[rsynnott]

> Which makes sense, but is sad for all the small towns out there with people really ideologically dedicated to "local business"

Pretty much everyone (excepting accelerationist communists, who would see near-monopolies as a failure mode of capitalism and thus desireable, as it would tend to hasten the collapse of the system) agrees that it's preferable to have more small businesses, vs near-monopolies; _that_ isn't really an ideological question. The disagreement is on what makes a good environment for small businesses. The US right would have you believe that it's all about low tax and low regulation, but the evidence doesn't seem to be on their side.

It's interesting to note that the US actually has rather few SMEs per capita for an advanced developed country; pretty much all countries in high-regulation high-tax Western Europe have more. Sweden has about five times more.

(Personal theory is that a big part of it is healthcare and other social safety nets; it must be really, really scary to leave your secure job to start a business in the US, unless you have a big pile of cash to fall back on.)