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.S.economygrounded in theAmerican Dream ofowning a small business.© Gary Gladstone/Corbis Americans& are also hustlers in the positivesense: builders, doers, go-getters, dreamers,hard workers, inventors, organizers, engineers,and a people supremely generous. WA LT E R MCDO UG A L L2004Joseph Schumpeter, an Austrian-born economist,coined the term creative destruction in 1942 to describethe turbulent forces of innovation and competition in Westerneconomies.He called it the essential fact about capitalism. The incessant gales of markets cull out failing or underperforming com-panies, clearing the way for new companies, new products, and newprocesses, as he put it.Creative destruction was a philosophy that appealed to critics of the NewDeal social and economic intervention that took hold during the GreatDepression, and it maintains an influential following today. I read Schum-peter in my 20s and always thought he was right, said former FederalReserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, and I ve watched the process at workthrough my entire career. Today destructive technology is the label forchange-forcing innovation and technology.The juxtaposition of creation and destruction captures the ever-presenttension between gains and losses in the American market economy.Theprocess has never been without critics and political opponents.But becausethe winners have substantially outnumbered the losers, the churn of compe-tition remains a defining characteristic of the U.S.economy.Outsiders often equate the U.S.economy with its largest corporations andwhat they make and do.They may be surprised, then, by the vital part thatsmall businesses play.Napoleon is said to have dismissed England as anation of shopkeepers. The phrase could also be applied in considerabledegree to the United States, whose shop owners and other small businessesaccount for over half of the private-sector U.S.workforce and economic out-put, excluding farming.( Small businesses, according to an official defini-tion, have fewer than 500 employees.)A typical American town or suburb of more than 10,000 people is populat-Above: Some of the wealth amassed in the economy goes to good causes.Microsofted with individual business owners and small firms car dealers; accountantsfounder and billionaire Bill Gates, shown here with a Mozambique vaccine trial patient,and lawyers; physicians and therapists; shoe repairers and cleaning establish-has made philanthropy his new job.Previous spread: Small businesses, such as thisments; flower and hardware stores; plumbers, painters, and electricians; cloth-restaurant in Kansas, account for a vast majority of U.S.job creation.ing boutiques; computer repair shops; and restaurants of a half-dozen ethnic56 57© AP Images flavors.Many of the small retailers cans, defining our image of our- ple.But these vendors were blocked A small business that cannot pay itscompete with national chains boast- selves, shaping our sense of possibili- from becoming full-fledged business bills usually will go through what ising billions of dollars in revenue and ty, says author Peter Baida.owners by many hurdles, de Soto called a liquidation, selling all of itsthousands of employees.The 15th child of a Boston soap says, including rigid class barriers, assets to pay what it can to its credi-Despite the odds against them, and candle maker, Franklin quit school laws that discourage property owner- tors.Some of the business s debts aresmall businesses account for a vast after two years to work in his brother s ship, and bureaucracies intent on paid ahead of others, and a bankrupt-majority of job growth, particularly as printing business.He learned the preserving the status quo.In the cy court appoints a trustee to see thatmajor manufacturing companies trim printing trade and accounting, United States, change is a way of life.the process follows the rules.Banksemployment in the face of stiff global became the American colonies most and other secured lenders are highThe Chance to Start Againcompetition.In 2004, for example, noteworthy publisher and inventor, on the repayment list, as are mostthe number of jobs in small business- and then played his storied role in the If it is easy to launch a business in employee wages.But if there are pub-es grew by 1.9 million overall from the struggle for national independence.America, it is also relatively simple to lic shareholders, these owners whoyear before.Larger companies with Since Franklin s time, Americans have try again after a failed attempt.The have assumed more risk in exchange500 employees or more lost 181,000 hailed leading inventors and entrepre- philosopher Erich Fromm said that for greater potential reward are onnet jobs.(Economists point out that neurs as icons of opportunism, from the freedom to fail was essential to the bottom and often get nothing asmany small businesses provide goods Thomas Edison to Apple s Steve Jobs.overall freedom, and the adage is the business closes its doors.and services to large companies and Millions of entrepreneurs try to often cited as a basic tenet of Ameri- Large companies that can t copethus are tied to their fortunes.) create their own versions of success.can economic life.with their debts may choose what isGovernment data show that, in 2006, U.S.bankruptcy laws govern busi- called a Chapter 11 bankruptcySmall Businesses at the Economy s Corean estimated 650,000 new employer- ness failures.The U.S
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