Is Shredding the new Burning?

The Maxwell Institute has decided to shred all back copies of the old FARMS Review.   At one level, this makes some sense, since you can’t store unsold books indefinitely.  And copies of all old articles will–at least presumably–still be available on the Internet for download.  On the other hand, it seems like a much more sensible policy would be to have a “fire sale,” and simply give all remaining copies away for free to anyone who wanted to come by and pick them up.

Yet there is something poignantly symbolic in the fact that the new Maxwell Institute has decided to shred the last remaining printed vestiges of the bad old review.  Kind of like burning all the pictures of your ex-wife after a bad divorce.