Free Publication Seeks To Popularize Libertarian Ideas
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
At the height of the political races last summer, the libertarian candidates weren’t getting much press in the daily newspapers in New York. So Jim Lesczynski and the Manhattan Libertarian Party created their own publication, Serf City.
The title is a pun on a Beach Boys song, but also symbolizes the state of affairs in New York City, Mr. Lesczynski said.
“It says “serf” because the government thinks of us citizens as serfs,” he said. “They tax and regulate, running their little feudal system, with Bloomberg as our lord.”
The collection of editorial writings is published “periodically,” and has so far put out two editions, one in August and the latest in January. The next is expected in the middle of April. The paper can be found for free in boxes on street corners around the city. The January edition includes articles on why the United Nations should be kicked out of New York and the “Top Ten Reasons You Should Fear the Transit Searches.”
The ads also have a libertarian spin: One group in the city, New Yorkers for Pleasure Rights, defends prostitution as a necessary human freedom. Another company advertises a Free Enterprise Action Fund, “the mirror image of socially responsible investing,” its founder and director, Steven Milloy, said. The company actively opposes companies with environmental standards and anything that gets in the way of the free market.
Of the Libertarian Party in New York and its 40 dues-paying members, Mr. Lesczynski said: “Obviously, our candidates don’t expect to win … This paper – and the candidates – serve pretty much the same purpose: To introduce and popularize libertarian ideas.”
One New Yorker isn’t very happy about the publication, but not with its the finer points of politics. His phone number was inadvertently listed as the publication’s on the masthead, and so for the last year Stan Fox has been coming to work at Axa Insurance to find menacing messages on his answering machine.
“I guess it’s somewhat amusing,” he said. “They call about the editorials. All I do is say it’s another one of those calls.”
