Small Business and the Petty Bourgeois

[Peachman2000]

Conservatives always point to the petty bourgeoisie and small business to "prove" capitalism works. I understand that there is a problem with a minority class (petty bourgeoisie), but is there a problem with small private business? Like mom and pop stores, and local businesses that never expand. Is there just a fear of their potential to gain capital and power?

[cyu]

Small slave-owners might not gain political or economic power either, but that doesn't make slavery acceptable. The same applies to wage-slavery.

Maybe a mom and pop employer might be really nice to their employees, and even invite them over to dinner every night, but you wouldn't be willing to accept slavery just because someone is really nice to their slaves.

The issue is that one person is in a position of power over someone else's life. It might not be so bad if the relationship is good, but because the situation of domination exists, well, how many slave-owners would be willing to trade places with their slaves? How many employers would be willing to trade places with their wage-slaves?

[cyu]

If you had a single-person small business, that never has any employees, you might imagine that there can be no exploitation within that business. However, there are also assumptions in this scenario that aren't obvious. One of these is the concept of property.

Let's say I "owned" my own single-person business and have no employees. However, my business stretches across the entire planet I live on. I "own" the entire planet. I may not be exploiting any employees in running "my" business, but what if someone else arrives on the planet? Does the fact that I own the entire planet mean he should just starve?

[Mr. Piccolo]

From a worker's perspective, small businesses are often just as bad, if not worse than large corporations. Small businesses often pay lower wages, provide workers no benefits or insurance, misclassify employees as independent contractors to avoid paying taxes for social insurance programs and other benefits, and just generally try to cheat and exploit workers in any way possible.

The quaint but misleading image of the "Mom and Pop" store is often used to make a pro-capitalist appeal to regular folk who might not respond well to defenses of big business. But small business owners aren't essentially that different from larger capitalists, even if some of them might try to have some kind of positive relationship with their workers.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Conservatives always point to the petty bourgeoisie and small business to "prove" capitalism works. I understand that there is a problem with a minority class (petty bourgeoisie), but is there a problem with small private business? Like mom and pop stores, and local businesses that never expand. Is there just a fear of their potential to gain capital and power?

Pointing to small business as proof that capitalism works is like pointing to a dead patient as proof that you're a good doctor. You can do it - in the sense that it's not illegal - but why would you want to? Small business is the sick man of capitalism, requiring massive government intervention so it does not end up destroyed by the much more efficient monopoly capital.

So even from the perspective of capital, there is a problem with small private business. Of course, from our perspective there is even more of a problem. Small business - which in most cases means the petite bourgeoisie, so I don't understand the distinction you're drawing here - is still, well, capitalist business. One definite set of the means of production is held by private individuals who engage in commodity production - none of this is compatible with socialism, to say the least. Socialism means a global society based on socialised production, not a regression to the localism of the pre-capitalist era. If capitalism won't destroy small business, workers' rule will.

In any case it's almost a non-factor at this point. Much more dangerous are those who would have socialists take up the cause of inefficient and outmoded local business.

[Atsumari]

Lol you will be shocked how evil mom and pop can be, especially in my area of interest. I have so many horror stories.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Lol you will be shocked how evil mom and pop can be, especially in my area of interest. I have so many horror stories.

There's a good argument to be made that they are actually a lot worse than a large enterprise. They often offer shittier pay, even worse service conditions and similar... And the fact that you know the shits doing it to you doesn't exactly make it feel more humane.

[Mr. Piccolo]

There's a good argument to be made that they are actually a lot worse than a large enterprise. They often offer shittier pay, even worse service conditions and similar... And the fact that you know the shits doing it to you doesn't exactly make it feel more humane.

All very true. I have also noticed that small business owners are some of the most reactionary people out there. Small business owners are often even more virulent than large companies when it comes to opposing things like minimum wage laws and basic forms of health and safety regulation.

Small business owners seem to comprise an important part of the constituency for fascist and right-libertarian movements.