A Liberty Primer, 3rd Edition

A wide-​ranging introduction to the ideas of libertarianism.

A
Alan Burris

William Alan Burris attended Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, as a chemistry major at the age of 14. He was awarded his PhD from the University of Florida, and did postdoctoral research as a Fulbright fellow at the University of Paris. Burris founded ALAB LLC to research water purification using ozone. He held 17 patents. Burris was for many years a key activist in the Rochester, New York Libertarian Party.

Lib​er​tar​i​an​ism​.org is extremely pleased to share A Liberty Primer, written by Alan Burris and edited and published by David Hoesly. We are very appreciative that David Hoesly and Alan Burris’s wife have generously made the volume available to Lib​er​tar​i​an​ism​.org for posting on our site.

This volume, first published in a shorter version 1981, provides a comprehensive justification for individual liberty as the basis for morally sound and prosperous societies. The chapters outline key moments in the development and appreciation of liberty, and concise treatment of key topics ranging from the central role of private property rights to monetary theory and inflation, from equality to foreign affairs and defense. Sprinkled throughout the book are compelling dialogues and dramatic exchanges that bring the best libertarian arguments to life. In addition, the volume is a rich compendium of quotations from a vast array of sources ranging from Plato to Thoreau, and from Bastiat to Hayek. Taken together, the reader is offered a superb introduction to mainline libertarianism —accessible for the beginner, but original and compelling enough to engage more experienced readers.

We were very interested to hear about how this unusually rich volume came to be, and David Hoesly provided the below reflections:

Alan Burris first encountered Libertarians at an informational meeting held at one of the members’ homes in Rochester, NY, which were held almost monthly. There was an amusing interaction between Alan and one of our veteran members—a patent attorney—who kept “warning” Alan about Libertarians’ more “radical” views, and Alan kept saying, I know; I understand; where do I sign? He became active immediately, and was soon voted in as vice chair of the Rochester group; David Hoesly was the chair. It was the proverbial marriage made in heaven because Alan was a good strategist, generating ideas, and Hoesly’s long suit was implementation.

One of the activities of the Rochester group was a monthly meeting to write letters-​to-​the-​editors, where a member would bring a trove of clippings of “targets” and members would write about their chosen clipping, with letters being read for mutual benefit before being mailed the next day to several area newspapers.

Alan soon realized that a program of internal education for members, followed by the knowledge and confidence gained would result in more enthusiastic, effective libertarian activists, hastening the restoring and extending of liberty in our country. This led inexorably to the publishing of the first edition of A Liberty Primer.

In July of 1981, the first edition of A Liberty Primer was produced: 58 pages, 8.5x11, duplexed, with card-​stock front and back covers in color. Binding was by a plastic device whose “teeth” curled through 19 rectangular holes in the edges (I don’t know its exact name…). Alan Burris, as the author, wrote the book by hand on legal sheets which were sent by fax to David Hoesly. Hoesly regards himself as the publisher, because he typed up the hand-​written faxes on a machine Xerox developed at the time—the precursor to the PC. (Indeed, Xerox was the inventor of the mouse and the GUI so common on computers today, although Xerox didn’t capitalize on that invention—see the book Fumbling the Future). Hoesly helped with editing, and printed and bound the 100 copies of the first edition.

Given the encouraging response from Rochester-​area Libertarians, Burris & Hoesly decided to do a much-​expanded second edition, which was published in July of 1983. Hoesly produced the camera-​ready copy to be used by the printing house in Michigan, raised the money to publish 5000 trade-​paperback-​sized books of 558 pages, and drove his little red pickup out to southern Michigan to pick up the books.

Alan sent the books out to many lovers of liberty, requesting endorsements, which were provided by, inter alia, Milton Friedman, Libertarian Party (LP) Presidential candidates Ed Clark and Roger MacBride, Libertarian authors Jarret Wollstein and Peter Breggin, Prof. Jennifer Roback, Dave Walter (co-​founder of the Society for Individual Liberty), national LP chair Alicia Clark, NY LP activist Howie Rich, and Alaskan state legislator Dick Randolph.

Sadly, Alan passed away unexpectedly in June of 2013. His widow, Mary Ellen Burris, was very helpful in providing Hoesly with the few remaining copies of A Liberty Primer stored in their home near Rochester (essentially all copies of which now have been sold) and also in authorizing the publication of the electronic version of A Liberty Primer in 2024.

Hoesly decided in mid-​2023 that more mileage could be gotten out of a third (electronic) edition, so he bandsawed the spine off one of the few remaining hard-​copies, scanned the individual pages into PDF files, manipulated the files with Adobe Acrobat, and—working with a key activist at Students for Liberty—produced the electronic edition of A Liberty Primer.