Should the Democrats try to court small business

[Lenape85]

Brian Schweitzer talked a lot about the Dems needing to stand up for the small business owner. Should the national party try to follow his lead.

[Cha]

1. I would hope that Kerry/Edwards

courted the small businesses! It's a Dem kinda thing now.

[Lenape85]

2. But if the Dems really courted small business like Schweitzer did

it would have been a fucking landslide

[eg101]

4. the interests of business owners and workers are opposed

Just like when you go into a car lot to buy a car, you and the salesperson have interested that are opposed. Same thing with business and labor.

If you court business, the workers should abandon you.

[mongo]

7. Bull shit

You have no idea how much I would like to provide health insurance for me AND my employees. Neither of us has it now.

What is good for our business is good for our employee - our asst manager made nearly as much money as my wife and I COMBINED last year.

Not every business is good to their employees, but that doesn't mean that the interests of business owners are necessarily in opposition to the interests of workers.

[RoyGBiv]

9. This is not the case ...

Small business owners by and large treat their employees much better than any large corporation ever would, but they lack the resources to offer the kinds of benefits that, decreasingly, larger businesses have been able and willing to offer in the past.

Until recently, I worked most of my life for small business owners. To an individual they showed me greater respect and consideration and offered me everything they were capable of giving as compensation for my work. Some months often passed in which I made more than the business owner did because he or she adhered to the agreements we had made about my compensation.

I make more and get better benefits now because I work for a large corporation that receives enormous tax and other financial incentives from the government that small business owners do not get. However, the respect and consideration factor has dropped dramatically. Now, I'm an employee number and essentially expendable.

This of course assumes your world view is not bounded by purist Marxism in which ownership is akin to theft. Realize that this is a the Democratic party, not the Marxist or Communist party. Despite what the MSM and wing-nuts might like us to believe, differences do exist in the political philosophies of these two organizations, and those differences form the foundation of my membership in one and not the other, as I think is the case with most Democrats.

[Cha]

14. I totally agree! I've worked for small

businesses, too..and they are diametrically opposed to the corporatewhores.

[eg101]

15. them dirty commie-nists are at it again!

Small business owners by and large treat their employees much better than any large corporation ever would, but they lack the resources to offer the kinds of benefits that, decreasingly, larger businesses have been able and willing to offer in the past.


Pollyanna perspective, courtesy of the mass media. We're all just one big happy family....


Until recently, I worked most of my life for small business owners. To an individual they showed me greater respect and consideration and offered me everything they were capable of giving as compensation for my work. Some months often passed in which I made more than the business owner did because he or she adhered to the agreements we had made about my compensation.

I make more and get better benefits now because I work for a large corporation that receives enormous tax and other financial incentives from the government that small business owners do not get. However, the respect and consideration factor has dropped dramatically. Now, I'm an employee number and essentially expendable.


Well, your personal experiences are not going to affect my understanding of the world. Why should they? You are just one person!


This of course assumes your world view is not bounded by purist Marxism in which ownership is akin to theft.


Oh, here comes the labels....Well, I have never actually read Marx, but I personally do not think ownership is theft. "Theft" is theft, and the American people should be able to define theft.



Realize that this is a the Democratic party, not the Marxist or Communist party.



Get them dirty commie-nists outta here!

[RoyGBiv]

19. Do you have an argument?

Or are you just here to throw around trite phrases that fail to address the point?

You know what sub-forum you're posting in, right?

As for my being one person, I actually helped create an organization in my old, home town that united small business owners *and* their employees to resits efforts by companies like Wal-Mart and large chain grocery stories from establishing themselves in our community. We failed with Wal-Mart, but succeeded by and large with the grocery stores and a few other types of businesses, such as a Staples, a Home Depot, etc. Of course, Wal Mart by itself killed a lot of things.

The common message we developed was that these businesses, while bringing lower prices, also lowered choices and quality of service by running small business owners, people who knew your name on sight and what made sure to stock what you wanted and needed just because of you, out of the market. In addition, from the worker's perspective, these large companies lowered wages overall, which in the long run made those lower prices less meaningful. In addition, working for a large company brought with it strict guidelines developed by some corporate hack sitting in an office somewhere ten states over. There would be no more getting off work in the afternoon because you needed to pick your kids up. "You broke a piece of our equipment?" No more, "I know you're a good worker and that this was an accident." With the large corps, your pay gets garnished until it is paid for, if we decide to keep you employed at all. You're expendable, you know. Your boss is no longer able to create his own rules to fit the needs of individuals. He has an employee handbook he must make you follow.

My experience was in no way unique.

[Cha]

12. But, the small businesses are being

Sucked outta existence by the bush financiers!

[Beth in VT]

13. This is overly simplistic - most small business owners

are more like workers than corporate entities.

[eg101]

18. small businesses are exploiting workers every bit as much as big ones

You give ANY human the right situation, and he/she will exploit the HELL out of any other human being.....

[RoyGBiv]

20. So you say ...

But of course you're just one person.

[eg101]

22. but mah filthy commie-nist ideers is speading like a wildfire! n/t

[RoyGBiv]

23. Uh, yeah ...

Okay.

Of course, I've not seen a lot of ideas in this particular thread in your posts. I've seen some grandstanding and attempts to build strawmen, but not ideas. The condescending attempt to ridicule through poor colloquial spelling is noted, but not particularly amusing or effective.

Read Marx. You'd like him, I think, and I mean that in an entirely positive light. Learn to critique Marx, and you'll truly have arrived somewhere. I suggest this because, apparently without your realizing it based on your comment in another message, the fundamental claim you have is supported by one level of Marxist economic ideology, even if you say you disagree with its verbal expression. It might prove beneficial to your "ideers" as you express them for you to understand their historical origins, as well as the failures of the theory in implementation.

[eg101]

24. OK!

this is great stuff! Lemme write this down....

[RoyGBiv]

25. Willful ignorance is a disease ...

... and there is no cure.

I've said my piece. Hope you actually were taking notes. G'night.

[DaedelusNemo]

30. Everyone has both opposing and common interests

Fortunately, for the most part we have more interests in common. A business owner needs workers just like other people need jobs. It is extremely simple-minded to assume that an employer cannot have a legitimate interest or that it helps the rest of us to tear them down.

Certainly, the largest business owners have had far too much power for far too much time - to the detriment of small business as well as everybody else - and certainly, they need to get pruned way back. That is not to say that they are to be left with nothing - to the extent that we can adjudicate our conflicts fairly, we can be of mutual benefit to each other.

Anyway, small business is a prime driver of innovation and development and new jobs - all the things we like about the market, and, indeed, usually a more human experience results from the social accountability that knowing your employer personally brings, as opposed to some giant, faceless organization with absentee control. Besides, it's better, for all us, to have a more decentralized system than big business wants us to have.

As long as we properly insist on fairness between them on those issues on which they conflict, to support employers is to support employees.

[Coastie for Truth]

5. Since my "early retirement"

I have been an "independent business man" --- and the National Federation of Independent Businesses web site is a Freeper site written for bitter, sullen, Willie Loeman types right out of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman."

[eg101]

3. small business owners == small part of America. How about actual workers?!

Working people make up the vast bulk of Americans. The GOP is the business owners' party.

What? You don't like working people?

[Lenape85]

6. Is there a way that SMALL business and workers can both be united

I mean, small businesses are vulnerable to big business taking over the town and destroying their livelihood, so you would think they wouldn't be Repuke.

[eg101]

11. sure, as soon as the lamb lies down with the lion

if the Democratic party tries to represent small business owners at the same time as they try to represent the small business workers, then they aer traitors. But they have been doing just that for decades.

[RoyGBiv]

17. Let me repeat this ...

Ownership is not, according to my and the Democratic party's political ideology, theft. A mega-corporation is not the same as a locally owned restaurant or clothing shop or computer dealer.

Thus NO Democrat is a "traitor" to anyone or anything by supporting a small business owner, assuming this business owner actually uses any incentives he might receive due to the efforts of Democratic politicians to improve both his business for the betterment of his community and the compensation and working conditions of his employees.

[DaedelusNemo]

31. Your vision of the democratic party sounds teeny-tiny

Supposed to, actually, represent Americans, period. The idea isn't to pick a side and push it; it's to determine how to reconcile the sides in the fairest way. Those things which small business owners shouldn't be doing we should of course insist they not do; but there's no point in setting up a persecution of everybody who pays other people to work - indeed, the practice ought to be encouraged.

[eg101]

35. 50% of all tax returns (joint & single) are less than $35K--that aint tiny

That figure includes joint AND single filers. So therefore, easily more than 50% of the people who work earn less than 35K--that is a FACT.

And THAT is the natural and historical constituency of the dem party. Sucking up to business is selling out.

[DaedelusNemo]

38. teeny tiny and ever-shrinking

if you start torching businesses.

Again, the idea is to represent americans, to establish justice for all, not try to divide them into sides and fight for dominance.

Said nothing about sucking up to business, and think i made it clear that i support it only insofar as it benefits people fairly - people are the priority. Being anti-excessive-corporate-power-and-privilege is one thing, and most of us are. To be virulently 'anti-business', though, is like chopping off your feet.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

47. And those $35,000 and less returns include small business

owners among their numbers. I've been in that category some years.

Small business owners are people. There are good ones and bad ones.

[Coastie for Truth]

39. Wal Mart

If workers and mom-and-pop business owners realized their commonality of interest - Wal Mart would dry up and blow away.

Not only does Wal Mart screw American men and women as workers - by buying from lowest low bid vendors who pay bare subsistence (to workers who live in barracks, etc.)...

Not only does Wal Mart screw American families as tax payers - by their workplace HR policies that throws workers' health care onto the backs of taxpayers ....

But they brag about it.

And they drive small mom-and-pop retailers out of business -- and out of the urban centers of our small towns and medium size cities.

You don't have to be (or 100% buy into) Jane Jacobs or Richard Florida to see what Wal Mart does to small business.

Wal Mart is a classic case where the interests of small businesses, mom-and-pop stores, residential home owners, taxpayers, and working men and women are absolutely 100% in common ------- and yet American consumers still patronize Wal Mart.:dunce:

[Squatch]

46. Obviously, you've never owned your own business...

Yep, small business owners don't work a lick.

:freak: :freak: :freak:

[Dr.Phool]

8. Democrats should court small business

Especially on the state level. One of their biggest concerns are Workmans Comp premiums. Esplain to them how much they'd save with a national, single payer health-care system. Explain how big business gets all the tax breaks, and they're paying their portion. personalize it.

[sandnsea]

10. Kerry - chair of Small Biz Committee

There was an effort to court small business, I just don't think they hit the right issues. The effort was focused primarily on health care and global competition and didn't address any of the other small biz issues or what Kerry had done for small biz in the past.

[DaedelusNemo]

49. Interesting - more info?

Wouldn't surprise me if there were a lot of good ideas there that shouldn't go to waste. But of course, most of us don't know what you're talking about.

[Beth in VT]

16. This will take a major reframing effort -

whenever Republicans talk about business interests and doing away with "death taxes," they portray them as small business issues as a way of building support and suggesting that they sympathize with the little guy.

This constituency belongs with the Dems but we will have to work at getting this across.

[eg101]

21. there ya go! Reframe it! Spin it! Spin and reframe for all you're worth!

Just twist the language around so that we sound like all things to all people! Now THAT is how we gonna make America better!

I'm so diz-zy
my head is spin-ning
and it's you Dems make it spin....
I'm so diz-zy....
like a whirlpool, it never ends....

[trezic]

26. Ignorance

From the days of Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic Party has historically championed small business over big.

Your perspective is badly skewed. The real issue at hand isn't some misguided Marxian notion of workers v. owners. It's the disproportionate influence that accompanies size. Small businesses lack the size to be the kind of threat that a Microsoft or a GE can present.

Restricting the political influence of large corporations is a worthy goal. Mounting an attack on business generally is just trying to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.

[eg101]

28. I say "take the side of workers" and you say "yer attacking bidness!"

nice propaganda, there.....

[trezic]

29. Challenge

1. Explain the equivalence between small and big business. You appear to have some kind of special knowledge here.

2. Explain how a small business owner's interests are necessarily divergent from those of his employees.

3. Respond to each with more than one sentence.

4. Instead of making vague comments about 'protecting workers,' explain what you mean.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

60. Is there any connection between the ideas you're spouting and

real life? :eyes:

Did you have, like, one bad boss, and now you're anti-business owners?

[H2O Man]

37. Community values......

When I was a boy, there were "corner gas stations" and "mom-n-pops" stores in every hamlet and every village. The small towns had them in different neighborhoods. But they have all gone out of business, and have been replaced in recent years by "convenience stores" that are a combination of the two, and which are parts of large chains, owned and run by people who do not live in the hamlet, or share neighborhood values.

We would be short-sighted to think of democratic values as only being found in the person working behind the counter. We need to expand our thinking, and realize that democratic values can be found in the owners of the small businesses, the employees, the neighbors, and in the people who shop in those stores.

When democratic values represent community values, we'll win more elections.

[DaedelusNemo]

50. Yup - another aspect of local control

which should be the default for most things, although clearly there are things that must be done at the highest levels, like basic human rights and common defense and so forth.

Absentee control is usually ignorant and wasteful and harmful to the others involved.

[H2O Man]

59. democracy = local control

I remember in 1980, Dick Gregory said the United States would never be able to make peace and promote democracy in the Middle East, because it had never come to terms with Malcolm X. Dick is a smart man. We should always listen to people like Dick, who could have easily lived a life of comfort, but instead choose to live a search for truth. And, of course, that describes Malcolm, too.

Malcolm was actually more of a patriotic American than is generally realized. He was never associated with provoking violence. He did speak of self-defense, and that sounded scarey to white America at the time. But he wasn't aggressive, and the strange truth is that Martin was far more closely associated with violence than Malcolm.

What Malcolm did talk about was local community control. About being able to select the policemen who patrol your neighborhood, as from your neighborhood, so that their behavior represents the best interests of your neighborhood. White people did that, and Malcolm merely requested the same for black neighborhoods.

He also talked about investing in jobs and business within your neighborhood. If there is a store, it's better to have the person putting your cash into his/her business living in the neighborhood. No one wants to be buying everything from the Roman Empire or paying tea taxes to the King of England. No one. Not people in this country or any other country.

So we have to be able to define democracy in terms of the quality of life in our own neighborhoods. And we need to recognize that those who attempt to impose their values on neighborhoods anywhere in the world are enimies of democracy.

[DaedelusNemo]

62. And lots of repub voters are all for local control too

Although of course the motivations have been manipulated and tainted.

Some things must ultimately fall under the federal purview. Obviously, anything of federal scale - interstate infrastructure, the common defense, investments that can only work on that scale. But also, basic human rights must be required of every American state. State's rights, or any form of local control, can never be construed to have priority over human rights - the inalienable rights of the ultimate repository of local control, the individual. This distinction has not always been understood and has muddied the public perception of the issue, many of whom believe either that civil rights, for example, was a violation of state's rights, or that local control is a threat to human rights.

In the past, there has been some justification for greater centralization because of difficulties in communication and organization. Today, though, and more so as we go forward, the internet and other technology makes it increasingly possible for citizens to be in contact with their representatives and with each other, and for them to become informed and deliberate together on the subject. Local groups can become much more efficient and effective, and they can network together with each other and cooperate much more effectively, reducing the need for centralization to those things that by their nature can only be handled by it.

Anyway, a commitment to increasing local control (while preserving basic rights) would be very appealing right across the political spectrum, especially to the more libertarian, less authoritarian half of the republican party.

It's a sign of how bad the representation has become in this country, that on so many issues doing the fundamentally right thing is also a huge political opportunity.

[DaedelusNemo]

32. "you Dems"

thought so.

Of course, it is patently obvious that to realize that spin exists, and to try to counter it, of itself, isn't spinning.

[David Zephyr]

27. Yes.

Between cheap labor imports and Wal-Mart and predatory large corporations that steal or imitate small business innovations, small business owners are more and more becoming aware that the Republican party is not their friend, that the so-called Chamber of Commerce is a nothing more than a pimping organization for the multinationals against small businesses.

Yes, Lenape83, the Democrats should court small business.

[DaedelusNemo]

33. Certainly - represent the consistuencies the repubs toss aside

Small businesses are for the most part on the outside like the rest of us, looking in through the windows while the largest corporations feed at the table.

[eg101]

34. 50% or all tax returns are less than $35K--THAT is the Dems' constitutency

About 50% or all tax returns are less than $35K--that includes joint AND single filers. So you have more than 50% of the voters right there. Why not make THAT the target of the party?

NOT business owners, big OR small.

The workers. The working people of America. THAT is what the party should represent.

[RoyGBiv]

36. You're aware, I assume ...

That among those 50% tax returns under $35k (citation?) are a number of small business owners.

[byronm]

61. Democrats Represent Ideology

Irrespective of Income and Job.

You can't preach fairness, respect, individual rights and appose rights of others at the same time.

Wishy Washy is what comes to mind when you over simplify the boundaries of what being a Democrat truely means.

I'm a democrat. A White Colar democrat, who is a democrat by choice, ideology and values i represent.

I represent those values through my job, through the businesses i own and through the relationships i build from being a white colar worker.

Just because i make more money, or don't do manual labor doesn't mean my value of democratic representation is any more or less.

You have to remember that when you fight for the rights of the little guys you have to assume that if your plan works you will no longer be the little guys and setting your beliefs on only struggling for what is little will exclude those of which you have already helped shooting yourself in the foot.

Your vision of democracy is exactly what republicans call a wellfare society.

[liberalhistorian]

40. YES YES YES YES!

ABSOLUTELY YES! This is a no-brainer, no question. Small businesses are the backbone of our economy, as they pretty much always have been from the beginning of our history as a nation. They employ the majority of workers in this country, and are responsible for a lot of job growth and job creation.

While it is undoubtedly important to care about the well-being of citizens as a whole, and to care about and promote social programs for the health and welfare of all, especially those who are powerless and cannot speak for themselves, it is also critical to support and stand behind the small businesses that employ the people who support society, and the people who rely on small businesses for their livlihood. We CAN do both, they are not mutually exclusive. We do NOT have to give up our social concerns in order to also support and promote small businesses. The healthier small businesses are, the healthier society will be.

It is also important to support the creation of small businesses, and to make it as easy as possible to establish and maintain them. Small business owners are often in a constant, never-ending struggle to make ends meet enough to both pay their workers, pay all the required taxes and premiums and benefits (unemployment, worker's compensation, social security, health care, etc.), pay their overhead, keep their business going, and pay themselves a living wage also. Small businesses, and the creativity of those who create and maintain them, are largely what built this country, and it's crucial to recognize and support that if we are to have any continued viability as a party.

[divineorder]

41. And it isn't always a owner/worker split either

Small Business includes the self-employed like hairdressers, maids, massage therapists. These people incur greater risk and higher taxes and often no health care. My deceased ISP person had to work a second job on occasion and had no health insurance or insurance of any kind when he died. But he believed in providing a webspace that was a quality space for his clients.

The Democrats should be someone like this's natural ally, helping all these people grow and prosper. And speaking of natural affinity groups, who do you think provides the majority of goods and services to minorities, women, GLBT and others? Small Businesspeople from the community to see the particular needs of this groups and provides them and a safe place to meet as well.

[liberalhistorian]

45. Exactly!

Thank you, couldn't have said it better myself!

[eg101]

42. "demand" is the backbone of ANY economy, not businesses

Demand for goods and services is what provides people with a livelihood, not some exploitative business owner.

[liberalhistorian]

44. Most of the

"exploitative" businesses are huge corporations that don't give a shit, and not small businesses. Most small business owners really do try to do right by their employees; I've known enough of them and been employed by enough of them to know the truth of that.

And I've seen how so many of them struggle daily to be fair and generous to their employees and still keep the business open and make a living for themselves. I've seen them cut their own pay and benefits drastically, to the point of almost nothing for themselves, to keep from having to cut employees' pay and benefits or lay them off. Small businesses are not concerned with paying even bad CEO's gazillions of dollars, like large corporations.

You cannot love employment and hate employers. And we will never regain our footing as a party if we keep our heels on the neck of small businesses.

[DaedelusNemo]

48. false dichotomy - both demand and supply must be present

for the juices of the economic circuit to flow.

[eg101]

53. if there is a demand, supply will be created

But a business does not always need to be there to meet to demand. Most of the time, a business is formed in order to OUT COMPETE a smaller business. That is why I think businesses that have employees should be outlawed in many areas. Countries like Sweden already do this, in effect, with the restrictions on corporate growth--they make it hard to expand small businesses. And they have a very high quality of life.

[DaedelusNemo]

54. Not if you're taking an axe to those who create it

"Most of the time, a business is formed in order to OUT COMPETE a smaller business."

Actually, most of the businesses that are formed are small busineses. Often formed to outcompete larger ones.

"That is why I think businesses that have employees should be outlawed in many areas."

... Most jobs require more than one person.

I don't think we need to try to cripple small businesses. Getting rid of the special privileges that have been extended to big business, and the special costs that hit small businesses harder, would help to reduce the advantages of the large and restore the competitive ability of the small.

You need to give more detail about the Swedish approach. As it is, i haven't heard enough to intelligently comment on it.

[liberalhistorian]

56. "Businesses that have employees

should be outlawed in many areas?" HUH? WTF are you talking about? That has to be the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard in my life! Do YOU earn a living and receive paychecks? Just WHERE IN THE HELL DO YOU THINK THAT MONEY COMES FROM? Small businesses are NOT corporations and do NOT operate like them! Expanding small businesses is a crucial growth strategy for ANY area.

[F.Gordon]

57. Sweden has restrictions on corporate growth?

Do tell.

You do know that Sweden has deregulated several industry sectors? You do know that Sweden has removed all barriers for foreign investment? You do know that Sweden receives almost 2/3 of its GDP from exports? You see, Sweden competes with other countries so it can have a high quality of life.

Sweden is a successful social/business model because it encourages competition. Something we are seriously lacking here in the U S of fucking A.

You've been all over the board on this thread, but I couldn't let this Sweden bullshit go unanswered.

It just adds to the fact about how clueless you are on the importance of Small Business in this country, which is rapidly becoming a dying institution.

[Zebulon]

58. And what happens

Demand for goods and services is what provides people with a livelihood, not some exploitative business owner.

And what happens when someone moves to meet that demand? They become a "business owner" and, it would seem from your posts on this thread, by definition "exploitative".

[DaedelusNemo]

51. Yes, reduce the barriers to entry

many of which were arranged by big money-government alliances to choke off competition.

[blondeatlast]

43. Single payer healthcare would be a damn good start.

It'll help level the playing field for them.

[DaedelusNemo]

52. We are woefully ignorant - perhaps a thread to explain what it is? /nt

[blondeatlast]

55. Simple; think of Canada.

It takes the ever increasing financial burden of offering healthcare as a "benefit" of of EVERY business, which will save them and us oodles of money.

I've experienced the Canadian system, in an emergency no less, and it's efficient and of similar quality to what we have here. As someone with a chronic medical condition, I would gladly take it.