Comment by purplezooey
3 months ago
Part of the reason PE succeeds is their choice of things that have a large or lengthy startup cost or other supply restrictions. Most towns will support only 1 hockey arena. Or lately, with veterinarians. New supply is complex and doesn't appear overnight. If PE is to be controlled (so they don't ruin everything), we need to lessen the barriers to create more supply, like in housing. Also, perhaps it would be good to make them actually pay some taxes, if only to mitigate a fraction of the problems they cause. PE is sort of like cigarettes. They exist, and do damage to everyone.
If PE causes so many problems and needs to be controlled, why not... control it? Regulate it heavily, or ban it outright, or make it very difficult for them to own a large portion of businesses in any given area, etc, etc
It's just the "remove barriers to do X" arguments tends to be used to justify removing important regulations that protect consumers, or the environment, or institutional integrity - all of which may indeed help the little guys, but it also certainly helps the big guys.
I'm also wary of the idea that regulations and the like are the real issue small businesses have a hard time of things - and not just that operating a business has become more expensive/difficult in the modern age (even after taking out regulations), as well as the simple fact that big businesses can, for example, tank losses for a lot longer than a small business in order to win out a market. How would less regulation for the smaller businesses help situations like that?