Ha-ha Capitalism

I'm always poking fun at the "free-market" capitalism of the US, because, you know, it's not. Compared to a communist country like China, that is. If Shaniqua and Belinda want to open a hair-and-nail salon, for example, they're required to take 1,500 hours of professional training. Even at $10.00 an hour, that's $15,000 of training costs. To cut hair. As you might guess, Shaniqua and Belinda often give up.

Who does this protect? I mean, sure, a bad haircut is no fun, but you usually solve that problem by going to another hairdresser. Not by passing huge legal hurdles and requiring multiple licenses which probably protect the big chains more than anybody, because they can have their in-house "training" colleges where they pay trainees at minimum wage while they pack in their hours. What if they did it like in China? Hauling their chair and scissors out to the sidewalk and propping up a sign. Would that be revolutionary? Maybe it's worth it to help the disadvantaged, at the risk of a choppy cut.

They're having a big crackdown on these kind of criminals (the ha-ha capitalists, I mean) now in Shenzhen. Along the streets after dark, you can find numerous unlicensed barbecue vendors. Just a pile of coals, a grate, and their tray of shish-kebobs. Doesn't require much capital for these "restaurants" and meets a public need. Until now, when the People's Restaurant and Public Safety Monitoring Bureau drove by, the vendors would just kick over their grates, snatch up their meats and run around the corner, lauging "ha-ha-ha-ha". Before the van is a block away, they're back scooping the coals into the cooker and slapping kebabs back on the grill.

Now the city is getting Really Serious. "This time we mean it"; when the People's License Safety and Public Enterprise vans pull up, six guys in uniforms jump out, kick over the grill, and confiscate the grill (while the capitalists are "ha-ha-ha-ing" around the corner). You can always tell this way when Communists are serious; they make a bigger show. So now it takes the vendors all of 5 or 6 minutes to get going again because they have to bend up a bit of scrap metal to make their new grilles.

In the US, I guess we would slap them in jail, and charge Supercuts a higher tax to cover the expense.

UPDATE: If we imported this business model to Milwaukee or Texas, would it look like this?

Original post blogged on Dodgy Business.