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Technical Advancements, more big businesses
The American belief in small business was put to the test beginning in the late 1800s. Railroads, the telegraph, the development of steam engines, and rapid population growth all created conditions in which some businesses – especially capital-intensive ones such as primary metals, food processing, machinery-making, and chemicals – could become bigger and, in the process, more efficient. = higher wages and lower prices that came with large-scale enterprise, others worried (Jefferson ethics). -
The Sherman Act
The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 is a federal statute that prohibits activities that restrict interstate commerce and competition in the marketplace. The Act was passed to promote economic fairness and competitiveness and to regulate interstate commerce. The Act outlawed trusts, which are groups of businesses that collude or merge to form a monopoly in order to dictate pricing in a particular market. -
Calvin Coolidge : "The business of America is business!"
Calvin Coolidge, the president of the United States during the "roaring" 1920s, famously declared that "the business of America is business". For the first century of the country's existence – until the 1880s – it would have been equally accurate to say that the business of America was small business since virtually all businesses in the nation were small in those years. Large-scale enterprises have eclipsed small business to a significant degree since then, but most are still small. -
The Small Business Administration (SBA)
In 1953, lawmakers took a different approach: They established the Small Business Administration (SBA), a federal agency that provides training and helps small enterprises secure financing, land contracts with government agencies, and raise equity capital. However, economists believe small business has survived over the years more as a result of economic realities–
and its own ingenuity. In some industries: furniture-making, lumber milling, service businesses,small businesses continued well. -
David Birch : "Small business create most of the new jobs."
The surge in enthusiasm about small business peaked in 1987, when David Birch, an economist and founder of the research firm Cognetics Inc., wrote that small businesses create most of the new jobs in the economy. But many economists dispute them. In a 1993 study, for instance, the National Bureau of Economic Research found that while firms employing fewer than 500 people really did create more jobs between 1972 and 1988, they also went out of business far more often. Equalizing the impacts. -
The Economist magazine : Big businesses increasingly like small ones
In 1995, the British publication reported that big businesses increasingly are behaving like small ones, "pushing decision-making down through management ranks, restructuring themselves around teams and product-based units, and becoming more entrepreneurial".