National Affairs magazine a mind-blowing business decision

Will National Affairs magazine survive the economy?

Times are tough for established newspapers and magazines just trying to stay afloat. Nonetheless, editor Yuval Levin and some gutsy colleagues have started National Affairs magazine, and the first issue printed Monday.

National Affairs is a quarterly magazine meant to continue the work of The Public Interest, a magazine that shut down in 2005.

The public interest

Apparently online loans were no help for The Public Interest, which lasted 40 years, from 1965 to 2005. The Public Interest Closed when the last of the original editors retired. The New York Times says the goal of The Public Interest was to overcome the ideological clashes between socialism and capitalism and focus on an age of consensus with a policy journal that would objectively weigh costs and benefits.

Operating at the crossroads

The New York Times says the first essay in National Affairs magazine focuses on how we can tackle the recession by creating a sustainable middle-class social contract. It weighs the benefits and downsides of both direct democracy and concentrated power.