Right, so what you’re missing here is that AAFES and NEXCOM are independent corporate entities under the DOD that are almost entirely self-funded (I would guess some basic admin elements are staffed by DOD staff or something very basic, but I’m not sure). That puts them into a weird category of company that is usually referred to as a parastatial corporation or “state-owned company” in most places outside the US. The US usually contracts out rather than have state-owned companies, as a limit to liability.
They’re basically 100% independent entities with no taxpayer budget so they can operate with less bureaucracy and government requirements for how they spend their money and contract with vendors and contractors. AAFES has a civilian CEO. Their employees are not members of the military, they’re civilians. It IS a non-profit, as they’re also captured to only have a limited client base. Their goal is to break even and save money for things like buying a new meat cooler for when the ones they have break. Which means they get much easier taxes to deal with.
They key here is that they save money on things like real estate costs and import/export duties compared to Wal-Mart, but leverage the same corporate relationships. So taxpayer money isn’t exactly going to commissaries, they’re just not getting charged as much for facilities or utilities because they’re leveraging military economies of scale. That does count as a subsidy in a sense, but it’s not like they get cash from DOD to run any commissary.
It’s not “socialism” in any sense of the term. It’s a company store if anything - it’s just the one version of this where the prices are not jacked up to exploit people.
You do know the UK and a few European countries also sometimes have commissaries on joint bases or diplomatic properties, right?
Right, so what you’re missing here is that AAFES and NEXCOM are independent corporate entities under the DOD that are almost entirely self-funded (I would guess some basic admin elements are staffed by DOD staff or something very basic, but I’m not sure). That puts them into a weird category of company that is usually referred to as a parastatial corporation or “state-owned company” in most places outside the US. The US usually contracts out rather than have state-owned companies, as a limit to liability.
They’re basically 100% independent entities with no taxpayer budget so they can operate with less bureaucracy and government requirements for how they spend their money and contract with vendors and contractors. AAFES has a civilian CEO. Their employees are not members of the military, they’re civilians. It IS a non-profit, as they’re also captured to only have a limited client base. Their goal is to break even and save money for things like buying a new meat cooler for when the ones they have break. Which means they get much easier taxes to deal with.
They key here is that they save money on things like real estate costs and import/export duties compared to Wal-Mart, but leverage the same corporate relationships. So taxpayer money isn’t exactly going to commissaries, they’re just not getting charged as much for facilities or utilities because they’re leveraging military economies of scale. That does count as a subsidy in a sense, but it’s not like they get cash from DOD to run any commissary.
It’s not “socialism” in any sense of the term. It’s a company store if anything - it’s just the one version of this where the prices are not jacked up to exploit people.
You do know the UK and a few European countries also sometimes have commissaries on joint bases or diplomatic properties, right?