On April 18, the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program lent out the last of $349 billion it had on hand in emergency funds. Efforts are underway to ensure that those billions will not be the Program’s last.

Meanwhile, others question whether small business should be saved. Paris Marx calls for nationalization of large companies rather than subsidization of smaller ones, asserting that if the handful of the former dominating the tech industry were replaced by the latter, “network effects would simply cause a re-monopolization in the future” (“Build Socialism Through the Post Office,” Jacobin, April 15).

However, the billions flowing through the SBA won’t match the trillions in bailout money for big business — or the indirect benefits to the latter that go unseen.

A decade before the Wall Street Journal reported that SBA funds are often “either too late in coming or won’t provide enough cash” for small businesses (“Small Businesses Opt To Close Despite Aid,” April 16), The Nation‘s Alexander Cockburn noted that “whatever backwash they got from the stimulus often wasn’t readily apparent” in the wake of the 2008 recession. They were being “stomped by regulators and bureaucrats while the big fry get zoning variances and special clause exemptions,” yet “the left disdains them.”

The manifesto of an earlier Marx argued that the support for small business still widespread among socialists at the time amounted “to cramping the modern means of production and of exchange within the framework of the old property relations that have been, and were bound to be, exploded by those means.”

Yet many of the industrial age’s biggest economic changes came from outside the gargantuan organizations that dominated it. Ralph Nader and Mark Green observed that “The firms which introduced stainless steel razor blades (Wilkinson), transistor radios (Sony), photocopying machines (Xerox), and the ‘instant’ photograph (Polaroid) were all small and little known when they made their momentous breakthroughs.”

The economic regulations enacted during America’s Progressive Era were what historian Gabriel Kolko called The Triumph of Conservatism rather than of Progressive (or Marxist) values, keeping the biggest competitors on top by shielding them from smaller upstarts. Kolko emphasized how the Federal Meat Inspection Act’s safety regulations went easier on large meatpackers, even if they engaged in riskier practices than smaller ones.

Peter Kropotkin related how the organizers of the English Lifeboat Association, “not being Jacobins, did not turn to the Government” that lacked “the co-operation, the enthusiasm, the local knowledge” of voluntary efforts. Kropotkin’s words inspired modern efforts to help out during emergencies like Occupy Sandy, and heeding them may save the economy of the 2020s.

New Yorker Joel Schlosberg is a contributing editor at The William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “Small Business Versus the State,” by Joel Schlosberg, Anchorage, Alaska Press, 04/18/20
• “Small Business Versus the State,” by Joel Schlosberg, River Cities’ Reader [Davenport, Iowa], 04/20/20
• “Small business versus the State,” by Joel Schlosberg, Creston [Iowa] News Advertiser, 04/21/20
• “Small Business Versus the State,” by Joel Schlosberg, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 04/23/20

“The costs of the pandemic keep piling up,” writes Marc Thiessen at the Washington Post. “Somebody has to pay for this unprecedented damage. That somebody should be the government of China.”

And why, pray tell, should China’s government be punished? For “intentionally lying to the world about the danger of the virus, and proactively impeding a global response that might have prevented a worldwide contagion.”

Sounds fair, doesn’t it? If a government lies and people die as a result, that government and its functionaries should be held responsible, right? Good enough for me.

But sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, so if we’re having Peking Duck this week, I’d like to know when Thiessen plans to cough up his share of US government’s tab.

As a speechwriter for US president George W. Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in the first decade of this century, Thiessen was directly responsible for pushing lies that resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Humanity is still paying a steep price for fairy tales about weapons of mass destruction and cries of wolf that “the smoking gun could be a mushroom cloud” — fairy tales and cries of wolf that Thiessen helped draft and craft.

In fact, he’s got a lot of nerve pretending that he’s even on the same moral level as Chinese government actors who may have lied about COVID-19, let alone in a position to lecture them.

Those Chinese actors were, at worst, trying to save face for their regime, and at best trying to keep themselves out of jail (the Chinese Communist Party has a reputation for harsh treatment of people who embarrass it).

Thiessen was shilling for an unprovoked war of aggression in Iraq by his regime, and he could have quit that job any time he chose without fear of being dragged off for “re-education.”

Governments collectively, and the people who comprise them individually, lie. A lot. About all kinds of different things and for all kinds of different reasons. And often, as a result, people die. I’m all for holding them accountable, but accountability starts  at home.

Let’s be honest about what’s going on here: Republican flacks like Thiessen are trying to shift blame away from their party’s own policy failures by re-premising the same old anti-China campaign they’ve been waging for years.

Don’t forget to tip your server, Marc.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

In the normal course of things, I write my columns to a particular formula, that of the “op-ed.” I pick a subject that’s riding high in the news cycle (or, better yet, is ABOUT to be riding high in the news cycle, making me look prophetic) and make the most compelling — but concise! — argument I can come up with for my position on that subject.

These times are not the normal course of things. The news cycle right now is “COVID-19, 24/7.” Frankly I’m sick of writing about that — my last 12 columns, and 13 out of my last 15 columns, have been about the pandemic — but it’s not like there’s much else going on.

So, instead of a column, I’m going to share some random thoughts. Some of those thoughts relate to COVID-19, some don’t. They’re just things I’ve been thinking about.

Thought One: I often hear politicians complain that this or that person, corporation, organization, whatever, is “out of control” and needs to be “held accountable.” Out of WHOSE control? Accountable to WHOM? They never seem to say.

Thought Two: Regular people who don’t care very much about politics are often referred to as “sheep” by people who care deeply about politics. And we’re all encouraged to think of ourselves that way by supporters of militarism and “law enforcement.” That is, we’re the sheep, and they’re the sheep dogs guarding us from the wolves. But who are the politicians in this scenario? They’re the sheep FARMERS. They shear us continuously … and feed some of us to their dogs.

Thought Three: I keep hearing about the need for a “plan” to “open the economy back up.” We don’t need a “plan” for that. If you take your boot off someone’s neck, he can get up on his own just fine, with no need for a “plan” from you. Ditto an entire population. But the politicians don’t want us to notice that. Their livelihoods depend on us believing that their “plans” are why things happen.

Thought Four: The Republican and Democratic Parties want us to believe that the upcoming election is THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION [insert something here — “of our lifetimes,” “in history,” etc.] But the quality of the candidates they’re putting up for us to choose between says they don’t think it’s important enough for them to bother taking seriously. If they don’t, why should we?

Next time, a real column. I promise.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY