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This can sometimes be a myth, that non profit is better than profit. There are expenses that must be paid with non profit organizations, salaries must still be paid and there is overhead. What guarantee is there that non profit expenses and overhead will be less than profit? Who controls that? Does the fact that when a government runs a utility or any enterprise, that it will be run more efficiently than a public corporation? The cost of mis management, graft and inefficiency can be concealed quite readily in the taxes we pay, whereas with for profit corporations, the stockholders have a quick and ready voice that can control mis management. Is it likely that a government could run a business like Fed Express and do it as well? I think not.

Lon;700223 wrote: This can sometimes be a myth, that non profit is better than profit. There are expenses that must be paid with non profit organizations, salaries must still be paid and there is overhead. What guarantee is there that non profit expenses and overhead will be less than profit? Who controls that? Does the fact that when a government runs a utility or any enterprise, that it will be run more efficiently than a public corporation? The cost of mis management, graft and inefficiency can be concealed quite readily in the taxes we pay, whereas with for profit corporations, the stockholders have a quick and ready voice that can control mis management. Is it likely that a government could run a business like Fed Express and do it as well? I think not.


That was always cited as an issue with the old nationalized industries such as the mines and the railways. The mining industry has largely ceased to exist but the railways are certainly less efficient now than they were pre-privatization.

There's no evidence that privatization and de-regulation of the utilities has improved matters in the slightest either. End user prices certainly never dropped.

ETA. The other issue is safety. It can be shown that, with the move to profit driven infrastructure, the safety levels on the railways for both staff and passengers has dropped since privatization.

I think that the evidence shows that their are cases in which using a profit based philosophy to provide services or infratsucture etc works well, and others where a non-profit approach works better. Its better to remain pragmatic and not be ideological about such matters, use whichever one works best based on actual evidence and not theory. In many cases the fundamntal problems with an organization are not based on its philosophical economic structure, but the actual quality of its people and its organization and these are the major issue. There are many cases that can be used to illustate these points, but I am not going through them now. It is an interesting debate though.

Galbally;700291 wrote: I think that the evidence shows that their are cases in which using a profit based philosophy to provide services or infratsucture etc works well, and others where a non-profit approach works better. Its better to remain pragmatic and not be ideological about such matters, use whichever one works best based on actual evidence and not theory. In many cases the fundamntal problems with an organization are not based on its philosophical economic structure, but the actual quality of its people and its organization and these are the major issue. There are many cases that can be used to illustate these points, but I am not going through them now. It is an interesting debate though.


No debate on my part---------I agree.