https://twitter.com/jacob__posts/status/1383188953012998144?s=09
It might be useful for the left to directly challenge the mythology of small business owners on stories like this. The truth is that most small business owners aren't particularly good at running businesses, and therefore shouldn't be running a small business. If they can't keep the lights on, that's on them. We should sympathize with them as much as we'd sympathize with a kid who got cut from their high school basketball team because they aren't very good at basketball.
The subtext of shit like this is that this valiant entrepreneur is entitled to success, and is somehow being let down by people who don't want a shitty job with bad hours, no benefits, and low pay. No, boomer, you just suck so much at running a business that you can't even manage your paint-by-numbers fast food franchise.
Yes, love this idea. Personally I think a big reason US Americans worship small business owners is we all fucking hate the nature of work under capitalism. It's not that everyone thinks they'll run a business and get rich, just that running their own business will let them get out from under the oppressive boot of wage work under capitalism. For US workers, it's literally easier to imagine running your own comic book store or whatever than it is to push for workers rights (and tbf, that's not totally irrational given how hard it is to improve workers rights here). Just redirect that energy.
The fantasy of escaping wage labor is a huge part of it, yes. The other major pillar of entrepreneur worship is that some entrepreneurs actually are impressive, broadly competent people who work very hard. It's not always a product of exploiting other workers, either -- some really do pay themselves modestly (at least initially) and many do ground-level work at their businesses (at least initially).
It's good to acknowledge this part of reality, too, because painting with too broad of brush is how you lose people who don't already agree with you. And it's not a contradiction to acknowledge this but say that no matter how competent an entrepreneur is, they shouldn't be taking home far more than the folks doing most of the actual work.
One of my friends (I haven't spoken with in years) is one of these impressive entrepreneurs. Honestly he is a smart and decent person. In college he vacillated between becoming a monk and a tech startup bro. But his parents are literal hedge fund managers, so you can guess which direction he chose.
After college (about twelve years ago) he started a tech startup that was basically a Facebook clone but only for your close friends and family. The startup went nowhere for a year or two. I don't know for sure, but I assume that most of the startup money came from his parents. Eventually, a mid-sized tech company purchased his startup, paying my friend in stock. Then one of the biggest tech companies purchased that tech company, making my friend an overnight millionaire. Like a good capitalist he reinvested some of that money in a new venture I can't really describe. I thought it was pretty brilliant when he told me about it, but that was in a pre-covid world; the venture specifically relies upon in-person shopping. I won't be surprised if it falls apart, although either his parents or a tech giant might swoop in and save him again. When I visited him in California a few years ago, he complained nonstop about how expensive everything was, although I assume that's pretty typical for people living in California. He drove a Tesla but honestly lived in a pretty modest house.
Rambling story over. Point being, everyone works hard. Everyone is smart, or at least has the potential to be. But under capitalism it doesn't really matter how hard you work or how smart you are. You cannot get anywhere without connections. Without that hedge fund money my friend wouldn't have even dreamed of founding his own startup.
under capitalism it doesn’t really matter how hard you work or how smart you are. You cannot get anywhere without connections
I don't think this is quite correct. Capitalism monetizes whatever it touches and turns every transaction possible into an arms-length deal. This means you need fewer connections to succeed today than you needed in, say, 1721. You can buy your way into about anywhere, and if you can get a loan (which often doesn't require a personal connection) you don't even have to use your own money to do so.
That said, connections are still a cheat code, and connections (as you pointed out) are often a way to get a loan that you otherwise couldn't have, that you can then use to buy access to some place where you don't have connections. Connections are still extremely useful, but for the most part they're less important today than they probably ever have been.
I always use this in minimum wage discussions, if you can't afford to pay your employees a living wage, you're not running a viable business.
Another one is to point out if a business owner can't keep up with inflation they are essentially asking everyone who works for them to take a pay cut with every year of experience.
Talking to coworkers about tiny annual raises as "inflation adjustments" can be productive, too.
Literally. The primary and basically sole social requirement within capitalism for its social reproduction is the payment of the socially productive portion of the workday in the form of wages (eg. living wage) any deviation from that in a negative direction leads to essentially class genocide and economic collapse (workers buy the products, if they don't have "living wage" they can't buy the products and production slows, less workers have work, prices rise, cost of labor diminishes, prices fall, exploitation rises, repeat ad nauseam)
I've worked or been around a number small businesses whose owners not only relied but utterly depended on one low wage staffer to run nearly every facet of it, but are shocked when that employee quit after their requests for long deserved pay raises are denied. In at least three cases that I can think of, the owners folded not long after these key employees left making it utterly clear that their 'business' WAS that key employee. They relied on labour that was far more valuable than what they were paying, but of course never look at it that way.
This reminds me of a small business I briefly worked at. A friend of mine's father started an arcade and asked me to help for some days (it was ultimately two stints that lasted from June to August 2018 and December 2018 to January 2019).
The thing was that it was not promoted well at all. This was in area just off the toll road that had a lot of hotels in the area. At a minimum, the owner should have created some type of promotional material that could go in those brochure kiosks. It is possible that they had some type of promotion at the local Comic-Con, but that would have been about it.
I remember that he would get angry that me and other workers would not do given tasks "right". For example, he did not like that I cleaned the windows the wrong way. Apparently, there were smudges left on them from when I dried them. However, I was never told what the right way to clean them was. Ultimately, I got fired when I entered in a $20 purchase from a credit or debit card to the cash register. The purchase was part of a promotion, but I did not know how to enter that in, as I had not been told how and the owner was not there. Once he got there, he started to yell at me in front of people who wanted to make a purchase (but ultimately left, due to not getting service) and, at one point, he lifted the cash register off of the counter and slammed it back down. I was also accused of stealing the money, even though there was a record that a transaction occurred and I had known the owner's family since 2006.
Now, I was paid $10 per hour and there would be days where there would be no actual customers, as in people who paid for something, that would come during my shift. The business had to be losing lots of money and it ultimately closed by the end of March, less than three months after I was fired.
Also, after getting fired, there was a bit of a hassle in getting my last paycheck. Essentially, I had to contact them (I believe multiple times) to get it and it was his wife who ultimately gave it to me.
Lots of them can't keep the lights on. They come and go all the time. The ones that last are the ones where the owners know what's up.
I think it's more of an attempt to head off constant complaints about slow service.
The "problem" such as it is is that when people hear "Small business" they don't automatically think about what the vast majority of small businesses are - poorly run restaurants with abusive owners, skidoo dealers, boat dealers, etc. They think about the exceptionally rare like, mom-and-pop bookstore that's been in the town since 1921 and has only ever had the owner and their spouse working there, or they think of their buddy who runs a one-person coffee shop or food truck or whatever the fuck. It makes it incredibly hard to actually get people on board with anything.
Especially because (doubly in these covid times) people see small business as this thing that cannot be allowed to fail. Heaven forbid we put rules and regulations in place that might help people but harm the Small Business Owners, as if they and landlords are the only ones guaranteed for their job. That's just the reality of business: sometimes you win, sometimes you collapse.
I agree we should push back about the wage this like the OP is, but the point about them being bad at business may not be the right way to go about it, simply because it's not exactly true. The reality is it's absurdly hard to make any small business that isn't a restaurant or gas station work these days simply because of the absurd globalization methods of the past 40 years since Reagan and Carter started it all. It's because of the very very broken economy where nearly all the wealth is tied up with a few rich asswhipes while the rest of the country tries to compete with gigantic multinationals and unsurprisingly fails.
Same in my area, must be a "problem" nationwide. Weird how congress just failed to pass a new minimum wage too. :thonk:
I swear at this point the average leftist understand capitalism better than actual capitalists.
inb4 always has beenCapitalists understood it better when they were unapologetic supporters of brutal, racist empire. Now they've gone and twisted themselves up in knots trying to convince the world that capitalism is more humane than communism, and don't know their ass from their elbow.
The sheer number of times capitalism's defenders have told me "Capitalism just means trade"...
these people aren't really capitalists, they're petite bourgeoisie.
Only in the sense that they control a tiny amount of capital. They are still at the whims of giant faceless corporations and powerless in the face of economic tides. Most of them probably do quite a bit of labor on behalf of the parent corporation. The real capitalists don't work and carry no real risk.
They're just shit capitalists who might be happier as proles. That doesn't make them not capitalists.
Again, they are petite bourgeoisie. "Capitalist" is not a precisely defined term.
I guess I had a different idea of the work franchise owners did than is true. I basically thought they owned the store and then just gave a cut to corporate. I think that it's different based on chain though. In N Out basically just has managers but then other chains, like McD's, have much more autonomy.
nO oNe WaNtS tO wOrK
in hazardous conditions bc of a fucking pandemic and especially not for the piss poor wages that have stagnated for decadesChoices:
A) Stay home and make $500/week on UI while having the free time to learn and better yourself
B) Go to work and make $380/week at minimum wage and spend $75,000 on medical bills if someone coughs on you
:soviet-hmm:
lazy millenials prioritizing their health over work! smh my head
Sounds like the solution is to offer more money to compete for talent and attract workers, or to go out of business because you were too stupid, too stingy, or too unprepared to actually run your business. Where's that Social Darwinist ethos when you need it, honestly?
