The Scrutinator

(First, full disclosure: my company has one employee, me. I contract for companies of various sizes, from five employees to tens of thousands. I have no motivation to defend any company, and prefer a smaller government over a bigger one. I'm just thinking through things people generally take for granted.)

You hear big used as a pejorative. Big Tobacco. Big Oil. Big Pharma. Big Media. Big Government. Even Big Labor.

The implication is usually that big means bad, evil, certainly corrupt. Convicted, case closed, no appeal. It's as if we're asked to just assume that a big company's very nature--every fiber--is intrinsically evil. Public confidence with major companies is pretty low (just above law firms :-).

But why is big bad? Say you start a company and you're successful. Your company grows. When does your company cross the line from not-big to big? When does every fiber of your company's being suddenly, spontaneously turn evil? At 50,001 employees? 5,001? 501? 51?

Companies make wrong decisions, but each decision is made by people. Getting corporations to act with conscience has been a problem from the start. I'm all for finding ways to make that happen. That applies to big and small alike.

I'm partial to small companies, since I am one. But big companies fuel the economy. They employ lots of people and make opportunity for smaller companies. Big companies' dividends and stock values (think S&P 500) fuel investors and retirement accounts for lots more people.

Big can be bad:

• Bureaucracies are bad, whether in government or industry.
• Monopolies are bad: they're outlawed here in the US because they're not good for the general public. But there's a tension here, too: patent and copyright laws are written to give you, essentially, a monopoly for a period of time. The technological advancement that promotes is very, very good for society. (That has a trickle-down effect, too: by most measures, the poorest people in developed nations today have a higher quality of life than did the kings of France.)
• Bigger stakes means more temptation to steal or defraud. But there's temptation at all sizes, and most do resist that temptation.
• Statistically, just getting more people together under one roof means there are more outliers. The bigger the bell curve, the bigger the curve's tails. That curve could apply to criminal behavior, intelligence, etc. But statistics say both ends of the curve are brought in. (E.g., more conscienceless criminals, but more whistle-blowers, too.)
• Bigger companies tend to be less agile, have more inertia. (Part of the problem with bureaucracies.) But what's bad for the company itself tends to be good for others, rewarding their agility with opportunity.
• Socialism--the biggest of big governments--just doesn't work. It leaves its citizens in dire poverty and oppression. Similarly, big government (I believe at some point) consumes more than it provides in return.

A guy I know helped start a company, and now they have over 30 employees. At the company picnic last summer he looked around at his employees and their families and realized, "We've got a lot of people under our care." There's something to that.

Ponder some theology: I believe everyone's created in God's image, which means (among other things) an amazing potential for good. But everyone's a sinner, too: big, small, rich, poor, devout, pagan. Everyone. Which means an amazing potential for evil and self-centeredness, too. We're all in the same boat.

My point: Equating big to bad is prejudiced, and leads to fallacious thinking. That hinders understanding. Be skeptical of those using loaded phrases like that. Stick to reason.

P.S.: Tobacco is bad because it's bad for you, not because it's big. Would you think more highly of tobacco if it were produced by small, non-profit tobacco farmers' cooperatives?

By The Scrutinator @ 12:08 AM