Lean Ethics: The Big and Small

Regulation and government programs are supposed to protect the consumers, but too often, they favor big, incumbent businesses at the expense of small consumers and small businesses. A permit fee that is the same for one house or a hundred will fall a hundred times harder on the builder of a single house. This is a kind of corruption which favors particular business interests against the public interest. Asking, “Does this fall too hard on the small?” helps us penetrate a ploy. Often, spokespeople appeal for deregulation in order to help “small businesses,” but the small businesses remain at a disadvantage. Take a new government grant that could help small businesses, but that has an oner- ous application process. It is only affordable to big businesses that can pay for consultants.