Date: Wed, 6 Aug 1997 12:23:05 -0400 (EDT) From: Andrew Wayne Austin <aaustin-AT-utkux.utcc.utk.edu> Subject: Re: M-I: Small firms & class consciousness Michael, There was a study by David Birch out of MIT that claimed that 88% of all new job creation was taking place in small businesses. This study was cited endlessly by conservatives, particularly in the Reagan-Bush administrations. However, more recent studies have found that this is not the case. Harrison and Bluestone (1990) found for example that "the proportion of Americans working for small companies and for individual establishments...has barely changed at all since at least the 1960s." Harrison found this to also be true for Japan and Germany. As Rifkin (1996) pointed out, "while less than 1% of all US companies employ 500 or more workers, these big firms still employed more than 41% of all the workers in the private sector as the end of the last decade." As you move on down from the 500 worker firm you will find that large firms employ most people. There may be sectors of the economy that are broken up more finely into chains, but the general character of capitalism is the big firm. This doesn't negate your interesting question as to the development of consciousness in the small firm. I only wanted to cast doubt on the idea that 1/2 of all workers work in small firms. That doesn't seem correct to me. Andrew Austin --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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