Suppose You Wake Up Free Tomorrow.

So someone whose name you can't remember said something - you think - about how much harder it is to start a business today than when he started, so you're not even going to try. About what I expected from you.

Really? I said I'm not going to try? Where did you see that part?

And yet countless people do start businesses and are very successful, even in this horribly, horribly oppressive environment where we're all enslaved by Teh Evil Gubmint.

Go figure.

The Walton family doesn't count.

According to the Kaufman foundation, more small businesses are being started per year now than has been the case since the mid 90s:

Why? Employers are shedding and outsourcing jobs, so more people are going into business for themselves.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/fashion/maybe-its-time-for-plan-c.html?_r=1

Most of the regulations having to do with workers and employees don't kick in until a company reaches a certain size. So small businesses actually have a slight competitive advantage in terms of regulation, while of course economy of scale and market power gives large advantages to larger corporations and conglomerates.

Just because more people are being forced into something by a recession does not mean it's gotten any easier to do, or that their businesses will be any more successful.

Why do you interpret confirmation that many people think of starting a business as "Plan C" as proof that starting a business hasn't gotten harder? Seems to me, people used to look forward to opening their own business to earn a living -- Plan A -- where now they're opening them in order to survive, often only after Plans A & B have been exhausted. What happened along the way to make it a desperate measure?

That's true to some extent, particularly with regard to federal employment laws like EEOC and ERISA. But even small businesses fall under FLSA and ADA, and the federal government deems any economic activity as falling under the commerce clause.

And the fed's only part of the problem. At more local levels, you need government certification to cut hair, and a business license before you can even sell fruit on the side of the road.

Even the smallest businesses need to hire specialists to file their taxes. There are entire industries of people who produce nothing of real value, and whose sole workproduct is to help innocent business owners stay out of trouble with the law. Those people are living off the goods and services the rest of us produce -- one more cost you have to cover before you can ever be profitable.

But it's not just the laws you have to comply with, it's also the various interpersonal "rights" that are protected in our litigious society. You can't clean houses without a bond and a huge insurance policy.

And regardless of the size of your business, it's a whole different world if you need to hire labor. Those guys with the "will work for food" sign? The truth is, it's cheaper to just give them the money. Even with a payroll service that knows what it's doing, a business owner still has to jump through hoops to hire someone legally. A worker isn't worth hiring if he can't cover the cost of all that on top of his own wage.

I can't think of a better example than someone who might want to paint houses for a living. It's pretty simple work that most of us pay someone else to do simply to avoid the fuss. It's not like there's a major risk they're gonna fuck up your house. What's the minimum overhead necessary to do the work -- inexpensive tools, a beat up old truck, and some ladders? What does all that cost?

But factor in a business license, insurance, everything you need to be compliant and then the cost of actually proving it. Every cost you have to bear increases your prices and reduces your sales. Time spent pulling permits is time you can't paint. And any business that's even the slightest bit more complicated to run is going to be a lot more complicated to run legally.

My point is that the cost of doing the work is significantly less than the cost of doing it legally, and that's a barrier to entry a lot of people could do without, particularly right now. And when I say "a lot of people," I'm thinking that just about everybody considers starting their own business from time to time. The math says that if it was easier, more of them would actually do it.

I agree with most of that - however, the question is how prohibitive is said barrier, especially in literal small businesses of a few people in a company. It seems that to this point it isn't so prohibitive that people won't try. So making that case, which was your initial point, is considerably overstating the impact.

And I also agree that a) the commerce clause is ridiculously overextended, b) that we probably don't need the level of Federal regulation we have now in many fields, and c) that state and local regulation can also be a significant problem.

But I won't go so far as to say we don't need very tight regulation in certain fields, especially those that can hurt human health and those such as the financial industry that have a disproportionate effect on the overall economy. Environmental regulation it depends - I don't really care that much about the frosty egret, but we need to support a healthy ecosystem for our own and posterity's sake.

BTW, this is what is called a 'moderate' POV.

You're still here whining. That's sucking up all the time you could be spending doing market research, among other things. Besides, you're a "slave," remember? You have no rights, and you can't do anything because you're so oppressed.