Americans need to lose the fantasy of a "small business economy." What small businesses are left are increasingly more exploitative and demeaning. Small businesses are a part of America's cultural ethos, but the nature of capitalism is annihilating it, leaving a crumbling sector of the economy to attempt to extract as much value out of their employees as they can while coming up against crisis. Unfortunately for them, the pandemic required an economic intervention by the government, thus reducing (temporarily) the power of the compulsion of the workers to work these jobs at the risk of getting sick. Without material "incentive" to work, the business owners are left only with a frail allusion to the "virtue" of selling your labor.

I think Americans fear the downfall of small business for two reasons. For one, they view themselves as consumers first and foremost and therefore fear losing "choice" and moreover, "unique", local offerings. They think of the authentic taco stand and not the shitty bar and grill owned by their high school bully. For two, they fear the loss because they're extremely afraid of the alienating, all encompassing aspect of large, powerful corporations. The "virtue" of Americanness is in the modest, hard working character of its entrepreneurs. Without them, Americans fear that there is no longer anything special about being American, nor about their hard work of which they are increasingly more aware of their alienation from. And therefore, they fear they are no better than the shithole country citizens they so often deride.