small business
(You might want to read the earlier posting on 'Fair Treatment' before reading this. It tells how small businesses could compete evenly and fairly with big businesses.)
Wouldn't you like to have your own business? Most people would.
It should be the right of every citizen to enter into business with a reasonable chance of success.
Yes, we have the 'right' now, but start a small business and you'll quickly find yourself nearly buried in tax regulation, zoning laws & labor laws - not to mention financing laws, interstate and international regulations, environmental regulations and laws regulating other laws. Why can't it be easier? I think fewer and simpler laws could greatly increase the probability of business success.
The current trend of concentrating power, wealth and control into fewer and fewer hands simply must be reversed. If most citizens were engaged in their own small businesses it would help to make our people and our nation stronger and more resilient.
Multiplying the numbers of small neighborhood businesses, agencies and services is, I believe, crucial to re-establish communities, reduce the need for commuting to distant workplaces, increase business competition, help to reduce crime rates and personal economic problems.
Changing a significant part of our population from employees to business owners would raise their general level of independence, increase personal responsibility and self-esteem. Additionally, it would provide greater variation in products and service choices for consumers and broader job choices for those choosing to function as employees.
Greatly increasing the numbers of small and very small businesses would allow a more even distribution of the wealth of our nation and it would disrupt the growth of the democratically distructive blending of feudalism and socialism that is becoming increasingly common in our culture.
Wouldn't you like to have your own business? Most people would.
It should be the right of every citizen to enter into business with a reasonable chance of success.
Yes, we have the 'right' now, but start a small business and you'll quickly find yourself nearly buried in tax regulation, zoning laws & labor laws - not to mention financing laws, interstate and international regulations, environmental regulations and laws regulating other laws. Why can't it be easier? I think fewer and simpler laws could greatly increase the probability of business success.
The current trend of concentrating power, wealth and control into fewer and fewer hands simply must be reversed. If most citizens were engaged in their own small businesses it would help to make our people and our nation stronger and more resilient.
Multiplying the numbers of small neighborhood businesses, agencies and services is, I believe, crucial to re-establish communities, reduce the need for commuting to distant workplaces, increase business competition, help to reduce crime rates and personal economic problems.
Changing a significant part of our population from employees to business owners would raise their general level of independence, increase personal responsibility and self-esteem. Additionally, it would provide greater variation in products and service choices for consumers and broader job choices for those choosing to function as employees.
Greatly increasing the numbers of small and very small businesses would allow a more even distribution of the wealth of our nation and it would disrupt the growth of the democratically distructive blending of feudalism and socialism that is becoming increasingly common in our culture.
posted by Sam | 7:45 AM
1 Comments:
You are identifying issues in a capitalist economy and attributing them to feudalism and socialism. For example, how are laws for environmental protection 'socialist'? If you look at the truely socialist economies of China and the former Soviet block, you will see truely awful environmental conditions. Concern for the enviornment is hardly a 'socialist' or 'feudal' position. In Wyoming, it is 'big coal' that is destroying the habitats of wildlife. This has a direct harm on small businesses that serve the needs of hunters. The same
coal is increasing the mercury levels in freshwater fish. There are now forty states were you shouldn't eat the fish. What is more quintessentially rural American that going to the fishing hole or going hunting in the fall?
I agree that excessive regulation of small business is an issue, but I would hate to see no protection of employees or of shared resources.
One of the beauties of Freedman's negative income tax is that it allows many labor laws to be removed. The market can be 'raw' but people are still protected. I would be happy to see a negative income tax coupled with the eliminiation of minimum wage laws and unemployment benefits. This would help to eliminate many of the laws that make creating a small business difficult. I would like to see universal health care. If medical insurance is not coupled to employment, then is becomes easier to run a small business.
On another note, there are some things that are more efficient on a large scale. Nuclear power, particularly as it has been implemented in France, is quite safe, produces no greenhouse gasses and is economically viable.
You seem to be preferring a world where small town merchants are the conerstone of the economy. I suggest that Europe is better at this than the US. The villages are full of privately owned shops that are not parts of national chains. Small family farms are still the norm and farmers have great politicial clout. When you buy meat, you can still see the head of the cow (or pig or horse) that was slaughtered. Try that with hamburger at WalMart- it can't be done because it isn't local. Europe is clearly more socialist than the US. "Extreme' capitalism coupled with strong privacy protection may not be the panacea for small business that you seek. I share the 'small is beautiful' ideal, but I think that we need to consider the best ideas in the world in order to accomplish this.
In the 20th century, capitalism was the thesis, communism was the antithesis and the modern welfare state was the synthesis that attempts to couple the vibrancy of market capitalism with social protections. We now see the faults of the welfare state, so we need to move on to a new synthesis for the 21st century. If 'welfare state' is the thesis, and 'ologarchic capitalism' is the antithesis, how do we move forward to find a new synthesis? I think you have some of the key ideas, so perhaps elements of the sythesis will emerge. But I also feel that the synthesis must also include ideas from Europe and the rest of the world.
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