Read Brad Plumer on the misplaced admiration for small business. I desperately want to write "The Case Against Small Businesses," which is such a New Republic article I'm surprised it hasn't spontaneously burst onto their cover before now. Maybe one day I will. In the meantime, Plumer's got much of it covered:
small businesses also tend to pay their workers less, offer fewer benefits, are much, much harder for unions to organize, and are often more dangerous places to work. They're rarely more innovative, and they aren't the really the "motor" behind job growth in America[...]
the pagan god of small business gets invoked every single time a progressive policy idea comes gurgling out of the faucet. "No, we can't raise taxes, it will hurt small businesses." "No, we can't have national health care, it will hurt small businesses." Eff that.
That last bit is particularly important. Barely-surviving mom and pop shops are routinely invoked by lobbyists of massive multinationals attempting to stop progressive policies. If a business is operating at margins that don't allow for a slight increase in the minimum wage, it should be culled by the market, not left to limp on and gum up the political process.
As it is, the Chamber of Commerce tends to shield themselves with undercapitalized organizations, shoving them in front of legislation like a parent halting the tractor with their kid. It's disgraceful. And yet liberals like to fall for it, building in all manner of weird subsidies so we can promise a minimal impact on floundering shops -- they're just too important to sacrifice.
Companies should be evaluated on their business practices, not their size. This weird, unthinking, vestigial affection for a Jeffersonian economy is not only economically nonsensical, it's simply not compatible with progressive goals.
