[Rant] 'Fair competition' of liquor industry in BC

Reading the commentary section in this 2015 Vancouver Sun article about public vs private competition of retail liquor stores in BC has left me absolutely livid. Between the exaltation of BC Liquor Store's supposedly efficient/effective business model and the cries of 'oh business is so bad, business people are evil', I couldn't stop myself from writing this rant post.

Note: this rant is entirely directed at wider social stigmas evidenced, rather than the specific people who wrote the linked posts/comments.

 

Public vs Private entities on the open market

There are so many variations on 'Competition is good, so go compete!' (e.g. "Hard to believe that somehow private stores that pay mostly minimum wage and no benefits are struggling against government run stores that pay more than minimum wage and have benefits. // Good on the employees at the government stores for being so competitive. I have no trouble with the government stores being open on holidays/Sundays and having a cold section. This actually levels the playing field.") ARE YOU SERIOUS??

How about the jobs produced? How about supporting families? How about buying other local products? How about the personal relationships? Community development? Encouraging local traffic and visitation to other businesses? Training grounds for people?

Local ownership ensures that important decisions are made locally by people who live in the community and who will feel the impacts of those decisions. Entrepreneurship fuels economic innovation and prosperity, and serves as a key means for families to move out of low-wage jobs and into the middle class. A marketplace of tens of thousands of small businesses is the best way to ensure innovation and low prices over the long-term. 

A multitude of small businesses, each selecting products based, not on a national sales plan, but on their own interests and the needs of their local customers, guarantees a much broader range of product choices. This sort of distributed product cataloguing embraces what makes us unique and makes our locality a destination.

 

‘Big Business Sucks’

"SUPPORT and Buy at Government STORES ONLY - the profit goes back to the taxpayer NOT into the pockets of business."? What exactly is wrong with business? Not going to get too deep into this idiocy of hating on the idea of monolithic "business."

Have you even thought about what a business even is? Any entity that has a market offering that generates income will have to expend resources to deliver that offering and is effectively a business. Regardless of the legal structure of the entity, whether it’s a ‘big bad corporation,’ a partnership, a sole proprietorship, a cooperative, or even a non-profit, they will have to content with economic realities. Even non-profits need money to stay afloat!

Yes, you can have crown corps, B Corps, and other variations to have a social focus, but all of that is at the discretion of the decision makers (typically owners of the business). So, if you don’t like the idea of giving to business, you’re either couched on the idea that people are inherently shitty/evil or that a socialist society is more effective than what we have today.

While capitalism is certainly far from perfect, having no market competition and supporting/buying only from a monopoly will encourage price-gouging and discourage innovation. It is not in the interest of consumers!

On the other side, there were 2 sensible comments:

This comment is actually spot on: "If the BC government is somehow subsidizing their outlets, then the private stores have a valid point. If not, and there's a level playing field, then the private outlets better suck it up and learn to compete. That's what private enterprise is all about."

 

The private business landscape Go ahead, read about the mountain of shit competitive landscape that private liquor businesses need to overcome in this competition against public retail outlets (http://bit.ly/2bKnoyF).

 

Gah, rant over. This post will probably come to bite me in the rear one day. Let’s see :)

—

Linked articles:

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash