Poitou, France – Last week, young colleagues at Bonner & Partners HQ in Delray Beach, Florida, put us on the spot.

“What do we stand for as a publishing business?” they asked.

“Who are we? How are we different from anyone else? What do we think that others don’t?”

We are not the only publishers to offer opinions. And not the only ones with alternative points of view.

So, to answer these questions, let’s look first at the range of opinions on offer…

Divided Opinions

First, there is “the authorities must know what they are doing… besides, I have more important things to think about” camp.

This is by far the largest group: hoi polloi. The masses. The lumpenproletariat.

There may be some grumbling and kvetching. But most people count on the feds to manage the economy, foreign policy, the future, and the government.

They expect mistakes from time to time. But they also believe the system can be trusted to produce an acceptable, although perhaps not always ideal, outcome.

And if not, God help them. Because the difference between the outcome if they bothered to think about it and the outcome if they didn’t is the same. They have no ability to influence public policy… and not much room to maneuver in their private lives.

They get salaries, pensions, Social Security. They need jobs, mortgages, student loans, and medical insurance. They have little capital to invest or protect. They depend so heavily on “the system” that they can’t afford to believe there is something deeply wrong with it. They go along. They get along.

At the other end of the idea spectrum, there are the edgy, malcontent, and extremely marginal opinions.

A man, sitting in his double-wide watching TV can come to hold all sorts of wacky views. There is an entire infotainment industry that provides screwball opinions.

You want to believe Obama is a Muslim? You want to believe the Bilderbergers, the Rothschilds, or the Rockefellers run the world? You want to know about GM’s perpetual-motion engine that – if the secret got out – would put the entire auto industry out of business?