Small Businesses and Employment

If politicians want the more people to be employed by the private-sector then they have to stop punishing (over-regulating and over-taxing) small businesses for wanting to grow bigger. It’s only natural for them to want to grow bigger (although if they don’t want to it’s not a sin.  A business owner has to know their capabilities and ambition to grow the business.). The bigger they get the more profit they will make. And if they grow naturally they will hire more people to help with the growing customer base. But once they stop becoming a small business and start becoming a medium or even big business then government pushes them for trying to be successful. I think that is twisted logic.

There is only two way to increase employment: One, let any small business grow so it can hire more employees or two, increase the number of small businesses. In other words say a politician wants a town to increase its employment to 1,000 more employees. The leaders can either let the existing businesses grow so they can hire 1,000 more people or find a way to increase the number of small businesses so they can hire 1,000 more people. Or the leaders could do both. Good luck with increasing the number of small businesses. I think it would be easier to make it so the existing businesses to grow. I am not talking about subsidizing them. To be fair you would have to subsidize every small business or you’ll be playing favorites. Also, giving them money may or may not help the business to grow anyway. It depends on the owner’s business sense and ambition and only the free market can determine that.

According to the SBA.gov website 51% of small businesses survived five or more years. The rest fail for various reasons. And government wants to make matters worse by over-regulating and taxing? Not everyone is cut out to be a business owner. It’s hard work and you have to know what you are doing.  I applaud anyone who has the drive and know-how to make a business succeed. So, increasing the number of small businesses is fine in theory but in reality I think it will be a lot harder. Besides if a politician has never ran a business how would he ever know how to increase the number of businesses? An economist doesn’t even really know. Who could predict a Thomas Edison or Graham Bell or even a Benjamin Franklin? Even if you increased the number of business courses in high school that may or may not produce a Thomas Edison if it is not within them. In the end government can only create an environment to let businesses grow and not discourage anyone from starting a business. Government can’t make a small business appear like magic like it can with gov’t agencies. You will hardly ever hear that from a politician.

One last thought. If a society wants prosperity then it has to keep the free-market alive and well.  You can do this by not denigrating businesses and the free-market to children and have them respect private property. Or else you could wind up with riots like in England. God help this country if that happens here.