When a frothy American congressman wanted to make a case against chain stores, he reached for the greatest comparison of evil he could think of: “Let’s keep Hitler’s methods of government and business in Europe,” he said. And that pretty well sums up the attitude towards chain stores in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Today, we have a complex but largely peaceful relationship with these stores. We may blame them for closing down local mom-and-pop shops, but we largely use them without complaint, and sometimes even love them. But when chain stores were new, the reaction against them was fierce. Chain stores were accused of destroying democracy and freedom, of corrupting young people, and of being evil, evil, evil. (Just wait: The word gets used a lot.) States even tried to ban them. In this episode of Pessimists Archive, we investigate why chain stores were so steeply resisted—a fight that may just change the way you think about business.