Like Mike, I find this distinction illuminating:
I like to call this the “purpose-driven voluntary sector,” as distinct from (a) the profit-driven voluntary sector, i.e. the private sector, and (b) the purpose-driven coercive sector, i.e., the public sector. Its role is reminiscent of the religious orders in the Middle Ages, groups like the Franciscans and the Dominicans, or the Templars and Hospitallers who fought in the Holy Land. It includes universities, NGOs, churches, the blogosphere, Wikipedia, and so on. Its aims and its loyalties transcend both the self-interest of individuals and the interests of national states. It is a major driver of innovation and progress. It is growing in influence and power.
As Mike notes, there’s also a profit-driven coercive sector centered on K Street.
Libertarianism, properly understood, is concerned with the “voluntary” part, not the “profit” part. When Bill Gates and John Mackey encourage businesses to broaden their focus to encompass motivators other than profit, they’re properly understood not as free-market apostates but as thinkers who are helping to broaden the focus of a free-market movement that is sometimes too myopically focused on the profit-driven segment of the voluntary sector. For-profit companies are crucial to a free society, of course, but so are those parts of civil society that aren’t focused on turning a profit, and the “profit-driven” versus “purpose-driven” distinction is a nice way of highlighting this basic symmetry.
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