The 'Small Businesses Are Gonna Save Us' Myth

UPDATE: In response, Mom and Pop Tammy notes:

"Some of the most successful entrepreneurs in America have never been to high school, don't use electricity, and would sooner love their competitors than sue them.

For generations, the Amish have tended farms tucked away in rural communities like Lancaster, Pa., motivated by a faith that urged them to be in the world, but not of it. But as housing subdivisions and strip malls suck up farmland, many Amish have traded their plows for profits--with remarkable success.

Read The Huffington Post, Amish Offer Business Tips For CEOs."

Regarding small businesses:

"The one thing every American politician can agree on is that small businesses are a crucial driver of the U.S. economy. So it’s somewhat surprising to discover that, as John Schmitt of the Center on Economic and Policy Research points out, the United States actually has the smallest small-business sector among wealthy countries." From the Washington Post, Chart of the day: America’s surprisingly tiny small-business sector, and

"Just about the only thing Republicans and Democrats can agree on nowadays is that small businesses are the key to economic growth and hauling the economy out of recession. Trouble is, as Charles Kenny argues in Bloomberg BusinessWeek, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of evidence to prop up this view." From the Washington Post, The case against small-business fetishism, which references:

Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Rethinking the Boosterism About Small Business, which argues that "the notion that small business is the force behind prosperity is not true. The longer the U.S. and other countries cling to this myth, the harder it will be to carry out the kinds of economic policies that might actually stimulate job growth."

For statistics regarding the number of people employed by companies of various sizes, see U.S. Census Bureau, Table 2b. Employment Size of Employer and Nonemployer Firms, 2007.