I’d extend that to say “regulated” in both the legal and broader social senses - not just comparing government regulation before and after the Reagan/Thatcher e

I’d extend that to say “regulated” in both the legal and broader social senses - not just comparing government regulation before and after the Reagan/Thatcher era but also things like connection to places: smaller businesses are more likely to be run by someone who feels some responsibility to look after their community and workers, which certainly wasn’t perfect but still better than what happens with huge multinationals whose senior leadership probably isn’t even in the same time zone and certainly aren’t worried about going to church/the country club with people who will ask them why they’re polluting so much or decided to lay off a bunch of people right before Christmas. I don’t want to oversell that kind of thing as a factor but I really think there’s a cost to scale when a business reaches the point of impersonality where you don’t even know or have much concept of the existence of the people affected by your decisions.