I am pro business, whether that business is small, medium, large, sole proprietor, partnership, or incorporated. America was built on the idea of entrepreneurship (thank you spell check). That has always been the basis of the American dream. But I see that dream slipping away and it's not because of small business, lack of vision and ideas, or the fact that Americans are among the hardest working people on earth. It's because corporations have decided that they want it all.

Back in the early seventies I started a local business that produced a food product. The first store I got to carry my product was a small local owned grocery store over on the corner of 5th and Ivy St. called Money Saver. In about two years time almost every store and restaurant in Chico was carrying my product except for the corporate owned businesses. At the time that consisted of two Safeway stores and most of the fast food restaurants. Everything else was local owned (some of the local owned may have been incorporated, I don't know). The nice thing about local owned businesses was that they were willing to buy from local producers, the corporate businesses were not.

Since that time the corporate stores have put almost all of the mom and pop grocery stores out of business. Local producers can no longer sell their goods to local stores (They can to S&S and Chico natural foods but not Trader Joe's....something to think about when you want to buy health foods, especially produce). I know, this is why we have the farmers market, but that's not the point I'm trying to make.

The point I'm making is that it's not only the food industry but almost every retail store, motel, gas station, just about everyplace you spend money is a corporate owned business these days. My question is, where is all of this going to end? Could it be that in twenty years small and local owned businesses will no longer exist? Is it only a matter of time until the corporate Gods decide they want to take over the local service industries as well? Will they one day control every type of business from landscaping and yard maintenance, house painting, and janitorial to building construction, park maintenance, and couples counseling? And if they do, what does that say about the American dream? What hope will any of us ever have for a brighter future other than to try and work our way up the corporate ladder from the just below poverty level jobs to the just above poverty level jobs. Once they control all the jobs, they will control all the wages. There will no longer be a middle class. There will be the 1% rich, 5% middle class, and 94% poor. We've been heading in that direction for about twenty years now, and the statistics prove it.

How will they do it, how will they take control of every business? Simple, the same way they get everything else they want, through their bought and paid for politicians. There are several ways to kill small business. Over regulation, over taxing, unfair auditing practices, and excessive insurance costs just to name a few. But the easiest way, the proven way, is to just come into an area and under price all of the competition until there is no longer any competition, then raise your prices. It's all fair, it's only capitalism in motion, it's the democratic way!

But what will happen to democracy once the corporate entity has taken complete control of everything?