i've always wondered why someone hasn't started a non-profit business to start selling goods and services, in which they should be able to out-compete the for-profit enterprises, since they can sell at cost just to break even, or sell at less of a markup.
you could get one going, then use what would be the "profits" (since you can't keep them) as seed funding a second similar non-profit in a different industry, then a third, by then the 2nd one could seed fund a fourth, and so on and so on until eventually, you would have expanded into every industry. and over time, since you can always out-compete the capitalist, you would have monopolized every industry with non-profit enterprises.
depending on how you structured it, you could stipulate some kind of collective social ownership, or each industry could be run as a non-profit worker cooperative with workplace democracy.
i am sure there are a thousand little reasons why this might fail, but i don't see any big gotcha? it seems like a sound idea. i guess maybe the capitalists would be willing to run at a loss to try and stop you, but that's still a good outcome? maybe try to make it illegal? i am not sure how you could make it illegal to sell good and services at break-even prices. price controls, ok fine, we will just have more money for seed funding.
i guess TLDR the ability to run a not-for-profit business seems like a pretty big weakness for capitalism.
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"Profit" here doesn't mean you aren't making any money on your goods and services, it means you aren't distributing those surpluses out to owners as a "profit", but you can keep them as surpluses to do things like expand the business. The trick would be, you don't need to meet any certain profitability metrics, so you could undercut what a capitalist enterprise would expect, while still being above zero. The problem of competing with capitalist enterprises who can run at a loss to try and put you out of business is a real problem, but there are a few ways to look at that. For one, good, let them, you are eating up their capital. The second being, you have other ways to compete, such as marketing as a more ethical alternative. Consumers have shown some willingness to pay a premium for business practices. e.g. "support minority-owned/local business" or "fair trade" products and so on.
I think the main thing would be targeting an market that would be difficult for capitalists to undercut you, and then as you build up a seed fund or and endowment, then you can fund second/subsidiary non-profit to use the same kind of "run at a loss" tactics to run the capitalists out of business.