In this article I will raise some reflections on the crisis and small trade. This is a complex issue, as seen in the opposing positions adopted by various subjects of the Popular Movement. On the one hand, we have seen many campaigns in favor of "local consumption" and "small shops of the neighborhood". On the other hand, it is stated that “all flashes are not gold”: The Bilbao Workers’ Self-Defence Network (LAS), for example, denounces the risk that these campaigns in favour of “small trade”, which are carried out in an abstract way, may justify labor exploitation: “Most of the cases collected so far by LAS SS have occurred in companies with less than 10 workers. In general, in workplaces that are understood as ‘small shops’, they say. “For this reason, we understand that the uncritical extension of the demand for small trade hinders the self-organization of the workers […] It becomes a limit to the solidarity of the evicted, claiming the need to empathize with the boss, leaving aside the interests of the exploited,” they said.

I believe that the members of LAS raise fundamental questions. At the same time, in the face of the pauperization process of the working class and the reorganization of the class struggle and neighborhood defense, it is necessary to make a strategic reflection that relates small trade, crisis and class self-organization.

For this reason, this article has two objectives: on the one hand, to critically analyze different discourses based on mobilizations in favor of the "small trade of the neighborhood"; and, on the other hand, to raise some important keys to deepen the debate and promote the revolutionary praxis.

Epistemological problem: “Small commerce is always a friend”

Small businesses, per se, have become "popular" subjects: Everything that is "small trade" is OK, "gives life to the neighborhood," "respects workers' rights," "is close to neighbors," etc.

On the one hand, there is no clear definition of “small trade”, it is not an objective category, nor is there any criterion to be able to say what is or is not a small trade: on the basis of that ambiguous definition, the same would be the “small” halal shop in the neighbourhood – which has no salaried staff and which strives not to close the premises each month – or the president of the “Association of Merchants of the Old Town of Bilbao”. If we want any discourse on small trade to have political value, we will have to ask what we mean by small trade, what are part of that category and what class interests exist among “small traders”.

On the other hand, these are working conditions: to say that small trade, being a small capitalist, is better than big trade, is liar – with bad intent or, at best, naïve. How many of us have worked in a bar or a "small" shop with miserable wages, no contract or a 10-hour contract a week, even if they've worked 30 hours? Small trade is no more ethical because it is small: it is often situated in the same barricade of the multinationals, taking up its own discourse, paying misery and infringing our rights. In some cases they may be people of “good faith”, but “competition laws” cause workers to be exploited equally. In other cases, they are small sharks, small traders who want to build an empire, small bourgeois who think that meritocracy will lead them to be "the ruling class of our country."

Within the "small trade", therefore, there are friends and enemies. What makes a trader an ally or enemy of the working class is not the size of his business (small, medium or large), but, on the one hand, the benefit he derives from his trade (and the added value he steals), which is an economic factor, and on the other hand, the conditions of the workers, which is a political factor.

The political problem: the small trader as a subject.

1- What makes “the problems of small trade” invisible: where are the expropriated?

Today, talking about the problems that the crisis has brought to traders makes the problems that it has brought to the most disadvantaged layers of society invisible: the small trader, but we forget about the workers, the unemployed, the homeless, the homeless, the undocumented… The invisible become more and more invisible.

We talk about merchants and merchants (store owners) and we forget about the workers exploited by that merchant. The owner of a premises can undoubtedly have problems; but even more so, the workers who live with a miserable ERTE or who have worked black in those premises and now have run out of pay, who cannot collect paradise and who are excluded from the vulnerability aids. That is, choosing with whom we share the barricade.

2- What is meant by "the problems of small trade": reinforcing the illusion of the middle class.

Small trade is neither subject nor trader. It's a classic example of that mental state (ideological) known as "middle class." The middle class does not exist, it is a subjective category, of which both the small bourgeoisie and the upper class of the working class (the so-called labour aristocracy) are part. To speak to the small merchant is to speak to the middle class, that is to say, to a fictional category. It is therefore a question of reinforcing the illusion of the middle class.

If the objective is to speak to the aristocratic working class, the objective must be clear, that is, it must be made to understand that its class is the working class and that its allies are the most dispossessed classes (proletariat and plumer proletariat). However, if you want to talk about this layer, you cannot resort to "small trade," because the only thing you are getting is to reinforce the mental illusion of the middle class. And that, in addition to being politically confused, is also dangerous: a network of small traders will strengthen the interests of their class (middle), not to partner with the workers, but to "defend" themselves against the competition of the big sharks and the demands we are below.

Crises can be a good time to stimulate class recomposition, for example, to understand that the working aristocracy in the process of pauperization shares class interests with the most disinherited. In other words, crises can be important moments for the political recovery of the working class. But they are also good times to rebuild the political bloc of the bourgeoisie; and we know that historically it has been the bourgeoisie that has taken advantage of the crisis to bring to its side the bourgeoisie and the labour aristocracy.

A very fine ideological work must be done not to fuel the illusion of the middle class and the construction of the political bloc of the bourgeoisie: if we ask the owner of a small trade as a worker, that is, if we make him understand that what he has is not a means of production, but a means of reproduction (because he draws a salary from his trade and not a capitalist profit), we can open up the possibility of building an alliance with the workers. But if we ask the owner of small commerce as “owner” (i.e. as a small capitalist), we will strengthen that middle-class identity, which will clash with the interests of the most disinherited (in the first place with the interests of wage workers, i.e. those who steal capital).

Political implications: two clarifications to conclude

1- As I said at the beginning, the aim of this reflection is not to oppose all campaigns in favour of small trade. It is clear that consuming in small shops in the neighborhood is better than in multinationals or franchises. But we must be careful with our speeches, because we are creating tactical allies (in a situation where we are all ruined) that will be strategic enemies (because when the crisis passes we will be in two different parts of the barricade).

2- I did not mean that the owner of a small trade, per se and in its entirety, would share class interests with the workers it exploits. On many occasions, these interests clash: in the process of capitalist production, the small owner is the one who directly extracts from the work of those who work in his store (i.e. robs them of some of their work) the surplus value. The aim should therefore be for small traders to put their strategic and political interests (building the unity of the working class) before economic and economic interests (capital gains). In fact, if small traders were placed in the political bloc of the bourgeoisie (in the case of capitalist innovation), sharks would eat them. Therefore, only the political bloc of the working class (in the process of reconstitution of the class) will be able to ensure its survival (and the “return to life”), not as a owner, but as a worker.