John Shuttleworth, Founder of Mother Earth News, Interview Part II

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For that reason, we've always worked hard at finding ways to reach what I call "The Great Sleeping Middle Class" ... the people who are still being manipulated into being a market for all the plastic and the electric toothbrushes and the snowmobiles and the chemicals in the food and all the other schlock that's killing the planet and them. 

Take just one of those people out of the big car and off the freeways. Show him how to quit the corporate job he hates and set up a little business of his own down in the basement. Let him discover that he can grow his own vegetables, fruit, sprouts, eggs, milk, and meat in the backyard. Maybe find a way for him to heat the house with the sun and use the wind to run his lights.

Now what have you done? [1] You've given that guy's life back to him and [2] you've lessened the impact on the planet as much as if you had cut the population of India by 50. You have, in short, accomplished exactly what Mother Earth News was created to do. If you can pry that guy's nose out of the TV and get his attention in the first place. And that's what we've tried to do over the years. With a syndicated radio program. And direct mail. And by allowing Mother Earth News to be included in Publisher's Clearing House mailings. And so on.

PLOWBOY: As long as your magazine is represented honestly, in other words, you don't mind getting out and competing for circulation.

SHUTTLEWORTH: We not only don't mind, we feel it's our duty! Listen, our whole system is geared to reward the hard sell. The guy who pushes the most gets the business. Schlock — if it's wrapped in a pretty enough package — will outsell value in a plain, brown wrapper every time. I don't like it. I think it's stupid. I have hopes of changing the situation someday. But that's the way it is now and we might as well make the best of it. The trick is to wrap value in the prettiest package in town and make no apologies for it.

PLOWBOY: I think you've just explained another very important reason for the success of Mother Earth News.

SHUTTLEWORTH: Maybe so. If I've got any complaint to make about some of the good people who've tried to publish an environmental magazine and failed, it's that they were just too darned good for their own good. They were either too gentle to get out in the arena and fight for their ideals, or they somehow thought that such behavior would — in some way — compromise the purity of their cause. Bullcrap!

If your cause is worth organizing, it's worth fighting for. And business — as it's conducted in our so called "free enterprise" system — is nothing but a stylized and thinly disguised battle for the dollar or franc or mark or whatever.

Accept that fact and accept that — right or wrong — this is the only game in town at the present time. And even if you want to change the world over to a completely different game, you're going to have to play this one until the change is at least halfway completed. So you're well-advised to master every honest, legitimate, and effective strategy that works in the game at hand. You're also well-advised to make double damn sure you know what you're talking about before you start screaming "foul" about any of those strategies.

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