Publishing Scholarly Books and Journals: Is It Economically Viable?

In a wide sense of the phrase, any activity is "economically viable" if its product is promoted to the ranks of public goods and its cost is borne largely out of public funds, such as actual or potential tax revenues. In a narrower sense, however, an activity is regarded as economically viable only if its product is bought in the market with funds out of private pockets at prices that cover its cost. Thus, when we ask whether railroad transportation, universal higher education, public museums, or classical opera are economically viable undertakings, the meaning evidently is whether they must rely on support largely from public funds or are sold in the market to private buyers, possibly aided by private contributions not exempt from taxation. This need not be the only meaning of the phrase. Doubts regarding the economic viability of an industry may suggest that the industry, after a period of expansion, finds it impossible to stay at the level of activity attained. Its sales opportunities at cost-covering prices prove inadequate. If that industry, because of a profit squeeze or downright losses, is compelled to retrench to put up with reduced sales volumes and be forced to cut down its current expenditures and capital outlays-it will be called a declining industry: at the level of activities attained, the industry is not economically viable. The retrenchment, of course, need not involve all members of the industry, but if a significant percentage of the firms have to trim or go out of business, the judgment that the industry is not economically viable at the size that it has attained has a sufficiently clear meaning. A judgment that questions or denies an industry's economic viability can be meaningful in a third sense: its technology may be about to be replaced by a superior one, and establishments operating with the obsolescent techniques may find it difficult or impossible to survive. From a secular point of view the verdict of "not viable" is perhaps too harsh. When the railroads forced the stagecoach out of business, the transportation industry began its greatest development, though the stagecoach