Why Small Business Owners Are the True Capitalists

[Better Believe It]

Ralph Nader: Why Small Business Owners Are the True Capitalists
by Stacy Perman
October 28, 2008

For the past four decades, consumer advocate and lawyer Ralph Nader has been instrumental in uncovering government and corporate waste and abuse and has organized millions of citizens to fight for laws and federal standards to protect the public interest. Recently, I heard Nader, in the midst of his third bid for President (votenader.org) speak about small business as the last bastion of true capitalism. Piqued, I called his campaign headquarters to get his views on small business which has suddenly become a hot campaign topic. I spoke with Nader by phone as he was on the road, traveling to colleges to talk to students about the state of democracy. Edited excerpts of our conversation follow.

You have said that small business is the last refuge of real capitalism in America— how so?

Nader: Because it is the small businesses that have to take the consequences of their failure. They can’t be bailed out like big corporations that operate under the principle that they are too big to be allowed to fail like Citibank and so on. Secondly, small businesses don’t have the power in Washington to distort tax laws and corporate subsidies and other policies that the big business lobbies have shaped in their favor—which are not only to the disadvantage of the taxpayer but to small businesses as well.

How would you have structured the bailout to support small businesses then?

Nader: I would put a huge portion of the $700 billion into public works. Now the recession is deepening with bankruptcies and unemployment, the way to stem that trend down is through widespread decentralized public works repair programs. The American Society of Civil Engineers reported that there is $1.7 trillion of deferred maintenance in public . There are jobs in that sector that improve communities and create cleaner water and better public transportation. And these are jobs that can’t be exported to China, by definition they are real jobs.

Please read the entire interview at:

http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/running_small_business/archives/2008/10/_for_the_past_f.html