viernes, 19 de diciembre de 2008

The Benefit of Big Business

Consider a large business. The larger they are, the better they will be at canvassing the globe for good, rare, impossibly unlocal products, services, ideas, employees, techniques, entrepreneurs, et cetera. Whe? Because the small business can't afford it. They are also better at employing large numbers of people and doing large things that may need to be done. Why? Because the small business can't afford it. And as far as I know, they have no other benefits over small business. Is this grounds for forbidding their existence?

5 comentarios:

don pedro dijo...

In my experience, the exact oppostie is true. Big business does not supply exotic products, small businesses do. For example, in order to find my latin food (which really is not that exotic) I have to find obscure small stores that offer it. Big stores often frequently try to fool you into thinking something is exotic (like PACE salsa! (blech)). Furthermore, big stores will not go out of their way to order you soemthing that is hard to find. If you go to a big store, you can find a statue that was made is an assembly line in China; to find an authentic hand carved one from Italy, you need to find a little store. What big businesses do is package everything together and make you think your getting a good deal. If you look at the recent post of the Distributist review (sometimes low prices... sometimes), they document there how megastores actually do not have significantly lower prices. Furthermore, you'll never get the same level of personal attention at walmart as at a local store. Also local stores can afford to special order you things, you just foot the bill, which in general isn't that much. (I've done it, I'd know). Furthermore, all those jobs that they provide would be better spread out at a variety of little stores.

In the end, my only remaining qualm about getting rid of big business is the technological investment they can produce. However, most of the technology that directly affects us was developed at a very small level. (the only expection I can think of at the moment is military and satelite technology). And I'm not saying that big business should be banned, but it definitely dominates American business far to much.

Old Fashioned Liberal dijo...

I stand corrected. Reality trumps theory, you know. And I also believe that our positions on big business are actually the same. Both of us know they have problems. And both of us think they should not be banned and both of us know that smaller is better.

don pedro dijo...

hey, it happened to me too. As an ex-neo-conservative, I definitely sympathize with some of these ideas. For instance I have people in my econ class who lecture me on how there is no other way to do it. Walmart was set up by the market and therefore is infallible. I think there was a lot of government in walmart, but hey...

at the moment I favor the establishment of Distributism as a popular movement. This might be why I get so annoyed with "non-believing" conservatives who think that the government must dictate distributism. If they would just get on board the government would be entirely extraneous!

Old Fashioned Liberal dijo...

Don't you dare call me a neo-conservative, or even a past neo-conservative :) ! There's a lot more to neo-conservatism than economics.

don pedro dijo...

oh, sorry, *I* am the ex-neo-con, not you. I don't feel like I know you nearly well enough to start labelling your past. =)

And I'm curious to hear what you have to say about neo-conservatism. I personally have never seen much criticism of it, just because of where I live. So... would you like to go on a tirade against neo-con for the next post?? I'm über curious! =)