Is Big Business Bad?

Big Business in America has been given a bad reputation by modern, liberal historians. They claim that Big Business' greed and tendency to victimize consumers is proof of laissez-faire capitalism's failure and of the need for government intervention in the market.

I reject this hypothesis. Huge corporations have only arisen in two basic circumstances: being significantly more innovative and competitive than anyone else, or through government intervention, whether by subsidies, barriers to market entry or some other means.

If you look into it you will find that in general businesses have become more centralized and less competitive as government exerts more and more influence into the private sector through regulations, subsidies and “anti-trust” legislation.

A key tenant of their argument is that Big Business and market centralization is a bad thing. This is only sometimes true. As long as the government doesn't give a firm an unfair advantage which allows it to grow beyond the size it normally could in a free market or penalize new business and thereby unnaturally reduce competition, businesses are forced to become greatly superior to their competitors to achieve large size. This drive to succeed, instead of being condemned as greedy, should be praised. Without it, the options available to consumers would be lessened, and the remaining choices would undoubtedly be inferior.

Sorry, I'm in a hurry due to my two year old sisters impending B-Day party and as a result I haven't been able to put as much energy into this entry as I would have liked.