Reviews small business subcontracting and set-aside programs to ascertain if small business receives fair share of Federal procurement dollars in keeping with Federal policy. Examines results of recent DOD changes in set-aside procedures and regulations which may have diminished SBA participation.

Focusing on anti-chain-store legislation beginning in the 1930s and on the establishment of federal small business agencies in the 1940s and 1950s, Jonathan Bean analyzes public policy toward small business. Beyond the Broker State challenges the long-accepted definition of politics as the interplay of organized interest groups, mediated by a broker state.