Big biz fights back by calling out envy, particularly targeting min wage workers as the biggest problem.
However, both overlook the real villain, the small business.
At first glance small business does not look like villain. Very ordinary local guy or sometimes family work hard to keep their enterprise afloat. They work longer than many others, wear many hats as they have to be managers, accountants and fulfill various other roles necessary to keep business running. They provide custom tailored service to the local community that reflects local spirit rather than just pump out mass produced stuff, made across the world. What not to like? Thanks to all that all the small businessmen, wear that badge with pride.
That however is but half of the tale. Negatives of small business clearly outweigh the positives. However, before I list the negatives, I will explain one fundamental reason, why small business is unviable in principle, economics of scale.
Reality is that economies of scale work against small business. One can eternally rant on how multinational corporations push their soulless produce, or how Le Corbusier homes lack character, but they have one clear unsurmountable advantage, the price. Mass production is infinitely cheaper than small custom or handmade stuff. For the price of one t-shirt in boutique store, one can buy around 10 t-shirts in a mass production store. Groceries are always cheaper in large nation-wide chain stores compare to privately run corner stores. The same for any other goods from bread and potato chips to even homes. Say all you like about Le Corbusier design, but for the price of one single home in traditional style you can have the entire suburb build with Le Corbusier methods.
Sure, in times of affluence and prosperity one can indulge themselves and splurge extra for some niche product from a boutique store that only they and their three friends find appealing and everyone else thinks it's stupid. During such affluent times it can be profitable and reasonable to run a small business, specialising on something nieche or extra luxurious.
However, when times are rough, austerity runs rampart and no one has enough money, paying extra is not only unwise, but also downright stupid. We live in austerity world since Financial Crisis of 2008, everyone is short on money. No one can afford to splurge anymore. So, did we phase out small businesses and their unnecessary wasteful operations? No, far from it, small businesses are still everywhere. Their owners wear their status with pride and call themselves backbone of the society, despite being essentially dependent on government propping them up at expense of everyone else.
Defenders of private enterprise here would likely say: "people should have freedom to do what they want, including starting and running a small business if they wish to. Government should not just ban them from doing so; it would be totalitarian" Such an argument would be reasonable if small businesses were indeed run personal ability without being propped by the rest of the society: If such small businesses were indeed run profitable entirely through their own effort and were able to make profit and pay its employees, the salaries they are entitled to, taxes and so on. If the conditions set in the previous sentence were met, I would not have opposed small businesses. However, the reality is that vast majority of such small businesses do not meet this condition.
Without government propping small businesses with variety of measures, most will not be able to survive at all.
Most will not even be able to open, as no true private profit minded bank will ever give money to such an unviable enterprise where upfront costs are large, profits are slim and far from guaranteed. The only reason they even get loans is thanks to government central Bank policy to lend money to such businesses. Yes, the Fed (Federal Reserve), that defenders of private enterprise like to hate so much, is only reason they even exist. Other government policies like creation of employment initiatives (more on them later) or tax insensitive further prop small businesses.
Logistics is another area where small business depends on others, in this case big business. Large corporations like Linfox or Maersk, that own tanker ships, cargo trains and lorries. They ship products that small business sells in their stores. Without them small businesses will have nothing to sell at all. Only big business has sufficient recourses to ship something from where it is produced to where it sold. The local coffee shop will have no "local" coffee to sell without Maersk shipping it from Peru but Maersk can easily distribute their goods through many other stores. Yet here again people praise small business and not the real heroes who make it happen.
Finally, labor. Small business could offer their employees neither competitive salary, nor good working conditions. People who work for small businesses clearly have it worse that those who work for government or large public companies. Just like their boss they have to wear many hats but unlike him they are not properly compensated for that. At best they get minimum wage, but often not even that as many small businesses underpay their employees either by not properly counting the hours they have work or even downright paying less than legal wage. Small businesses also often employ illegal migrants because no matter how you underpay a local, a migrant from a country that lives for $1 a day is always cheaper. Some businesses like food delivery, reclassify their employees as contractors to avoid paying them legal wage or provide them with their due legal entitlements.
Also, no matter how hard a small business employee works, their boss will always think they are not working hard enough. Hence a toxic working conditions where boss constantly pushes to do more and more and more. Reality of economics of scale prevents small business from succeeding but those who run these businesses instead blame their employees.
Despite obviously subpar working conditions and inability to survive in actual free market, small businesses successfully lobbied government to help them hire cheap labor. Government policies such as "work for the dole" and mutual obligations are misused to fill the employee ranks of unprofitable small businesses who will abuse such workers and likely underpay them as well. Here again small businesses only survive thanks to sacrifices of their employees, but instead of being grateful, they bash minimum wage workers non-stop, blaming them for everything.
To sum it all up, without government policy that favours small business, support provided by large businesses as well as sacrifices of their min wage employees, absolute majority of small businesses will not be able to survive and will go belly up (bankrupt) in no time. Despite this obvious fact, instead of being grateful for what they have, most of small business owners never stop reviling government, big business billionaires and min wage workers, blaming them for the problem, they themselves are.
In view of all of the above I see no reason why we continue to prop these arrogant and entitled small business owners. Big businesses like logistics or major grocery stores are essential, without them the society will stop and starve. No one is going to die without a small coffee shop, even more so in current cost of living crisis where their expensive overpriced coffee is simply too expensive for majority of people and only boomers with millions in super would bother splurging for it. It is pretty much certain they are not making profits from what they do. Why continue to waste money to keep the afloat? They hardly create any jobs at all and those they create do not pay adequate salary, leaving people better off on the dole rather than working there. It's unfair for the rest of the society to keep sacrificing for vanity of these small business owners. Sponge Bob cartoon satirised them well enough. Money and resources they use are better spent elsewhere.
Here I would like to clarify that I am not for complete abolition or ban of all forms of small business. Those who are able to make decent profits, pay their employees decent salaries and provide them with decent working conditions do deserve to continue their business. However, those who are unable to achieve these things have to go. People who used to work for them should be transitioned to a perpetual dole. There are also certain situations where small business can really be very useful and valuable for the community it serves. Such small businesses have to continue.
However far not every small business is like that. A lot of them are more of a hobby pursuit of a cheapskate entitled owner, next to no customers and underpaid and abused employees.
In general, our society has to make peace with and transition to a system where not everyone works and some perpetually live off welfare or UBI. This is simply an economic reality of the level of technological development are currently at. Most work is unprofitable, unduly wastes resources and in summary not worth doing. Instead of continuing wasting resources and time, we should put effort in transitioning to a society where robots work and humans' rule and do things they actually enjoy rather than fill in cashiers in a store where hardly anyone buys anything.
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