Comment by charcircuit
2 days 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.
Where did you get the idea it was already owned by private equity?
A public library delivers value to a community. Profit is not necessary for that, and can be argued to actually be harmful to delivering value to a community.
Efficiency might not deliver maximum value either when the community is the focus. Something taking a little more time or involving more human effort can actually be fulfilling for those doing and receiving. Firing the librarian that knows all the childrens' names so you can have a kiosk instead isn't delivering value.
> A public library delivers value to a community.
Well, a subset at best. I've moved to a new town where the sole library is available to normal 9-5 workers for three hours on a Saturday morning. I don't even know what it stocks because it just isn't open when most people would be able to use it.
Did you mean a subset at least? Your new town's library's hours are not the best.
Everyone benefits from a well-read community.
The library is owned by Samual Library Inc which is not the government or a public company.
Profit is not neccessary to deliver value, but it helps optimize it.
If someone knowing kids names is worth it people would be willing to pay more for the service. If people would rather pay less and use kiosks then that may be a better option.
Samual Library Inc is a "not-for-profit nonstock corporation ... organized exclusively for charitable and educational purposes." Its bylaws prohibit distributing earnings to "directors, officers, or other private persons, except that the corporation shall be authorized and empowered to pay reasonable compensation for services and to make payments and distributions in furtherance of the purposes set forth in article 6 hereof." - https://samuelslibrary.net/images/about/policies-more/articl...
And you think that makes it a private equity company?
My LLC, which I ran my consulting business under, was neither a government nor a public company ... and neither was it a private equity company.
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You’re saying that nonprofits are the same as “private equity.” That’s an odd take.
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/540...
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> Profit is not neccessary to deliver value, but it helps optimize it.
How?
You seem a bit confused. Samuels Library Inc is a tax-emempt 501(c)(3) non-profit, which is kind of the opposite of private equity.
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Are you saying all public services need to turn a profit?
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.
Do roads turn a direct profit? Water works? Canals? Flood Dams? Dikes? Are public parks profitable? Should schools be profitable? Is the police profitable? Does the fire department charge for every blaze they contain? Is the congress profitable? Are the courts? The president? The government as a whole?
Society funds a lot of public services because they cannot reasonably be billed to the individual, but enable the society to function and are the underpinning of economic activity. They are profitable because they allow society and the individuals to engage in economic activity which they otherwise could not.
We should strive to make public services efficient, but aiming for profit is against their very nature.
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A library will not profit from its members being able to read books for free, but society as a whole will profit.
Demanding each individual component of society be profitable leads to the overall detriment of the whole. It leads to hospitals only treating the rich and only for money, it leads to no-one producing art, it leads to homeless shelters not existing. It leads to society becoming an inhumane machine to produce and consume money, and nothing more.
Humans are more important than money, society is more important than money.
It should be an anti-goal. If it can be provided adequately at a profit (that is, if the benefits of purchasing the service to direct purchasers are sufficient to warrant direct users paying a sufficient price to not only offset the costs of providing a service but also to provide a profit to the service provider), then there is probably no reason to have a public service.
The reason to have a public service is primariy that it is desirable but not profitable, probably because of externalized benefits, or because the utility provided is concentrated in a financially disadvantaged population, such that the amount that they are able to pay underrates the utility delivered (the use of money as a proxy for delivered utility is only at best a loose proxy when money itself is unequally distributed), or for some other reason.
If it should be a public service at all, then it should almost without exception be publicly subsidized in whole or in part. Profitability in a public service is a "code smell" that you have something that likely should be a private industry that has instead been unnecessarily monopolized by the state.
Public parks don't turn profits. Public roads don't turn a profit. Food stamp programs and housing assistance don't generate a profit.
Public goods can increase efficiency and well-being in a way that indirectly translates into increased economic efficiency, but no, profit is not a good direct long term goal of most public goods and services.
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If I hire a plumber, I hire them to fix my pipes. I don't hire them to generate a profit for me.
If me and my neighbors hire a library to lend us books, I don't expect them to generate a profit for me.
The beneficiary is the citizen receiving the service, not the government receiving a profit.
The idea of government profiting is like trying to make a profit from yourself.
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Public services serve the public good. Turning a profit for the government is proof of its inefficiency
How far does this go? Should all public space be pay to use or privatised?
> It should be a long term goal
Why?
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Did the food you eat today turn you a profit?
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You are everything that's wrong with the world right now.
You realize that’s impossible with certain public goods eg USPS? We can either have mail delivery to everyone in the country or we can make profit.
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I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”
“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”
“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”
The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”
“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”
“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”
He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”
I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”
It didn’t seem like they did.
“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”
Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.
“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.
Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.
“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.
I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.
“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”
“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”
I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.
“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”
He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me for arresting him.
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Was writing this comment a way to drive profit and efficiency?