non-profit stuff that is better than for-profit stuff

[SNOWBALL]

Please don't respond to this thread if you want to talk about why central planning is bad. This isn't about that at all.

Anyway, here goes.

I go to 3 different martial arts schools. Judo charges $20 per month for three 2 hour lessons per week. Jeet Kune Do charges $40 per month for one 2 hour class per week. The Third I'll call Jun Fan, and it charges $120 per month for two 90 minute classes per week.

Judo is nonprofit. It's run as a club/sports organization. I think I would rank Judo as the best training that I currently engage in. The class is VERY VERY hard. I frequently get injured. I often get thrown hard or submitted on the ground. Most people would hate to be in this class unless they were in reasonable shape.

The advantages of the judo class are that everything you learn is extremely practical, and you learn it in a way that teaches you how to apply it in a violent encounter against a strong, and capable fighter.
We spare for about an hour total every class. The other hour is warmup/instruction in techniques. There;s no such thing as having a false sense of self-confidence in Judo. You spar every class, including your first day, and there's almost always someone much better than you.


The 2nd best class I go to is the Jeet Kune Do class. I might rank it first, except it only meets once a week, and we don't do as much sparring. We learn very few techniques in this class. Everything is refinement, and it's refinement through hard work. All of the drills we do are very alive. You will sometimes get hit in the drills, because they are done at a high speed, and the attitude in the class is that getting hit is the price you pay for screwing up and it's the only way to learn. We spare for about 15 minutes at the end of class.
Everything is allowed in the sparring. We wear boxing gloves, and shin guards, and groin protectors, and use mouthguards, and we don't go full power out of courtesy, but we still go full speed and you still get hurt.

The third best class is the Jun Fan class. We learn new, and somewhat complicated techniques almost every class. There is zero sparring for many students, even those who have been there for 18 months or more. The drills are done in a slow manner, and your partner is there to basically assist you in completing your technique, instead of acting as a resistant opponent.

What's happening in the case of this third school is that the seller is able to give the consumer something that appears to be what the consumer wants, and he is able to do this for a long period of time without the student having the ability to tell the difference. Students come to learn how to defend themselves effectively, but instead they end up learning fantasy roleplaying techniques.

Most markets in capitalism seem to function in a very different way than this, because:

1. The consumer can tell beforehand if the product sucks

and at the very least

2. After the initial transaction ("small buy") the consumer can decide to continue to make that purchase, based on whether it satisfied a need or not.

In the case of nonprofit martial arts schools, like my Judo school, they really don't care very much if you join or not, and they're not there to make you feel good about yourself. They are there to teach you how to compete effectively so that you can do well in tournaments, and so you can continue the tradition of the school and help to teach other students later on.

conclusion: sometimes the profit motive sucks.

Ok, sorry if you think I'm being captain obvious here, but I mainly made this post in he hopes that some of you would share some other examples of when non-profit organizations might outperform for-profit organizations.

One I was thinking about, but I'm not sure about, is the practice of psychology.

[GoodCallYouWin]

"Ok, sorry if you think I'm being captain obvious here, but I mainly made this post in he hopes that some of you would share some other examples of when non-profit organizations might outperform for-profit organizations."

The church outperfroms the state.

[SNOWBALL]

[ QUOTE ]

"Ok, sorry if you think I'm being captain obvious here, but I mainly made this post in he hopes that some of you would share some other examples of when non-profit organizations might outperform for-profit organizations."

The church outperfroms the state.


[/ QUOTE ]


1. I have no idea what you even mean

2. The state isn't really a for-profit organization in a sense that is different than churches are, i.e., it's not like they are both incentivized to cut costs to increase profit for a shareholder or proprietor

3. I was thining something more along on the lines of "Studies show that nonprofit mental health centers show more patient improvement per treatment hour than psychologists" (made up quote) or whatever. Not comparing apples and oranges.

4. Stop trying to hijack my thread. The very first sentence said that this thread isn't about the state. GAWD.

[The Truth]

I've been to many for profit gyms structured the way your judo gym is structured. I currently do jujitzu at a forprofit place that has the exact same structure.

[SNOWBALL]

[ QUOTE ]

I've been to many for profit gyms structured the way your judo gym is structured. I currently do jujitzu at a forprofit place that has the exact same structure.

[/ QUOTE ]

I should have brought this up in OP. There are definitely very good products and services that are produced for profit, however, if I do a search in los angeles for "brazilian jiu-jitsu" and a search for "Karate" I get 10x more results for karate. Guess which one is more effective, and more challenging?
Karate students are looking for the same thing that BJJ students are looking for, and they think they're getting it, but they aren't.

Standard dogma is that the only way for a business to succeed is to please their consumers. There are some markets where this seems to systemically not be the case. What % of karate students do you think would be pleased if they were in jail and their cellmate tried to rape them? My guess is maybe 10%. A BJJ student is going to break several of that rapist's bones, and sleep well with an intact bunghole like 90% of the time.

[MidGe]

The only industry I know where there is a plethora of products equally as good if not better than commercial alternatives is the software industry and its various form of free open-source movement. The really interesting aspect of this is that where there exists a free product alternative of equal or superior quality it hasn't destroyed the commercial alternatives viability.

[govman6767]

[ QUOTE ]
One I was thinking about, but I'm not sure about, is the practice of psychology

[/ QUOTE ]

I dont' know you make some pretty good points in your post.

If you wanted to talk apples and oranges I could offer this comparison.

20 dollars for Non profit Judo teaches you to defend yourself, self control, confidence, and would help you in a crisis by knowing you can defend yourself.

I dont' take Judo so I don't know how you would feel in a 3 on 1 or a 4 on 1 situation where you were being attacked.

In that situation I would rather give my money to a FOR profit company like Smith and Wesson. Having a .38 or an UZI makes me feel safer, have confidence, and let's me defend myself.

Now I feel safer with an UZI but I would not be getting the self control that Judo teaches so society might not feel safe with me having the UZI.

Realisticly speaking the Judo is better than the gun option. Because of all the side benefits 1) Exersize 2) Confidence 3) Social Interaction etc etc.

The gun option might be something you'll never need in your life and a waste of money but it is nice to have that one time you might really need it.

So to sum up if I lived in the country or a nice neighborhood I think the non profit Judo is the way to go and is much better than buying a gun.

If you live in a city with a high crime and violence rate then while the gun is the worst option overall it still might be the best choice.

[W brad]

non-profit >>>>>>>> profit >>>>>>>>>>>>&g t; government

[SNOWBALL]

[ QUOTE ]

Standard dogma is that the only way for a business to succeed is to please their consumers. There are some markets where this seems to systemically not be the case. What % of karate students do you think would be pleased if they were in jail and their cellmate tried to rape them? My guess is maybe 10% . A BJJ student is going to break several of that rapist's bones, and sleep well with an intact bunghole like 90% of the time .



[/ QUOTE ]

Lol nobody caught onto the numbers I used?

[Ron Burgundy]

Snowball,

Your logic is fundamentally flawed. If the majority of consumers in this market wanted the same thing you want, then the classes offered by the for-profit schools would reflect that.

Most people probably say they want to learn real and efective self-defense in these classes, but obviously not, because the results of the market have shown otherwise. Most people actually want the fantasy role-playing or whatever you called it, and that's what the for-profit companies offer the most of. If people didn't want that, the demand for those classes would decrease.

The for-profit martial arts market is providing the product that consumers demand just as well if not better than any other for-profit market.

It's not yours or anyone else's responsibility to force people to take certain kinds of martial arts classes just because you think it would be better for them.

Unfortunately for you, you don't want the same product that most people want. Tough noogies.