Stacy Mitchell in The Atlantic: Democrats Were Once Small Business Champions

Date: 16 May 2019 | posted in: Retail | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

ILSR Co-Director Stacy Mitchell has a piece in The Atlantic focusing on Elizabeth Warren, corporate power, and Democrats’ forgotten role as small business champions. In the piece, Stacy outlines how Warren’s proposals harken back to a New Deal-era Democratic politics that saw small business and labor alike as bulwarks against concentrated monopoly power.

In recent decades, Democratic administrations and politicians have largely lost that trustbusting legacy, but candidates like Warren stand to gain a lot by again taking up the cause of small businesses. Contrary to popular perception, small businesses aren’t particularly loyal to one party over another.

Concentration across every industry—from banking to beer brewing—is a major threat to the economy and to democracy. Democrats would be wise to get back to their trustbusting roots.

Read the full article here.


Image: MADALYN MCGARVEY / REUTERS

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Follow Charlie Thaxton:
Charlie Thaxton

Charlie Thaxton was a researcher with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s Independent Business Initiative in 2018-2019. He studied local economies, small businesses, civics, and their connection to social capital and wellness.

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Follow Stacy Mitchell:
Stacy Mitchell

Stacy Mitchell is co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and directs its Independent Business Initiative, which produces research and designs policy to counter concentrated corporate power and strengthen local economies.