The petty bourgeoisie and fascism
As a political class it is also the petty bourgeoisie who are the early supporters of fascism and reaction. In comparison to the haute bourgeois they are first affected at any economic downturn, and the first to be affected by worker militancy; one strike could ruin them. Because of this precarious position between big business competitors and their own workers, the petty bourgeoisie forms the essential mass base for fascism. This is true today as it was a century ago. For example: small business owners represented 26% of the January 6th rioters in America, despite being only 10% of the population. Source:
https://www.inc.com/inc-staff/capitol-insurrection-business-owners.html. And many small business owners supported the rise of Hitler himself!
https://time.com/archive/6781610/business-finance-the-nazi-way/.
This does not mean that every small business owner is Hitler, it means the underlying mechanisms of class society make certain opinions more attractive. There very well may be socialists among the small business owners, materialist analysis doesn't negate outliers, Engels for example was a factory owner and a communist. However on a mass scale, we can see that certain classes have certain objective interests that push and pull them in different ways. As Marx said:
"Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past."
In conclusion, I want to reiterate that as a class the petty bourgeoisie are the opponents of socialism, because socialism necessarily threatens their power and the small priveliges they are afforded in capitalism. Likewise, we socialists should be enemies of the petty bourgeoisie, as we are enemies of the haute bourgeoisie, because the petty bourgeoisie has to be fought and abolished to end capitalism and class society. Whether small business or big business, it is the same social ill of capitalist business.