This week, in our Vintage Fringe section, we re-published Greg Shupak’s essay ‘Privatizing Libraries’. Shupak sat down digitally with editor-in-chief Lizzie Stark to talk neo-liberal ideologues, satire, and Google Books.

What inspired this piece?

The piece is a reaction against the neoliberal ethos that suggests everything should be left to the private sector and that ‘efficiency’ should take precedence over broad access to social goods.  One requires a very selective memory to believe the first assertion (see the privatization of the water system in Cochabamba, Bolivia, for example) and a commitment to protecting the profits of a tiny segment of the population at the expense of everyone else to believe the second.

What do you like to read?

As a reader, satire is one of my favourite genres, or sub-genres I suppose I say.  I’ll never tire of reading people like Swift or Twain or Evelyn Waugh or Mordecai Richler or Woody Allen.  I certainly intend to write more satire in the future but I’ll have to go back and read Horace and Juvenal more carefully before I do.

Have you written satire before?

“Privatizing Libraries” is the first work of satire I submitted for publication anywhere, I had attempted satiric pieces before this one but wasn’t all that satisfied with the results.  Still, there may be some less than embarrassing ideas in those earlier efforts so perhaps some time I will go back to them.

Looking back at this piece now, is there anything you’d change about it? Do you think it’s stood the test of time — i.e. is it still relevant? Why?

Without trying to sound too self-important, yes, I think the piece—or at least the issues in it—are relevant today.  I question some of the basic assumptions of our economic system and, obviously, I think it’s a good idea for people to do that during any socio-economic debate.

During the economic crisis of the last thirteen months, I’ve been quite disappointed that so few people have questioned the logic of handing over unfathomable amounts of public funds to private companies with few or no strings attached.  I’m not delusional enough to think I have much of an influence over public discourse but I think “Privatizing Libraries” is pertinent to the issue of corporate bailouts.

What do you think about the current kerfuffle between authors, publishers, and Google Books, which is seeking to scan the world’s books into a searchable database? Is Google’s system simply an extension of libraries, or do you think it’s theft?

I must admit that I am not as steeped in the debates surrounding copyright law as I should be.  At the risk of being trite, I’ll say that while I certainly like the idea of books being made widely available to readers for little or no cost, it is also very important that writers are compensated fairly for their work.

But I’m skeptical of big publishing houses when they claim to be looking out for writers and of Google when it suggests it is interested in public literacy, in helping people get books they wouldn’t be able to access otherwise.  Perhaps it would be best to maintain and improve upon traditional libraries while also expanding a similar system to the online world.  In other words, if we are going to have books distributed online, I’d like to see that process under public control—and for writers to have serious input in the discussion—instead of just leaving it to a corporation like Google.