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

252 points by sharkweek 1y ago

lexiciccone 1y ago
[dead]
evanjrowley 1y ago
I love Front Royal. I'm also not surprised private equity tried to buy the library there. Money has been corrupting Northern Virginia for too long.
declan_roberts 1y ago
[flagged]
- ImPostingOnHN 1y ago
  And why stop at LGBTQ books? Remove anything that I or my religion don't like! And why stop at removing them? Burn them! Whoa, so much smoke! Better repeatedly wave it away from my chest with an outstretched, downward-facing palm!
  - ghiculescu 1y ago
    So are you saying they shouldn't be accountable to elected officials?
    - 0x3444ac53 1y ago
      No. Libraries exist to serve the communities they are in. Whether it be the public, specialized fields, or universities. Collections are curated by librarians based on the needs of the community. That isn't a decision that is an elected official is qualified to make.
    - mkw5053 1y ago
      Not at all, accountability works both ways. The elected officials tried to defund the library, but then the community pushed back and the takeover was withdrawn. That's exactly how democratic accountability should work. Libraries need to follow constitutional principles and serve their whole community, not just the loudest subset. The broader community clearly supported keeping their award-winning library intact.
    - ImPostingOnHN 1y ago
      That seems orthogonal to what I am saying, which is that: 1. Book banning/burning is really bad (duh). 2. The worst book banners/burners throughout history have employed the same justifications as you now employ. To the question about accountability: Who knows, but it isn't as important as avoiding book banning/burning.
- 0x3444ac53 1y ago
  This is against the ethics standards of the ALA, and the entire philosophy that underpins libraries as a whole.
  - apparent 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - 0x3444ac53 1y ago
      The ALA is a ideological organization that advocates for open access to information and resources. Those damn communist, they always want well informed citizens!! While we're at it someone should really buy out and shut down wikipedia! Have you seen their article on Hitler? They make him sound like a criminal!!
      - apparent 1y ago
        This sounds like a response from someone who is not especially informed about the ALA. I work in a related field and am aware of the policy positions they have taken on lightning rod cultural issues. Perhaps you could look into this before claiming that they just want "open access to information and resources".
        0x3444ac53 1y ago
        If that's the case, then please feel free to inform me of what policy positions they take on lightning rod issues that isn't related to their stated goal of providing open access to the public?
        apparent 1y ago
        Drag queen story hours come to mind.
        0x3444ac53 1y ago
- mkw5053 1y ago
  I understand the concern about local accountability, and you're absolutely right that libraries should be responsive to their communities. But the data here suggests the broader community was actually supporting the library. Most public libraries follow professional collection development standards that try to serve their entire diverse community including families who want those books available. It's a tough balance, but the goal is usually having something for everyone rather than letting any single group determine what everyone else can access. The community seems to have spoken pretty clearly by successfully defending their library. Sometimes the loudest voices aren't representative of the broader sentiment.
  - 0x3444ac53 1y ago
    Your comment is inline with how the libraries operate, and I can't tell if some of the others here are just a little homophobic or just woefully misinformed about how libraries function. Books that aren't being circulated frequently enough get weeded and removed from the collection, usually once or twice a year. Moreover, if books are requested frequently from other branches, or have long hold times, then that volume will typically be added to a collection.
mkw5053 1y ago
Interesting pattern here: manufacture a crisis (book banning complaints → funding cuts), then propose private "efficiency" as the solution. Meanwhile, this library was founded in 1799, is the second-oldest in Virginia, just won the 2024 state Library of the Year award, and had 400k+ checkouts last year. Hardly sounds broken.
- jmyeet 1y ago
  In American politics, this has been an incredibly successful strategy, most notably starting with Reagan. It's called "starving the beast" [1]. The playbook is simple: 1. Cut taxes 2. "Pay" for those tax cuts by cutting expenditure; 3. Those programs begin to fail because of the funding cuts; 4. Use those failures to justify further cuts, usually by privatizing something or some form of public-private partnership, which is nothing more than a transfer of government wealth to the already-wealthy. We saw something similar play out recently with Jane Street in India [2], which seems to boil down to market manipulation between options and the underlying securities. Back in the 1980s we had corporate raiders who were famous for buying up companies that were trading below book value and then simply breaking them up for parts and selling those parts. I'm sure this went as far as corporate raiders manipulating the price. Private equity is the latest form of this cancer. Here's the PE playbook: 1. Raise a bunch of money; 2. Buy some company with a large amount of debt, a so-called leveraged buyout ("LBO"); 3. Once you control the company, take out massive loans on the company's assets; 4. Sell off any real estate holdings, often to some interested party who most certainly isn't at arms length, possibly for a discounted price, to raise further capital then lease back those holdings you need, ideally with complicated leases that hie the true future cost; 5. Use those loans to pay back the original investors and loans; 6. Sell the debt-ridden husk to whoever is stupid enough to buy it. Now (6) is the tricky part because you have to make it look like the company is profitable, that you've added value by cutting costs or otherwise increased efficiency. And you do that with complicated debt. Sort of like ARMs in the subprime crisis. I cannot think of a single success story with PE that has created a successful company that hasn't imploded. I belive most PE funds lose money too. Why anyone would buy a company that a PE fund has gotten its hooks into is beyond me. I suspect you can make a market-beating fund that simply follows the index but does not buy any PE-infected company. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast [2]: https://www.ft.com/content/6789512f-8775-450b-b0a6-9d9d0c3716ca https://www.ft.com/content/6789512f-8775-450b-b0a6-9d9d0c371...
BJones12 1y ago
[flagged]
- gehwartzen 1y ago
  If doing a bad job is being the 2024 Virginia library of the year I doubt it.
  - o11c 1y ago
    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".
    - hobs 1y ago
      You just fantasized an entire line of reasoning to hate a library for checks notes winning a best library award. Use more critical thinking.
      - o11c 1y ago
        Ah yes, critical thinking, like taking an advertising article on the internet at face value and ignoring that there might be more to the story. Who needs Knoll's Law? Also, awards are always given to the party that deserves them and have absolutely no politicking or signaling involved. I don't claim what I saw locally is exactly what's happening there, but ... my point is, there's probably a lot happening at the local level, and only the locals can really know more. And even then, until the dust settles, you may need to be careful which faction of local politics (which often is completely unrelated to the factions in national politics) you're talking to.
charcircuit 1y ago
This title is misleading because the library is already owned by private equity. >Providing for a community night not be profitable, but that doesn't make it wrong >Efficiency shouldn't always be a goal If you don't care about profit or efficiency then you are being wasteful and are not effectively delivering value.
- oscillatingpie 1y ago
  Are you saying all public services need to turn a profit?
  - charcircuit 1y ago
    It should be a long term goal. At the very least the perspective of how it is being run needs to be thought of in terms of profit.
    - afavour 1y ago
      > It should be a long term goal Why?
      - charcircuit 1y ago
        Imagine what would happen if Uber never ran at a loss. It wouldn't have been able to grow into what it is now. Losing money in the short term can bring long term wins.
        michaelsshaw 1y ago
        Way to completely dodge the question. The question was not "Why should we allow the public services to run at a loss in the short term?" The question is: Why should public services aim to produce profit?
        charcircuit 1y ago
windex 1y ago
Billionaires buy elections, elected officials break funding for public facilities, billionaires get tax cuts, public facilities get bought out with tax cuts. I wonder when they start introducing their own currencies like in the old mining towns. Back to feudalism we go, election by election.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
MyOutfitIsVague 1y ago
The library should serve the entire community, not a loud minority or even exclusively the majority. If 20% of the community wants LGBTQ books, 30% don't, and 50% don't care, why should the 30% be able to decide that the other 20% shouldn't have access to these books? The majority should not be able to strip rights that the minority should have access to. Tyranny of the majority is a real thing. I find it hard to believe that even a plurality wants these books banned. Do we have proportions, or is it just a number of complaints?
- anon7000 1y ago
  And frankly, it’s a library. Every group should have access to books they’re interested in. But that doesn’t mean those groups should be able to ban books they don’t like, even if 75% of people want to ban them.
  - TimorousBestie 1y ago
    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.
  - ryandrake 1y ago
    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.
    - eloisius 1y ago
      Evangelicals presumably don’t want their children to be influenced by the environment that having those materials present would foster. They’d much rather have their children influenced by real-life sexual predators present within their church, who upon being discovered (multiple times) choose to address the situation with prayer and allow the predator to remain within the church and around children without ever reporting them to law enforcement. But that’s just my experience.
anon7000 1y ago
> the valorization of profit has blinded them to seeing the advantages of the public good as a worthy bottom line This is, IMO, the critical line, and also one of the deepest problems in the world (and especially America). A focus on profit is so frequently completely opposed to human wellbeing and a flourishing society. Just look at health insurance companies for a prime example: they make profit by denying claims. The result is a catastrophically expensive insurance bureaucracy and worse health outcomes. Not to mention the extreme stress any American feels when interacting with an insurance company over any meaningful amount of money. (Which I’ve experienced, and I have far better coverage than the average American.) These companies are so clearly, obviously bad for human flourishing. But profit is great! The incentives are so deeply messed up. Our economy only allows profit as an incentive, which works well when aligned with human wellbeing-being. But as the economy grows, companies consolidate, and profit growth is still expected, nearly every single sector looks for ways to cut costs. And with fewer competitors, it’s easier and easier for entrenched, powerful companies to raise prices and reduce quality with little consequence. This is clearly bad for human flourishing. But profits are fantastic! Just because profit is actually aligned with human flourishing in a couple sectors doesn’t mean the system as a whole will continue scaling effectively. It’s clearly not, and it must change to avoid completely suffocating us.
- sschueller 1y ago
  There is even worse, genocide profiteers. [1] [1] https://www.un.org/unispal/document/a-hrc-59-23-from-economy-of-occupation-to-economy-of-genocide-report-special-rapporteur-francesca-albanese-palestine-2025/ https://www.un.org/unispal/document/a-hrc-59-23-from-economy...
- kovezd 1y ago
  While the critique is valid, that does not offer a path to the solution. Utilitarism is the ruling moral philosophy, and the only possible countermeasure is externalities but that depends on an effective government which is even more unlikely that asking for ethical behavior to corporations.
  - alpinisme 1y ago
0x3444ac53 1y ago
For anyone curious about what books the group wanted banned: https://www.advocate.com/news/front-royal-samuels-library-controversy https://www.advocate.com/news/front-royal-samuels-library-co... Here's an opinion pledge where they stated their demands: https://royalexaminer.com/parents-matter-make-the-pledge/ https://royalexaminer.com/parents-matter-make-the-pledge/ It is worth noting that per the linked article below[0]. The library has a system for preventing readers under the age of 18 from accessing the books in the New Adult section of the library, and it's one that requires parents to opt into their child having access to those materials. [0]: https://www.nvdaily.com/nvdaily/catholic-library-supporters-say-clean-up-samuels-doesnt-speak-for-them/article_7505a3f1-cecc-545a-9db2-d0895d42389f.html https://www.nvdaily.com/nvdaily/catholic-library-supporters-... Books: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/91010302-you-need-to-chill https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/91010302-you-need-to-chi... ref: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16YUZFgYY2/ https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16YUZFgYY2/ https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53241064-this-is-why-they-hate-us https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53241064-this-is-why-the... ref: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16kKwC3PDD/ https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16kKwC3PDD/ Found the list: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRzUaZiy2h4gi-c_4vMb0ngZQHCSdgUaob5PfDqfsWmQomGeG7TlCq6GV9KwiaCdJx98c47MIkdtGgh/pub https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRzUaZiy2h4gi-c_...
phendrenad2 1y ago
[flagged]
- benatkin 1y ago
  You're accusing the article of being one sided, while espousing a view that to most on here is going to seem one sided. "They want to contract it out to a contractor." This completely leaves out that the contractor is also trying to get the transaction to happen, or at least to improve the likelihood. So if some article offends your sensibilities enough to call it stupid, maybe give a more balanced take.
  - phendrenad2 1y ago
    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?
insane_dreamer 1y ago
peak capitalism :/
ssuds 1y ago
Brendan Ballou’s book “Plunder” is an excellent read about the effects of private equity across industries, if you want to go deeper on the topic. I recently had him on my podcast talking about the effects of PE in HVAC. There are quirks in each realm but the themes are common (I guess in libraries, too). Here’s that episode if any of you are curious: https://www.heatpumped.org/p/plunder-how-private-equity-is-reshaping-hvac?postSlug=plunder-how-private-equity-is-reshaping-hvac https://www.heatpumped.org/p/plunder-how-private-equity-is-r...
BrenBarn 1y ago
I increasingly think that our society isn't sustainable without some recalibration of the notion of responsibility, liability, justice and due process. The problem we face is that it is very easy for unscrupulous operators to exploit loopholes and cause lots of damage, but the process for holding them accountable faces a heavy burden of proof and itself can be exploited (e.g., by dragging out lawsuits for years). We need some kind of sliding scale where certain actions by people who either "should have known better" (i.e., are exploiting insider knowledge) or "had no basis for acting" (i.e., are rich enough to not need to make any more money) can be quickly curtailed without a need to specifically prove everything that they did. Something loosely akin to "if you had a billion dollars, you'd better be able to affirmatively prove you did everything squeaky clean or we're just going to take $500 million".
zx8080 1y ago
Is there anything provided by the state for people and not for profit in the US?
anon-3988 1y ago
What is their business proposition here?
newswasboring 1y ago
America has some very good public services. None perfect but many good. I don't understand when American try to tear them down.
phendrenad2 1y ago
The framing here seems intentionally deceptive. Nobody is "fighting off" a "takeover". It's more like the city is deciding between continuing to run the library itself, or contracting it out. Nor is the fact that the company is owned by private equity especially relevant, except in the general belief that things run by private equity are not very good. I think that the use of the term "takeover" isn't a mistake though, it seems like it's meant to make people think that private equity is somehow "buying out" the library and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

252 points by sharkweek 1y ago

[dead]

I love Front Royal. I'm also not surprised private equity tried to buy the library there. Money has been corrupting Northern Virginia for too long.

declan_roberts 1y ago

[flagged]

ImPostingOnHN 1y ago
And why stop at LGBTQ books? Remove anything that I or my religion don't like! And why stop at removing them? Burn them! Whoa, so much smoke! Better repeatedly wave it away from my chest with an outstretched, downward-facing palm!
- ghiculescu 1y ago
  So are you saying they shouldn't be accountable to elected officials?
  - 0x3444ac53 1y ago
    No. Libraries exist to serve the communities they are in. Whether it be the public, specialized fields, or universities. Collections are curated by librarians based on the needs of the community. That isn't a decision that is an elected official is qualified to make.
  - mkw5053 1y ago
    Not at all, accountability works both ways. The elected officials tried to defund the library, but then the community pushed back and the takeover was withdrawn. That's exactly how democratic accountability should work. Libraries need to follow constitutional principles and serve their whole community, not just the loudest subset. The broader community clearly supported keeping their award-winning library intact.
  - ImPostingOnHN 1y ago
    That seems orthogonal to what I am saying, which is that: 1. Book banning/burning is really bad (duh). 2. The worst book banners/burners throughout history have employed the same justifications as you now employ. To the question about accountability: Who knows, but it isn't as important as avoiding book banning/burning.
0x3444ac53 1y ago
This is against the ethics standards of the ALA, and the entire philosophy that underpins libraries as a whole.
- apparent 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - 0x3444ac53 1y ago
    The ALA is a ideological organization that advocates for open access to information and resources. Those damn communist, they always want well informed citizens!! While we're at it someone should really buy out and shut down wikipedia! Have you seen their article on Hitler? They make him sound like a criminal!!
    - apparent 1y ago
      This sounds like a response from someone who is not especially informed about the ALA. I work in a related field and am aware of the policy positions they have taken on lightning rod cultural issues. Perhaps you could look into this before claiming that they just want "open access to information and resources".
      - 0x3444ac53 1y ago
        If that's the case, then please feel free to inform me of what policy positions they take on lightning rod issues that isn't related to their stated goal of providing open access to the public?
        apparent 1y ago
        Drag queen story hours come to mind.
        0x3444ac53 1y ago
mkw5053 1y ago
I understand the concern about local accountability, and you're absolutely right that libraries should be responsive to their communities. But the data here suggests the broader community was actually supporting the library. Most public libraries follow professional collection development standards that try to serve their entire diverse community including families who want those books available. It's a tough balance, but the goal is usually having something for everyone rather than letting any single group determine what everyone else can access. The community seems to have spoken pretty clearly by successfully defending their library. Sometimes the loudest voices aren't representative of the broader sentiment.
- 0x3444ac53 1y ago
  Your comment is inline with how the libraries operate, and I can't tell if some of the others here are just a little homophobic or just woefully misinformed about how libraries function. Books that aren't being circulated frequently enough get weeded and removed from the collection, usually once or twice a year. Moreover, if books are requested frequently from other branches, or have long hold times, then that volume will typically be added to a collection.

mkw5053 1y ago

Interesting pattern here: manufacture a crisis (book banning complaints → funding cuts), then propose private "efficiency" as the solution. Meanwhile, this library was founded in 1799, is the second-oldest in Virginia, just won the 2024 state Library of the Year award, and had 400k+ checkouts last year. Hardly sounds broken.

jmyeet 1y ago
In American politics, this has been an incredibly successful strategy, most notably starting with Reagan. It's called "starving the beast" [1]. The playbook is simple: 1. Cut taxes 2. "Pay" for those tax cuts by cutting expenditure; 3. Those programs begin to fail because of the funding cuts; 4. Use those failures to justify further cuts, usually by privatizing something or some form of public-private partnership, which is nothing more than a transfer of government wealth to the already-wealthy. We saw something similar play out recently with Jane Street in India [2], which seems to boil down to market manipulation between options and the underlying securities. Back in the 1980s we had corporate raiders who were famous for buying up companies that were trading below book value and then simply breaking them up for parts and selling those parts. I'm sure this went as far as corporate raiders manipulating the price. Private equity is the latest form of this cancer. Here's the PE playbook: 1. Raise a bunch of money; 2. Buy some company with a large amount of debt, a so-called leveraged buyout ("LBO"); 3. Once you control the company, take out massive loans on the company's assets; 4. Sell off any real estate holdings, often to some interested party who most certainly isn't at arms length, possibly for a discounted price, to raise further capital then lease back those holdings you need, ideally with complicated leases that hie the true future cost; 5. Use those loans to pay back the original investors and loans; 6. Sell the debt-ridden husk to whoever is stupid enough to buy it. Now (6) is the tricky part because you have to make it look like the company is profitable, that you've added value by cutting costs or otherwise increased efficiency. And you do that with complicated debt. Sort of like ARMs in the subprime crisis. I cannot think of a single success story with PE that has created a successful company that hasn't imploded. I belive most PE funds lose money too. Why anyone would buy a company that a PE fund has gotten its hooks into is beyond me. I suspect you can make a market-beating fund that simply follows the index but does not buy any PE-infected company. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast [2]: https://www.ft.com/content/6789512f-8775-450b-b0a6-9d9d0c3716ca https://www.ft.com/content/6789512f-8775-450b-b0a6-9d9d0c371...

BJones12 1y ago

[flagged]

gehwartzen 1y ago
If doing a bad job is being the 2024 Virginia library of the year I doubt it.
- o11c 1y ago
  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".
  - hobs 1y ago
    You just fantasized an entire line of reasoning to hate a library for checks notes winning a best library award. Use more critical thinking.
    - o11c 1y ago
      Ah yes, critical thinking, like taking an advertising article on the internet at face value and ignoring that there might be more to the story. Who needs Knoll's Law? Also, awards are always given to the party that deserves them and have absolutely no politicking or signaling involved. I don't claim what I saw locally is exactly what's happening there, but ... my point is, there's probably a lot happening at the local level, and only the locals can really know more. And even then, until the dust settles, you may need to be careful which faction of local politics (which often is completely unrelated to the factions in national politics) you're talking to.

charcircuit 1y ago

This title is misleading because the library is already owned by private equity. >Providing for a community night not be profitable, but that doesn't make it wrong >Efficiency shouldn't always be a goal If you don't care about profit or efficiency then you are being wasteful and are not effectively delivering value.

oscillatingpie 1y ago
Are you saying all public services need to turn a profit?
- charcircuit 1y ago
  It should be a long term goal. At the very least the perspective of how it is being run needs to be thought of in terms of profit.
  - afavour 1y ago
    > It should be a long term goal Why?
    - charcircuit 1y ago
      Imagine what would happen if Uber never ran at a loss. It wouldn't have been able to grow into what it is now. Losing money in the short term can bring long term wins.
      - michaelsshaw 1y ago
        Way to completely dodge the question. The question was not "Why should we allow the public services to run at a loss in the short term?" The question is: Why should public services aim to produce profit?
        charcircuit 1y ago

windex 1y ago

Billionaires buy elections, elected officials break funding for public facilities, billionaires get tax cuts, public facilities get bought out with tax cuts. I wonder when they start introducing their own currencies like in the old mining towns. Back to feudalism we go, election by election.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

MyOutfitIsVague 1y ago

The library should serve the entire community, not a loud minority or even exclusively the majority. If 20% of the community wants LGBTQ books, 30% don't, and 50% don't care, why should the 30% be able to decide that the other 20% shouldn't have access to these books? The majority should not be able to strip rights that the minority should have access to. Tyranny of the majority is a real thing. I find it hard to believe that even a plurality wants these books banned. Do we have proportions, or is it just a number of complaints?

anon7000 1y ago
And frankly, it’s a library. Every group should have access to books they’re interested in. But that doesn’t mean those groups should be able to ban books they don’t like, even if 75% of people want to ban them.
- TimorousBestie 1y ago
  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.
- ryandrake 1y ago
  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.
  - eloisius 1y ago
    Evangelicals presumably don’t want their children to be influenced by the environment that having those materials present would foster. They’d much rather have their children influenced by real-life sexual predators present within their church, who upon being discovered (multiple times) choose to address the situation with prayer and allow the predator to remain within the church and around children without ever reporting them to law enforcement. But that’s just my experience.

anon7000 1y ago

> the valorization of profit has blinded them to seeing the advantages of the public good as a worthy bottom line This is, IMO, the critical line, and also one of the deepest problems in the world (and especially America). A focus on profit is so frequently completely opposed to human wellbeing and a flourishing society. Just look at health insurance companies for a prime example: they make profit by denying claims. The result is a catastrophically expensive insurance bureaucracy and worse health outcomes. Not to mention the extreme stress any American feels when interacting with an insurance company over any meaningful amount of money. (Which I’ve experienced, and I have far better coverage than the average American.) These companies are so clearly, obviously bad for human flourishing. But profit is great! The incentives are so deeply messed up. Our economy only allows profit as an incentive, which works well when aligned with human wellbeing-being. But as the economy grows, companies consolidate, and profit growth is still expected, nearly every single sector looks for ways to cut costs. And with fewer competitors, it’s easier and easier for entrenched, powerful companies to raise prices and reduce quality with little consequence. This is clearly bad for human flourishing. But profits are fantastic! Just because profit is actually aligned with human flourishing in a couple sectors doesn’t mean the system as a whole will continue scaling effectively. It’s clearly not, and it must change to avoid completely suffocating us.

sschueller 1y ago
There is even worse, genocide profiteers. [1] [1] https://www.un.org/unispal/document/a-hrc-59-23-from-economy-of-occupation-to-economy-of-genocide-report-special-rapporteur-francesca-albanese-palestine-2025/ https://www.un.org/unispal/document/a-hrc-59-23-from-economy...
kovezd 1y ago
While the critique is valid, that does not offer a path to the solution. Utilitarism is the ruling moral philosophy, and the only possible countermeasure is externalities but that depends on an effective government which is even more unlikely that asking for ethical behavior to corporations.
- alpinisme 1y ago

0x3444ac53 1y ago

For anyone curious about what books the group wanted banned: https://www.advocate.com/news/front-royal-samuels-library-controversy https://www.advocate.com/news/front-royal-samuels-library-co... Here's an opinion pledge where they stated their demands: https://royalexaminer.com/parents-matter-make-the-pledge/ https://royalexaminer.com/parents-matter-make-the-pledge/ It is worth noting that per the linked article below[0]. The library has a system for preventing readers under the age of 18 from accessing the books in the New Adult section of the library, and it's one that requires parents to opt into their child having access to those materials. [0]: https://www.nvdaily.com/nvdaily/catholic-library-supporters-say-clean-up-samuels-doesnt-speak-for-them/article_7505a3f1-cecc-545a-9db2-d0895d42389f.html https://www.nvdaily.com/nvdaily/catholic-library-supporters-... Books: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/91010302-you-need-to-chill https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/91010302-you-need-to-chi... ref: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16YUZFgYY2/ https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16YUZFgYY2/ https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53241064-this-is-why-they-hate-us https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53241064-this-is-why-the... ref: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16kKwC3PDD/ https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16kKwC3PDD/ Found the list: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRzUaZiy2h4gi-c_4vMb0ngZQHCSdgUaob5PfDqfsWmQomGeG7TlCq6GV9KwiaCdJx98c47MIkdtGgh/pub https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRzUaZiy2h4gi-c_...

phendrenad2 1y ago

[flagged]

benatkin 1y ago
You're accusing the article of being one sided, while espousing a view that to most on here is going to seem one sided. "They want to contract it out to a contractor." This completely leaves out that the contractor is also trying to get the transaction to happen, or at least to improve the likelihood. So if some article offends your sensibilities enough to call it stupid, maybe give a more balanced take.
- phendrenad2 1y ago
  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?

insane_dreamer 1y ago

peak capitalism :/

ssuds 1y ago

Brendan Ballou’s book “Plunder” is an excellent read about the effects of private equity across industries, if you want to go deeper on the topic. I recently had him on my podcast talking about the effects of PE in HVAC. There are quirks in each realm but the themes are common (I guess in libraries, too). Here’s that episode if any of you are curious: https://www.heatpumped.org/p/plunder-how-private-equity-is-reshaping-hvac?postSlug=plunder-how-private-equity-is-reshaping-hvac https://www.heatpumped.org/p/plunder-how-private-equity-is-r...

BrenBarn 1y ago

I increasingly think that our society isn't sustainable without some recalibration of the notion of responsibility, liability, justice and due process. The problem we face is that it is very easy for unscrupulous operators to exploit loopholes and cause lots of damage, but the process for holding them accountable faces a heavy burden of proof and itself can be exploited (e.g., by dragging out lawsuits for years). We need some kind of sliding scale where certain actions by people who either "should have known better" (i.e., are exploiting insider knowledge) or "had no basis for acting" (i.e., are rich enough to not need to make any more money) can be quickly curtailed without a need to specifically prove everything that they did. Something loosely akin to "if you had a billion dollars, you'd better be able to affirmatively prove you did everything squeaky clean or we're just going to take $500 million".

zx8080 1y ago

Is there anything provided by the state for people and not for profit in the US?

anon-3988 1y ago

What is their business proposition here?

newswasboring 1y ago

America has some very good public services. None perfect but many good. I don't understand when American try to tear them down.

phendrenad2 1y ago

The framing here seems intentionally deceptive. Nobody is "fighting off" a "takeover". It's more like the city is deciding between continuing to run the library itself, or contracting it out. Nor is the fact that the company is owned by private equity especially relevant, except in the general belief that things run by private equity are not very good. I think that the use of the term "takeover" isn't a mistake though, it seems like it's meant to make people think that private equity is somehow "buying out" the library and there's nothing anyone can do about it.