What Is To Be Done? Developing a Political Agenda for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

Abstract

A latent energy lies at the heart of many economies of the world: that energy is the positive value of competition through which hundreds of millions of people live their daily occupations. Being subject to competition, they are accountable for their work. Competition, then, is a powerful driver of responsibility. Many other workers in the same economies are less accountable to positive social or economic forces: the workers of regulated industries, monopolies and public administration, or government. However, tapping the energy of competition is a difficult task, as competition is a tricky force that is hated by those very people who live with it: in fact, in public and private discourse competition is quite often preceded by a scary adjective: ‘cut-throat’. Hence, cut-throat competition. Thus, economic units subject to competition fail to bring that value to bear in the social and political arena, thereby failing to turn their weakness — being subject to competition — into an opportunity (i.e. asking that all workers be subject to a form of competition or accountability). This predicament delivers a deficit of meritocracy in society, a deficit of effectiveness in governments’ action, and lack of efficiency in protected and regulated industries. The end result is an overall weakness in the economies affected by such deficit, a competitive disadvantage.