Good morning Kimel <snip< [Krimel] <snip> ...I am not at all convinced the "efficiency" is as desirable as many claim it is. I think much creativity and growth arises from inefficiency. In fact in many organizations I suspect that inefficiency is a source of dynamic quality.
m Very good point about creativity. In a low quality SQ situation people can respond with higher quality DQ and compensate for what was a low quality state. K To my knowledge there is no meaningful distinction between the terms "not for profit" and "non-profit." As a devotee of Strunk and White I prefer the later term. Both refer to 501C status with the IRS. m sorry, had not meant to get that deep in legal structure, I was speaking of the organizational purpose. There are numerous so called for-profit structures C and S and LLCetc that are in fact set up to make no profit. I was peripherally associated with a charitable operation for a short time, which consisted of three people and used an LLC structure because it did not involve the over-burdensome reporting of a non-profit structure. They operated not-for-profit and when the work was done they folded the organization. Resoures to service was a 100% conversion. So, that is one example of the difference in operational not-for-profit and organizational 501non-profit. <snip< > > [Krimel] > I am not sure what you are getting at but I would be interested in seeing > such studies. m The point was a contrast showing the link between efficiency and the ability to generate surplus. (Any university library should be able to steer you in the proper direction.) <snip> > [mel] > That is indeed a key question. Who is it who will hold the surplus? > Do we trust the individual to hold the profit agianst lean times? > Do we trust the corporate entity to hold the profit against lean times? > Or do we trust a central planning/government to do so? > > That is the nature of the difference in political philosophy. > > [Krimel] > Yes but non-profits are an integral part of the capitalist system and have a > long history within it. Churches have been around since before there was > capitalism. m surplus is an integral part of the operation of most enterprizes except as pointed out earlier: charities. I did not bring churches into the discussion and see no reason to. > <snip> > [Krimel] > First I would say that politicians should push some kind of agenda. That is > what they do. m >From the above you've not specified if, for you a social agenda or a political agenda are what you expect of politicians. Spending public money to push moral agendae is definitionally Liberal, classical or progressive. One side pushes anti-Roe v Wade and the other pushes pro Roe v Wade. One side pushes its so-called 'conservative' social agenda the other a so called 'progressive' one. if you believe in the government as the source of social value, then you are embracing a liberal mode of thought it just remains for you to choose which flavor of liberalism. However, if you see the agenda as political only, this is different. Improvement of the highway between city A and city B. Making an attempt to exempt food from sales tax. Specific infrastructural support changes or taxation formulation or standards coordination or modiications of liability are all clearly political and likely to interest all stripes of politician. K But I don't think it is true that both parties act to run up > debt in the way you describe at least not judging by recent history. Reagan > came into office preaching fiscal responsibility, ran up more public debt > that all of his predecessors combined and called it a victory for the "free > market". Clinton, by the time he left office had balanced the federal budget > and was running surpluses. Bush, another free marketeer started with a > surplus and has managed to double the national debt. . m You have helped prove my point, thanks Reagan, was a classical liberal shading toward post-classical he ran up the budget. (There is considerable confusion in language as to what a Conservative or a Liberal is. My prior post classified how I see the R's and D's in their operational philosophies as both being Liberals, but of differing camps...hence the animosity they evince) Clinton never balanced anything in full budget terms, he simply divided the budget and renamed the parts to service debt as something else and pretended it was not part of the whole, so for the operational year he could pretend the inflow and outflow matched. The debt, recategorized, continued to grow. Bush is neo-con, which is a misleading label for his fully post- classical liberalism. He never met a budget dollar it did not make him gleeful to spend. >K > It would seem the real difference is between "tax and spend" liberals and > "charge it to the grandkids" conservatives. At least the liberals can > balance the budget. > m Sorry, both of these are simply disingenuous burden shifting. <snip> > > [Krimel] > The purpose of our form of governments is to be a static latch. It is to act > as a buffer or moderating force in the face of change. That is what checks > and balances are all about. Their function is to prevent rapid and radical > changes in public policy. It is to prevent one form of power from dominating > the others. From on MoQ perspective it is the static quality of public > policy that allows dynamic opportunity for individuals. The government sets > the rules and people play by them. It is no fun to play a game where the > rules are always changing. > m That's a nice model. We ought to try it sometime. > [Krimel] > Isn't "raiding of Social Security" just borrowing from it? It is not as > though the money just gets spent with no accounting. m The difference is that in stealing the principal you've also stolen the possiblity for interest and even if you pay back the principal, you will never replace the interest. SS was intended to be a trust. No one uses that term anymore. (Speaking for myself, if a thief leave me a receipt for the watch he steals from me, I'm still saying he stole it.) > <snip> > > [Krimel] > Private enterprise does not necessarily eliminate or interfere with other > Values. It is simply that they are irrelevant to it. Private enterprise > Values profit. All others considerations are not only secondary but are > calculated in terms of profit. m People operate enterprises according to their own values. While an intellectual model of free enterprise may view anything not profit as irrelevant, you often find in a company's mission statement some pretty amazing language about responsibility that boil down to "if we succeed everyone will benefit" K > Witness Ford's assessment of the cost or [of] > fixing the design of Pinto gas tanks as opposed to defending suits by crash > victims. >In the private sectors Values are means to the end of profit. > Non-profits on the other hand are mission driven. They state what their > mission is in their applications for 501C status and for them money is a > means to an end. m Excellent example of individual managers using profit as an excuse to embrace a low quality behavior. They knew damn well what they did was wrong, but regardless of the structure of the organization, the cowardice of people will "shine through." You could have as easily chosen a non-profit insurance provider decision to deny a proven treatment on the bureaucratic basis of "experimental" and given us the same result. thanks for the help, Kimel. thanks--mel > > > > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
