A Virginia public library is fighting off a takeover by private equity

You see that scale problem everywhere. Once a business has become large, it no longer cares about “small” costs like unused buildings. That’s basically the reason so many buildings in towns and cities can be left unused for decades.

The impact it has on that town is often huge. But for the business, it’s just a small overhead. A small landlord couldn’t afford to leave their asset unproductive. A multinational conglomerate can.

The death of local high streets is in part due to the unwillingness of landlords to actually rent their properties out for market rate.

Human nature (greed) is never the problem, because it cannot be changed. Focus only on what can be changed. Design a system that manages human nature, pointing it in a direction that is beneficial, while taming its side effects.

A denial of human nature is how you get authoritarian socialism with centralized planning, which leads to catastrophe because of the local knowledge problem, and because people have no private incentive to do anything.

"Capitalism" is an incomplete first step towards a system which channels greed into something that's beneficial for all stakeholders. A profit-driven actor making their production more efficient to increase profits is a good thing for everyone.

But capitalism is incomplete because the profit-motive can become pathological. Market failures are commonplace.

The only solution that is proven to work is a mixed economy done right, with clever and lean regulations, and a government not influenced by money, and with the government stepping in occasionally to provide public goods that the market cannot, and with private actors otherwise free to make profits as long as they are not harming any third parties.

>I would argue that greed is the problem, not profit.

I would point out that's precisely what the "private equity firm"--is that true or just a buzzword? no private equity group is taking this library private--is saying about the current library, that the greed of the unionized employees is running the library for their own benefit and at great cost to library and at the expense of the public, and it could be run more efficiently. So, you agree with them at least that much.

>Somewhere along the line people forgot the lessons of the 20th century. They forgot that profit goes beyond a line on the current financial statement.

huh? that wasn't "the lesson of the 20th century". if anything, the 20th century represents democracy and market capitalism's greatest joint achievement, with much less disease and starvation and much more freedom at the end vs the beginning.

you live in one of the greatest times to be alive, and all you can do is complain. when and where from the past would you rather live out your life expectancy of half what it is now, coupled with no HN to bitch on?

It’s not difficult, it’s impossible under freedom of religion and just independent thought generally.

One person’s “well being” might be measured by how many wives and children you have. Another’s might be education level and physical fitness. Another’s could be financial independence.

These all clash with each other in fundamentally incompatible ways.

UBI would go a long ways to enforcing democracy. Money talks, so just give people money. Everything else is too abstract. We can't seem to encode justice into law but at least if everyone got UBI it would be harder to oppress poor people

(half serious)

And they keep going for it: in France the neoliberal government is pushing further the privatisation of railroad (they ask the national company to invest in the shared infrastructure, but spare the competition from this burden; then they will probably point out how the private competitors are more cost efficient), subway and buses in Paris, they renew the private management of public funded highways despite them being a cash machine, they let the public hospitals understaffed to the point that many medium sized cities do not have 24/7 access anymore to emergency services, and now many colleagues and friends of mine prefer to go in private hospitals

> Why anyone would buy a company that a PE fund has gotten its hooks into is beyond me.

From my own life experiences, I believe that, across a population, there is no correlation between the amount of money people have and their individual rational decision making ability.

> I cannot think of a single success story with PE that has created a successful company that hasn't imploded.

Safeway had a leveraged buyout in the 80s, and was so successful the merger/acquisition with Kroger was blocked due to monopoly concerns. Hilton also had a leveraged buyout.

PE exists to buy bargain bin companies and extract maximum value from them. Sometimes that’s actually rehabilitating the company. Usually they are just the best at milking a dying cow.

By this point, I suspect that PE is simply a sophisticated liquidation service. Where an owner doesn't want to deal with a company anymore and want to cash out, but can't just easily sell everything. By this perspective, any fault on a company's discontinuation lies solely with whoever sold it to a PE as it's him who actually wants to kill it.

There's a whole essay by N. Taleb analyzing this phenomenon: https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...

… libraries can, and do, give out eBooks.

My local library has stacks and stacks of steamy Christian romance and I’ve never once complained about them being a waste of money or space.

But the same library orders one copy of Heartstopper and all hell breaks loose.

I honestly cannot understand how having LGBTQ books in a library even affects people who don't like them. Just don't read the books. It's not like their eyeballs are being glued open and they're being forced to read them. Book banners are such weirdos.

I think that access to disinformation within a context such as a library is actually quite a good thing. You can read it, and then research it, and think critically about it. In an open ecosystem of information, with a little critical thought and media literacy, most people are able to spot bullshit when they need to.

Most University Libraries carry those text. I'm not sure if it would be particularly useful in the context of a public library (as the goal is to serve a local community with a wide range of needs). However, if there was interest then it would likely be put into circulation.

I would speculate that there was likely a time when each of those were on shelves, but they were likely weeded out due to lack of interest.

Do libraries carry Mein Kampf? Would the books you suggest be categorized and contextualized appropriately? (… like all other books, and a job that I believe librarians already perform.) "Categorized and contextualized appropriately" might also mean "not on the shelf / by request, but available for research"; a good many books that are considerably less objectionable and of greater literary value already are in libraries, as there is only so much shelf. Again, deciding what merits shelf space is a function of the librarian.

But you see no qualitative difference between {a book written by a white supremacist, neo-Nazi organization; a fabricated text (i.e., propaganda); and a book the SPLC describes as "'widely revered by American white supremacists' and 'a sort of anti-immigration analog to The Turner Diaries', and attributed its popularity to the plot's parallels with the white genocide conspiracy theory."} and "The book Pride Colors by Robin Stevenson, which explains the meaning of the rainbow colors in the Pride flag"[1]?

What is the literary value of white supremacist drivel or a fabricated text to a community library? (I'd wager approximately none.) Versus the books being complained about (anything and everything LGBTQ+). (Definite value from helping people exploring LGBTQ+ topics for themselves, simply trying to learn about LGBTQ people, to helping non-homophobic parents raise inclusive, tolerant children who don't want to spread hate & intolerance, and which need only be checked out by those who actually desire to read them.) There is demand for books of the nature being banned here; I cannot see there being anywhere near the same demand for books filled with bile.

And again, the empirical position (and for some subsets, outright stated position) of the right is to remove any and all traces of LGBTQ media from libraries. (And more broadly, from society, as well.)

In this particular instance[1], we can see this in one of the complaints:

> “Our library should not be carrying ANY material about LGBT,” one person wrote.

and,

> “Family has 2 moms — unacceptable,” the person wrote of another book. They also complained, “This book makes LGBTQ+ look ‘harmless’ and acceptable.”

Someone else points out exactly your quip; what about equal representation?

> She continued, “You said taxation without representation. What about my representation in the library? What about what I want my children to read? What about the 4 percent [of] LGBTQ members in your community that you represent that only get 1 percent of the books? Are they not being represented fairly with their tax dollars?”

In the broader national debate, we've seen this pattern endlessly; "protect the children" is a wedge to open a fissure towards a wholesale and complete ban. E.g., see the FL Don't Say Gay Act, which started as objections that education on such topics needed to be "age appropriate" but was then subsequently expanded until is was a wholesale ban on education of numerous topics.

[1]: https://www.advocate.com/news/front-royal-samuels-library-co...

If it mirrors national trends, then some of both (but lots of the latter).

You're just getting confused by the article, it seems. Nowhere in the article does it make any specific claims about LS&S is "trying to get the transaction to happen", rather it makes vague begging-the-question claims that it's a "takeover attempt". It's probably a slick way to make people assume the conclusion was proved somehow, without actually doing it.

But, on another level, what in the holy name of my increasingly annoyed sensibilities are you even talking about? A contractor wants a contract? Did IBM bid on the healthcare.gov job? What did LS&S do that IBM didn't?

It's a non-profit, they can't just replace their management.

They've created a new library board charged with determining how to provide library services in the county: https://www.nvdaily.com/nvdaily/warren-supervisors-appoint-n...

It really depends on how "library of the year" is determined.

Some years back now, our local library got a new boss who was determined to do everything the new and modern way. In the process, the boss drove away half of the paid staff, I don't know what fraction of the volunteer staff, and the entire community support organization. But hey, those are all old people and their values clearly don't matter (who cares if they're the ones with tons of free time?). Help, I don't have the money or people to run programs anymore! Better run away and get another job. Now, the library still exists but a lot of people are going to the next town over, and the new new boss is struggling to rebuild from scratch.

It would be completely unsurprising if "do things the modern way" and "chases awards" are significantly overlapped without corresponding to "improves things for the actual users", and "support LGBT" is code for "gerontophobia".