On Feb 26, 2010, at 8:36 AM, brad bauerly wrote:
> The small business owner is a key political base of the Reps yet
> Doug claims
> that small business is not that important for the economy (if I
> remember
> correctly). Wouldn't this make the Reps a rather ineffectual
> capitalist
> ruling party? Or to look at it from another angle, why do the small
> business owners have greater clout in US politics then their
> economic power
> alone would designate?
Numbers, for one. A base of a few million rather well-off people can be pretty important electorally and for fundraising. They have pretty direct access to Republican members of Congress.
But you're conflating two things I said. I said that independent proprietors like Joe Catron's mother the cab-owner/driver aren't that big a force economically or socially. But people who, say, own a dozen McDonald's are a pretty important political force at the Congressional level. The exec branch is mostly the province of the big bourgeoisie.