Small business is one of the primary pillars of the american dream myth. The small business owner is the noble entrepreneur trying to make their way to financial freedom. They are the first ring on the ladder and exceptionalised for it.

And why is it especially so, in America?

Because they are merely the modern descendants of the "civilized" lofty-dofty settler-petty bourgeois, who fights for their 'rightful' proprietary 'freedom', against the Indigenous people, who have not taken advantage of this and thus must be genocided for this 'misuse' of such land.

In essence, they are a classical liberal wet dream come true, in the New World...