I once read an interesting story about the host* business. Apparently the dominant player is a for-profit business.
The competition is convents around the country that have traditionally supplied them to parish churches. Here you have organizations that are as non-profit as they come -- convents aren't like many hospitals where the CEO and other high level employees are raking off a huge salaries as quasi-profit. And the motives and priorities couldn't be any purer, their work is essentially in the service of what they consider the glorification of God.
Yet they are being out-competed by a for-profit company that explicitly tries to make on every sale in order to compensate the owners.
How do you explain this if you view profit as deadweight loss that can only be at the expense of customers?
So first off, you're adding additional meaning to my statements by saying things like "you view profit as deadweight loss", which is not what I said at all (or if that's what you understood, then my apologies).
Secondly, I don't really think I need to disprove your anecdotal scenarios (which aren't really apples to apples anyways) in order to stand behind my statements..
I will say this: I did originally say that executives and employees should be well-compensated and that the company, while not profit-driven, should still be making enough money to attract top talent and be competitive in the market.
My idea was never about running an insurance company like a charity or a tiny unsophisticated business (as in your host example), it was just about not prioritizing shareholder profits over the core business service provided to the customer (i.e. providing coverage and paying claims), which is what many publicly-traded insurance companies do today.
The competition is convents around the country that have traditionally supplied them to parish churches. Here you have organizations that are as non-profit as they come -- convents aren't like many hospitals where the CEO and other high level employees are raking off a huge salaries as quasi-profit. And the motives and priorities couldn't be any purer, their work is essentially in the service of what they consider the glorification of God.
Yet they are being out-competed by a for-profit company that explicitly tries to make on every sale in order to compensate the owners.
How do you explain this if you view profit as deadweight loss that can only be at the expense of customers?
Edit: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vvaeyb/the-surprisingly-c...
*The bread that is used during Catholic masses.