and if you just got here, we hope we can convince you to stay.
Katrina Gulliver is Editorial Director at FEE and editor of the Freeman. She holds a PhD from Cambridge University, and has held faculty positions at universities in Germany, Britain and Australia. She has written for the Wall St Journal, Reason, The American Conservative, National Review and the New Criterion, among others.