In our economic planning, we need to recognize that keeping consumer prices low is not the only reason to resist mergers and acquisitions involving already-colossal corporate enterprises.  There’s also a matter of avoiding gigantism of scale.  Huge corporate bureaucracies can be every bit as oppressive as government ones—maybe more so, because people expect free enterprise to be quicker to recognize innovative thinking and hard work.  Yet anyone who’s worked long enough for a large corporation knows of ways they can be stifling, and sometimes even the antithesis of meritocracy.  Knowing it’s still possible to start a successful small business, using all of our abilities and potential, is an important safety valve for the frustrations of us toilers in the corporate anthill.  

There are also things we can do by ourselves in the realm of economics, without either waiting for government to come to our rescue or jumping headlong into entrepreneurship.  For example, American Express has found significant support for its annual program for people to devote one day of the Christmas shopping season to buying from local small businesses.  

There’s no reason for us to limit ourselves to one day a year.  Local independent businesses can enrich our lives year-round.  Case in point:  there are small hardware stores that are a lot more pleasant to visit than Brobdingnabian Home Depot, with its primary navigation signage soaring so far above our field of vision that we’re forced to adopt the same posture as awestruck peasants gasping at the wonders of a Gothic cathedral.

On the gastronomic front, why should we pay the higher prices needed to support the national advertising of our “neighborhood” Appleby’s, if there are independent local restaurants offering food that’s as good or better for less, and their manner clearly indicates we’re important to them?  Going out and discovering these local gems will also make your world a little more human-scale, and you a little bigger—as well as better connected, not only to restaurateurs who know your name and your preferences, but also to other diners you may share obervations with.  All in all, not a bad way to make you feel less small and insignificant.