Show A VOICE FROM THE COUNTRY TRY complex economy threatens small business enterprise Ed editors ilori note this is the second in a series ol of articles on current urns lems by louis lawt bromfield ons one of americas america leading fading writers sj by LOUIS BROMFIELD released Ke ne leased by rea feature tures therease there Ther eare are times when it seems that the pattern of our agri cultural and business life appears not to have kept pace with the development of ind industry and technology i the old frontier of the th e general farm is one case in point ani other is the field of distribution of all goods but notably of food and the small enter s either old fashioned general farm r m the small business enterprise has in the past been a great bulwark ot of american independence and character and frequently ot of OUT our economy as well the question is whether our present complicated and complex industrialized economy any longer can afford these remnants of another day and whether the proprietors of the general farm and the smalls small business enterprise can survive much longer the economic strain placed upon them tied in with the problems bromfield of both is the ques tion of distribution notoriously expensive and inefficient and in the actual process of painfully adjusting itself it is not only that the world has shrunk immensely in our time but also that the united states has shrunk with it the problem of ad wages and purchasing power to the prices of all commodities has become the most urgent one now mow confronting the free enterprise system size specialization and efficiency fici 11 ency all haye have their bearing upon living costs and notably upon food rices the old fashioned general farm Is an inefficient unit in aix oix our highly complex interrelated pro economy so be too Is the small retail enterprise competing with the efficiency buying and distributing power of the vast well integer integrated abed chain stores super mrk etland cooperatives era cra tives the econom economic ac pressures of our century are all toward bigness efel clency and low cost production and distribution exactly as the rewards of f the automobile industry have hava goneno one to mass production assembly line big companies which produced a commodity of high quality for a low price in the problem of food costs this efficiency begins at the lof farm extends through the old oldfield field of distribution to the outlet cycle of ailigh costs the high cost of food begins on the farm through inefficiency and low production per acre which produces high costs per man manh hour and per commodity unit it continues through the field of distribution which involves handling many times limes commission merchants market rigging and at times a spread of price between producer and consumer of several hundred per cent the point is that small retailers ret allera as well vell as the great chain stores or I 1 f cooperatives are a link in this chain but that the small retailer is largely I 1 at the mercy of market rigging commission merchants expensive small lot distribution and multiple distribution agencies that is the great wholesale buyers and commission merchants the local wholesale distributors et cetera cete ra each of whom takes a cut eventually paid 41 lor for by the consumer or in losses losses by by the small retail proprietor at the same time the small email re retail erIs a victim of the economic squeeze created by the ability of the he chain stores supermarkets super markets and cooperatives cooperative es to set low prices because of smaller purchase and distribution cost rarely save la in deluxe areas ilk like e new yorks avenue can caia the small unit re taller set a price higher in his bis community than that odthe of the bigger organizations althou although gli hii bis I 1 costs maya may be much greater the economic le tendency and pressures toda today y are certainly au all in the direction of low costs high efficiency and the bigness which creates them the consumer ia is concerned almost wholly with wi th the goal of buying the best quality for the lowest price certainly super mar bets chain stores scores and cooperatives are growing and will continue to do so taxed or tax free in the thel case of big cooperatives for even with taxes they still con can sell at lower prices than the small independent operator 1 dollar value paramount all of this of course raises the graye question of morio monopolies it not nationwide nation wide wid a at least in certain states state sand and areas monopoly in turn implies government regulation but at the moment at least the con 11 1 vin jw a sense the small distributor as s exemplified by the corner comer grocery store 1 or and the old fashioned general farmer are like the he horse horn and bug syi gyp relics of a former day sumer Is not no t concerned with these things he Is concerned solely with making his dollar buy as much as possible both in ih quality and quantity the fundamental point isthan Is that the pressures against the small enterprises are economic and therefore extremely powerful in ili a sense the small distributor as exemplified by the corner comer grocery store and the 01 old d fashioned general farmer area are like the horse and buggy relies relics of a former day this was before the world and this nation had shrunk when the retailer bought his food directly from the farmer and food commodities were not shipped from rural communities into the cities and then back again to the town in tho those sesame same rural communities with an enormous distribution markup in be between iween this markup tho the big bigfoot t food handlers handler sr are able largely 16 elief nate nata by direct mass buying and shipping the forces of economics and of mass pr production and distribution are difficult or impossible to resist of course coarse it would be possible for government to subsidize the small inefficient handicapped operator with taxpayers money very largely that Is what has happened in the case of the unprogressive inefficient farmer and the absentee landlord systems in agriculture but the consumer takes the beating because he contin continues pes to pay not only high hilgh prices but also taxes in he form of subsidies out of the other pocket it Is notable that the national Poultry mens association recently urged congress to drop hu all poultry and egg price support measures so that the subsidized inefficient poultry pro producer duede would be eliminated and the prices would find a lower level to the consumer but one still profitable to the effi efficient clent producer sentimentally chate I 1 hate to see the passing of the old fashioned general farm and the comer grocery store both institutions gave me much happiness and friendliness in my youth but I 1 am afraid there any longer much place for them in our highly complex economic civilization in a shrunken world in thee the end we iha shall ll 11 bo be forced bocatch to catch up with our times by the sheer raj ruthless force of econom economics acs and because the consumer no longer can afford either institution |