"He almost got Teddy Roosevelt on board, which would have outlawed all of his competition.
Henry Heinz almost got those products banned, says Carney. It's still used in Sprite, Jell-O Kool-Aid Gels, and other foods. Heinz claimed it wasn't safe, but it is safe. Sodium benzoate is a preservative that Heinz's competitors used. So Heinz himself started lobbying to outlaw sodium benzoate." "But sometimes people who are half of the market want to be all the market. "Everybody loved Heinz ketchup, and it rose up to be about half of the market," Carney continues. More than 100 years ago, Henry Heinz, founder of Heinz Ketchup, started using refrigerated rail cars because, says Carney, "he could get fresher tomatoes, and therefore he could make a ketchup that didn't rely on sodium benzoate as an artificial preservative." "It keeps new businesses from ever entering."īig business has always pushed for regulation. "Regulation doesn't just kill existing businesses," says Carney. That last sentence is a key point that we often miss. New social media sites may never even start." Facebook can afford that, but Zuckerberg's smaller competitors …would struggle to pay the thousands of content moderators and the expensive artificial intelligence that Congress may require. "He's calling for a mandate that platforms impose some sort of artificial intelligence to weed out misinformation or hate speech. In other words: "Government, please regulate all of us."
Small business vs big business how to#
"Maybe what did," says Carney, "is say, 'This is our opportunity through regulation to kill some of our competitors!'"Īt an international conference, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said, "We don't want private companies making so many decisions about how to balance social equities without a more democratic process." It effectively outlawed handmade toys."Īfter small toymakers screamed about that, Congress exempted toymakers that make fewer than 7,500 toys per year. That could cost you $1,000, and you're not going to sell your wooden toy for $1,000. But if you are a grandpa making little wooden handmade toys, you'd have to hire some third-party tester. "If you're trying to test 1,000 Barbie dolls," he replies, "that might be fairly efficient. That sounds like they just want to protect children, I tell Carney. When the big toymaker Mattel was caught selling toys that contained lead, its lobbyists got Congress to force all toymakers to do expensive lead testing. "If Jeff Bezos wants people to be paid more," Carney responds, "he can pay people more! But what Bezos is trying to do is outlaw competing business practices." "Maybe Bezos really just does want people to be paid more." When you turn to government to regulate your competitors out of business, that's where we need to say this is wrong."
"Capitalism is a cutthroat thing," says Carney. Why?īecause big business can afford robots. But big companies like Walmart, Costco, and Amazon lobby in favor of it. "When government gets bigger, whether it's through spending or taxes or regulation, the big guys, big business benefits."Ĭonsider the $15 minimum wage. "Big business and big government are not enemies like a lot of people think they are," says American Enterprise Institute fellow Tim Carney in my new video. Unfortunately, most people don't realize that those laws often help big business while hurting consumers. Politicians say they pass laws to "protect Americans from big business."
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