There's just simply no respect for the little guy in the United States. What do I mean? The last time I was in Europe, I was complaining to a friend that all the stores in France closed early. His reaction was not to label me some hyper-capitalist, slave-driver who wanted people to work around the clock. No, his reaction was different. "You just hate small businesses then!", he retorted.
I was taken aback by that. I'll be honest, my gringo mind wasn't really putting two-and-two together. How could requiring stores to close early, be good for small business? Shouldn't the opposite be true? Don't they want to be open as many hours as they can?
But, upon further reflection, it made perfect sense.
The mom-and-pop store can't hire three shifts and stay open 24/7. They just simply can't drive that kind of business, and the overhead would kill them. Not to mention, the local shopkeep, the butcher, the baker, the cobbler, and the plumber all have lives of their own. They need to take days off. They need time to spend with their families.
But the big-box stores can stay open 24-hours, 7-days a week. When you combine that with car-centric, low-density, sprawling suburbs connected by a network of freeways and arterial roads, suddenly that big-box store and the mom-and-pop shop are rendered equidistant, at least in terms of drive time. That's why small, family businesses are disappearing across the U.S.
You lose something when that happens. I hate to go all Robert Putnam on this, but small businesses, church groups, bowling clubs, The Elks Lodge, and the corner malt shop all played an important part in fostering community, and that's gone now.
