Small businesses aren’t just overrated — they hurt workers
Last month, Jacobin published an article on the downsides to small businesses in America. It focused on their workers’ low wages, inadequate benefits, and small businesses’ ability to skirt around certain labor regulations — all important points. Unfortunately, it pussyfoots around a complete condemnation of this popular manifestation of capitalism, weakly calling small business promotion “mostly a bad idea.”
Actual socialists should have stronger words on the subject, based on lived realities of employees: small business are evil. They are no less corrupt than your local Walmart, and the bosses there have the same mindset as their counterparts leading multinational corporations. Small business owners can be snakes in a manner wholly unique to their class. More often than not, at least in the Northeast, these are wealthy liberals who support environmental sustainability, universal healthcare, and perhaps even social democracy in general. They could be Bernie voters or even members of your local DSA chapter. They could even be low-income! But if they aren’t willing to cede control of their shop, refuse to share profits, and will not denounce the capitalist lies regarding the virtue of innovation and economic growth, then they are enemies of the working class.
I have worked nearly exclusively at small businesses my entire life (a bakery, a vegetable farm, and a boutique grocery) and have been underpaid, harassed, micromanaged, and over-surveilled by little tyrants in every one of those workplaces. The bakery where I once worked was the small business ideal: tiny, neighborhood-based, and owned/operated by a cute older couple. It was a liberal capitalist’s dream — They paid slightly above minimum wage! They used sustainable ingredients!
The reality was that workers were often sexually harassed by the husband while the wife passively-aggressively (and sometimes aggressively) took retribution against employees who mildly annoyed her. I also overheard, more than a couple times, her say she would not offer an applicant a job based on their weight or children (“What, will she have to leave early to pick up her *kids*?”).
I once worked a growing season at a vegetable farm, where the field crew (mostly women) was led by under-experienced managers (all male). The owner/head farmer often made women workers uncomfortable for a variety of reasons, and later had harassment allegations made against him. The field crew had no control over their lunch break time, and the managers regularly pushed this break until we had finished harvesting whatever crop they determined couldn’t wait another hour. Sometimes this meant a 2 o’clock break when we had started at seven in the morning, in the middle of the summer when we were near heat exhaustion. Our day was regularly ten hours, but twelve hour shifts were commonly sprung on us without notice, based on the owner’s whims about what “needed” to get done.
We often grumbled, and I tried further agitating my fellow workers. I wanted to collectively confront the managers about our bad treatment, but unfortunately was still a budding socialist and ignorant about labor organizing. I came up with an idea to collectively elect a representative to management, so that we could air grievances and potentially improve certain working conditions. (Looking back, this was an interesting path towards discovering the value of collective bargaining before I even knew there was a word for it.)
My role as an agitator became apparent to the managers and owner, who pulled me aside to tell me to “smile more.” Keep in mind, I was working in a field, not in customer service. “The others look to you for morale, so I’d appreciate it if you had a better attitude.”
My most recent experience as a small business employee was at a boutique grocer in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Our punch clock required fingerprint authentication, managers would stream surveillance feed from the comfort of their home to keep tabs on employee activities, our hours were slashed when the store was slow, employees of color were passed over for promotions, and we were all extremely underpaid. This place once won Mayor Bloomberg’s Small Business of the Year Award. “Employees of [X] don’t just punch the clock, they really love the [products] they provide,” according to a write-up of the store.
This disparity between public perception and employee experience is not unique to my last workplace. Every panelist at an “ethical small business” event, every small business woman featured in a food magazine profile, and every owner/operator of your favorite local farm is as deluded about the virtues inherent in their economic and social contributions as a Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk. They shine a spotlight on the morality of their ingredient sourcing, while their employees eat lunch in a roach-infested break room in a cold, dank basement. They are praised by a neighborhood publication for bringing business to the area, while punishing local employees for staying home with the flu. They are upheld as models of feminism for leading a workforce, while that workforce is sexually harassed by the managers they hire and protect.
Of course, benevolent owners and managers exist in all levels of business — even I have worked at a small business with an overall pleasant atmosphere (though I’ve never been paid enough or been offered benefits at those). However, their existence does not negate the inherent oppression in owner-controlled business. And it certainly does not diminish the need for a completely reimagined economy.
We need to go beyond busting the myth of small business virtue, and develop a socialist perspective on the subject. No one should have even one employee under their control, and innovation isn’t worth the disenfranchisement of the workforce. We want collective power, material needs met, and a clear path to complete liberation.
