Why do people like mom-and-pop shops and hate corporations?

Becuse the bigger corporations take away buisness and traditions. You
open your own shop and finally get enough buisness to get by when all
of the sudden a corporation moves in offering the same products
cheaper and a wider varity. It is useally only a matter of time before
you lose your buisness.

Because "mom and pop" stores are thought of as revolving around the
customer. Its the personal touch, the being able to get an answer to
you questions, problems, theres comfort in knowing that your business
is needed and that you as a customer are cared about. Big business
tends to put revenue first, theres a lack of being "personable", less
of a feeling that your business matters to them and lets face it whens
the last time the president of Ford Motors asked how your kids where
doing... and knew them by name?

Corporations are mindless moraless structures that hold their
obligations to the stock holders. Any immoral decision that will save
the company money loses it's humanity in the long chain of obligation
assignment. In order to have an efficient stable government, no one
man, group, or entity should hold too much power. Corporations become
massive, massive corporations compete, massive corporations merge.
Then end is the corporations control the prices, corporations who only
seek to please their stock holders.


A good example is mcdonalds. It's not good for you, but it's products
are efficient, meaning they are addictive, delicious, and cheap to
produce. They could improve their quality without altering their
price, but that would mean loss of revenues.

Walmart recently built proposed to build a store next to the Mexican Pyramids.

Corporations kill a more personal, friendly way of life.  It used to
be that you knew the butcher, the baker, the grocer, and they all had
distinct personalities as well as families.  They were a part of the
community.  You had more of a sense of community.

Now you have Super Walmarts with acres of parking lots and lower
prices than were possible before due to sheer buying power.  When
Walmart, or some others, buy corn, they buy all the corn in Kansas and
then some.  You have part-time employees and full-timers, lots of
them, but you don't know who they are anymore and they don't know you.
 You can stay home, watch TV until you get hungry, then go to the
supermarket that has tons of stuff you can buy - anonymously - and
then you can go home again.  Oh yes, and the money you spend doesn't
stay in the community anymore, at least not as much of it as it used
to.  It gets sucked off to feed shareholders all over the world.  And
I haven't even touched on the soul draining jobs many corporations
foster.  The accumulation of corporate wealth has been a mixed bag to
say the least.

Mom & Pop stores hate corporations because they take all of thier
business by underselling them. They stock the same items, plus much
more and since the buyers from the chain are buying these in such
quantities, they get items much cheaper than mom & pops, who buy a
fraction of what the chains buy. Because chains buy these items for
much cheaper, they can sell for whole dollars, etc cheaper than a mom
and pop could ever offer. People will abandon a relationship with a
mom and pop store to save a few bucks, it's the rule of the almighty
dollar. Do this to enough customers, and mom & pop stores will
eventually lose all of their client base. With no one buying from
them, they can't stay in business.

I would have to take issue with your assumption that people love
"mom-and-pop shops" and hate corporations. If spending habits are any
indication, quite the opposite is true. Generally speaking, I think
people are inclined to complain about impersonal service they may
receive at large corporate stores, but when given the choice, they
would rather save 20%.
And before anyone else goes on to demonize corporate America, step
back for a moment and look at how the retail trends of the past
several decades have improved our lives. In most areas of this
country, one can go out at any time, day or night, and purchase
virtually anything. Medication, groceries, freshly prepared food,
hardware, almost anything. It wasn't so long ago that this was unheard
of. It used to be difficult just to find businesses open on Sunday.
These changes have benefitted the consumer and worker enormously.
Millions of jobs have been created, competition has lowered prices
substantially, product diversity has soared. Have there been costs? Of
course. Product quality in many industries has dropped. Textiles,
metals, food, etc. High quality products are often difficult to find
and/or expensive. But lets keep in mind that all businesses respond to
market forces. Consumers continue to demand lower price in lieu of
higher quality product. Don't blame the corporations, blame your
fellow consumers. Does anyone blame the studios because there is
nothing worth watching on television? Well, you shouldn't. They show
what most people want to watch. Corporations sell what most people
want to buy.
ALL businesses put revenue as their first priority, even "mom-and-pop
shops". They're not more friendly because they want to be, they're
more friendly because you want them to be. You are therefore more
likely to return and give them more of your money. Market forces, get
the picture?

luciustave-ga makes some very good points but there are somethings
that are seldom considered when comparing corporations with
mom-and-pop shops.

First, on the positive side, because corporations deal in such large
quantities, they don't even bother with the small producer or niche
markets. These remain great opportunities for mom-and-pop shops which
can more easily cater to a specific niche and are geared to deal with
small quantities of goods.

On the negative side is the more complex issue of the economic impact
of Mega Corp.

Large Corporations do produce many jobs as they claim but the very
fact that they operate more efficiently clearly indicates that they
wipe out more jobs than they produce. Many of the jobs they produce
pay far less than you could earn running your own successful
Mom-and-Pop shop even with it's inefficiencies.

Your own Mom-and-pop shop is a source of equity that can be borrowed
against, sold, inherited . . . it has real value beyond the paycheck
you take home from it. What do you have left when you retire from Mega
Corp?

When the economy sours for whatever reason, it is natural to try and
control expeses, or to tighten the belt, so to speak. With a
Mom-and-Pop shop, this means giving up a vacation, driving the same
car for another year, maybe eating more hamburger and chicken instead
of fish and steak. When Mega Corp tightens its belt, they do this by
throwing people out of work who are now wondering how they will buy
shoes for their kids, pay the rent or utilities, what they will have
to eat tomorrow.

The cash you keep in your pocket by taking advantage of the Mega Corp
discount, you end up throwing away on innefficient government safety
nets for out of work or financially disadvantaged families.

Having said all of that, there are some places(industries) where mega
corp makes a lot of sense. Only a Mega Corp could; - give us reliable
coast to coast and overseas phone service, - Build aircraft capable of
carrying travelers around the globe, - handling our mail, - providing
efficient rail service, - and a host of other products and services
that require massive resources to design, build or run.

A book could be written on this subject but out of respect to you I
won't do it here ;)

Interesting point of view, but your reasoning is flawed. You seem to
be working under the false assumption that workers could/would open
their own mom-and-pop shop if Mega Corp. didn't exist to employ them.
On what basis?
   
   Efficiency doesn't "wipe out" jobs. Efficient companies prosper.
Prosperous companies expand and create more jobs. Inefficient
mom-and-pop shops stagnate, or worse, fail. Large corporations create
jobs through innovation.
   
   And when retiring from Mega Corp., employees will have a pension,
something rarely offered by mom-and-pop shops.
   
   In an economic downturn, mom-and-pop shops will act no differently
than any other business. Thet will "throw people out of work" as
needed. And keep in mind that large corporations are much better
equipped to handle market fluctuation.

   Failed socialist government programs and their negative effect on
business would fill volumes. I can't imagine that my tax burden is
going to shrink if we all start shopping at the neighborhood hardware
store.

   As much folksy charm as the image of a mom-and-pop shop holds in
our mind's eye, that just isn't seeing the world as it is. Mom-and-pop
are not the angelic victims of large evil corporations, and neither
are the American people.

Thanks luciustave for presenting that point of view! The reason I
posted this question is because I felt the logic for hating
corporations was incomplete, and wanted to hear it presented
cohesively. The more I hear it presented, the more I personally feel
that it is incomplete.

I also want to thank everyone else for posting your experience and
viewpoint on the matter. The best way to understand a topic is to hear
both sides of it presented, most importantly the side you disagree
with.

The answer may be as simple as when you think of those shops, you
think of your own "mom and pop", who may be losing business due to the
large corporations. No one wants to see their own mom and pop
struggling for money, after working so hard to establish a business
which they "built from the ground up". For example: my father has been
self-employed for 30+ years with this own small business. When people
call a nationally renouned large company instead, it takes food off my
family's proverbial table.

Also, people who like mom-and-pop shops may be rooting for "the little
guy". The average Joe who just wants to make ends meet doing honest
hard work.

That's true. I agree that it seems to come down more to emotion than
anything else. My father runs a Mom and Pop business that I grew up
working in, and I've started one of my own now. Even so, it seems to
me that Mom and Pop shops are great for filling niches which will
always exist, but at a certain point it becomes detrimental to the
community to keep them around.

Thanks all!