Classically, Marxism focused on society's relationships with the means of production, and proposed the contradiction between the needs of the working class and of the owning class as the primary cause of societal strife within Capitalism. It then used this to argue for the revolutionary potential of the working class, and of the need for their revolution to produce a social system with only contradictions can be continually reformed without the need for another such revolution, in what is basically an anarchist utopia.
Socialism refers to an intermediate stage between Capitalism and Anarchism proposed by Marxists, where Private Ownership of the Means of Production are minimized or eliminated through the use of a governing power determined through democratic means.
Library Socialism refers to a Socialist society, in which the primary economic relationship is mediated through library-like structures. In Library Socialist thinking, the focus is less on the Means of Production, and more on the distribution of what is produced
There are 3 core governing principles of Library Socialism, from a number of Libertarian-Socialist and anarchist philosophers, writers and historians.
Usufruct: The legal right to use and derive profit or benefit from property that belongs to another, as long as the property is not damaged.
The right to use, in a non-destructive fashion, that which is not being used.
Within a Library Economy, goods produced would be made available through libraries, as a primary means of distribution. Durable goods would be checked out, rather than bought, and be regularly used, rather than left to gather dust in private storage. In addition to (Book) Libraries and Tool Libraries like we currently have, there would also be Vehicle Libraries, Clothes Libraries, Sporting Goods Libraries, Furniture Libraries; libraries for anything and everything that is sold commercially.
Complementarity: The concept of recognizing and valuing interdependence and diversity to promote harmonious relationships rather than relationships of dominance or hierarchy.
In the context of Library Socialism, it refers to the need for a diversity of meaningful options, and the ability to make non-damaging personalizations, as opposed to a totalizing one-size-fits-all approach.
Despite its volume, it would be a poor library that only had millions copies of all the books of Ayn Rand. A Library Society should be able to accommodate the large variety of needs and interests any individual will have across their life. A Library society should also allow borrowers to improve the items in their care in the ways that suit them, so long as it doesn't damage the ability of another to make use of it when they are done.
The Irreducible Minimum: The guaranteed minimum standard of living to be made available to every individual as a basic human right.
This is a socialist project, after all. Everyone has a right to the things they need to exist in society, and no one can be allowed to use the withholding of access to those things to exploit anyone else. You don't rent from a landlord, you borrow (for years if you want) from your city's housing stock.
There are probably models that make more sense for the distribution of consumables than a library, tbh, but it's a part of the theory, and is important to include. So food and water are included. Also, basic services like healthcare and education. It would be pretty ironic if a "Library Society" didn't give you access to knowledge.
Additionally, as society becomes more prosperous, the Minimum can be increased, so our modern society would also include electricity and internet as well.
Finally, if you want more than the minimum, there is still a place for market socialism if you're into that, or gift economies and mutual aid, or pretty much whatever else to distribute the rest.
There are some very obvious improvements of this system over capitalism. Of particular note are the environmental benefits to avoiding overproduction, planned obsolescence, etc. with improvements to repairability and modularity from Usufruct and Complementarity.
But why Library Socialism instead of just Socialism or Eco-Socialism, then? In my opinion, there are two reasons.
It seems to me that most of the economic focus of socialist theory is on the supply side of the economy. Which is understandable. We want to seize the means of production. We want to empower the workers, the overwhelming majority of society, the people who actually produce society's wealth, to rise up and overthrow those few oppressing them. It is in the worker's interest to replace the Capitalist relation with Socialism.
But the generation of wealth is only half of the equation. At the same time, the consumer is also exploited by the capitalist. The money that they have labored for is then exchanged for a good worth less than they must pay for it, by all sorts of practices that I'm sure I don't need to explain to anyone living in Late-Stage-Capitalism. Buying out competitors, bribing regulators, planned obsolescence, financialization, addictive marketing. Even if the capitalist paid the worker what they are owed, the consumer would still be exploited so long as the system of Capitalism is allowed to remain.
And so, it is also in the consumer's interest to replace the Capitalist relation with Socialism. The more we can borrow, the less we are forced to buy. The less we need to buy, the less we are exploited. However, this is a potentially harder route than building the revolution among the working class, because the workers can choose not to produce, while everyone needs to eat.
But suppose, through direct action and mutual aid, we could build an alternative system of distribution, separate from but existing within modern capitalism, that could protect us from the privations that Capitalism uses to oppress us. Then we have little better than the current system of charity, which is really not up to the moment. So suppose further, then, than the system that was designed to be a temporary stopgap measure, to try and often fail to protect only the most vulnerable; but one designed from the start to connect the whole of society. Well, then we have something that might work.
As we build up democratic control of the demand side of the economy, we also build out a mutual aid network which can be used to provide support to the labor struggle to control the supply side as well, in a virtuous cycle. The more control labor has, the less the owner class can exploit consumers, because the consumers are also the workers. The more one side of the movement advances, the more support they can provide to the other.
Within the system of neoliberalism, the subjects of the Imperial Core has been placated with access to cheep, abundant trappings of wealth and propagandized against any mildly radical action. The labor movement has been made to be dormant (though that is changing). The organized Left has been disrupted by plot, after plot, after assassination, after plot by the government. Radicalism of all kinds has been successfully demonized to the systematically propagandized right working class; ironically, as lazy, corrupt, controlling, agents of neoliberal globalists and authoritarians. Organizations in general have died, destroyed by a pervasive ethos of individualism, and then further by the lack of time and disposable income, sacrificed to debt, to the grind, to inflation, to escapism; in short To Capitalism. And within a framework of capitalist realism, there is no hope for something different, just that you can move from exploited to exploiter.
The contradictions of the Imperial Core under Neoliberalism are (in addition to all of the international, environmental, etc. ones): financial instability, social isolation, and the destruction of a potential for a future better than this one. The factors preventing the revolution are, access to affordable* finished goods, social isolation, and distractions and propaganda.
How does one solve financial instability? Actually affordable access to goods and services (and also strong labor rights to be clear). How do you solve social isolation? Centers of Community. How do you counter propaganda? Education. In short: Libraries. Libraries of Things. Libraries of Activities. Libraries of Knowledge.
Because of the deal that neoliberalism made with the working class, the tools and materials we need to build our library economy are easily available to us if we can only come to trust one another. The need for access to shared, free spaces and resources has never been more apparent. And for all of the effort of the most ideological capitalists and their news organizations, libraries are overwhelmingly popular with people across the political spectrum.
For as long as that remains true, I believe that the Left will have more luck building and organizing library power, than union power, with the same revolutionary potential, towards the same ends of a freer, more just society for the people, not only for the rich.