Speech is Free, Bad Management Ain’t
Researching more into the potential Ruminator Books subsidy by the city of St. Paul has yielded additional insight as to why all the usual anti-business suspects have chosen this private enterprise to rally around. In summary, it comes down to two issues.
First, Ruminator provides something lacking in the marketplace dominated Amazon, Borders, Barnes & Noble, etc. As best as I can surmise, that thing would be goods that the marketplace has rejected. The books they sell couldn’t be sold elsewhere, so they have to be sold here. (And be purchased by nobody, resulting in their current financial difficulties.) Since weeding out that which nobody wants to buy (in favor of that which people do want to buy) is the reason for the marketplace to exist in the first place, I’m not sure how that represents a flaw in the system. But it’s their logic, not mine, and I’m just trying to understand it.
Second, Ruminator provides a real choice in reading materials. Their inventory is not dictated by the control of corporations that make decisions based on some ideological (or economic) agenda. Instead the Ruminator is the champion of freedom of thought, speech, and expression. I’ll address this claim more directly in a moment.
But first, the press excerpt I think best illustrates the above mindset. It’s from the Madison (WI) Capitol Times (yes, the Ruminator’s problems are a concern in all the progressive communities). This is from last August and they’re quoting the Ruminator’s own Web site. I couldn’t verify these quotations, but I’m sure they’re correct. After all, it was in the newspaper.
... as the company's Web site states in the "about us" section: "We identify with a Midwestern small-scale independence. We like an idea that stands on its own better than one that has been processed to fit a market. We are suspicious of those who would limit curious minds, either in the courts or in the corporate boardrooms."
The Capitol Times then quotes Ruminator’s owner, Dave Unowsky:
"If independents disappear, there's going to be basically three organizations accounting for buying all the books in America," he told me. "Their buyers will make all the decisions about what we read. And they're not interested in bringing new ideas - right or left - to readers. They're stockholder-driven."
According to Onowsky, being stock-holder driven is a bad thing. Which makes his recent scheme for staying afloat all the more curious. As quoted directly from the Ruminator Web site:
Ruminator Books is becoming a community-owned bookstore, and we are now offering shares of common stock for public sale.
To be charitable, maybe Unowsky isn’t a hypocrite. Instead, maybe he’ll sell the stock and stay true to his ideals by telling the stock holders to go to hell if they ever have any suggestions about how to protect their investment. Might I suggest the slogan “Give me your money and shut up!” for the sales campaign?
According to Unowsky’s quotes on the American Booksellers Association (ABA) Web site, this slogan may not be too far from the truth:
”People who are investing in us should realize that bookstores are not enormously profitable. People are not investing in us for a large return -- they believe in what we've done. They believe in what we've done for this community as an independent business. They believe in what we've done to preserve the First Amendment.”
Well Dave, there you go again. After scaring away any economically responsible investors with the truth, you wrap yourself in the flag and the First Amendment. Which brings us to the case of reader Bill Sweetman. After my initial Ruminator post on Saturday, he sent me this note which I think illustrates how far Unowsky’s commitment to free expression goes:
Can I add a personal experience? This happened about 14 years ago. I'm a journalist specializing in aviation and defense, and I'd just published (through local press Motorbooks) a book on the B-2 bomber. It was a controversial issue at the time and this was the only book out on the subject, and since I lived a few blocks from the Hungry Mind I thought I'd see if my local bookstore was interested in a local-author thing of some kind. Unowsky threw me out on my ear. "We don't carry books that glorify military hardware," he said, displaying his amazing ability to divine the contents of a book without reading it.
Now, it's Unowsky's bookstore and he has the right to carry or not carry any book he wants. But it has annoyed me more than somewhat over the years to read Unowsky (with Mary Anne Grossman doing the high-kicks and waving the pompoms) arguing that independent bookstores are necessary because otherwise the chains will be able to control what we read.
And should taxpayers subsidize a bookstore that deliberately limits access to certain points of view?
Furthering Bill’s rhetorical question, should the government be investing in any bookstore $1 million in debt, which the private sources of capital have abandoned based on it’s bleak financial future? If that’s not enough evidence to raise a “hell no” in your throat, I leave you with this Unowsky quote from the ABA Web site, on why the Ruminator is losing money:
”As our business grew, I wasn't able to adapt my 1970s laid back management style to the growing store. As things changed, I wasn't always a tough enough manager."
Honey, where’s my checkbook?
