Tuesday, December 20, 2011

“System D”

Last December I linked to a piece in the San Antonio Current on the underground, or shadow, economy in that neck of the woods in a post I titled Galt’s Gulch Under Our Noses, noting that it is not just drug dealers conducting business who are powering the human action of such an economy.

This morning I read an interesting piece in Wired which reinforces the notion that underground/shadow economies; the “System D” referenced in the title to this post; are continuing to exert their muscle on a worldwide scale.

Not many people think of shantytowns, illegal street vendors, and unlicensed roadside hawkers as major economic players. But according to journalist Robert Neuwirth, that’s exactly what they’ve become…Neuwirth points out that small, illegal, off-the-books businesses collectively account for trillions of dollars in commerce and employ fully half the world’s workers. Further, he says, these enterprises are critical sources of entrepreneurialism, innovation, and self-reliance. And the globe’s gray and black markets have grown during the international recession, adding jobs, increasing sales, and improving the lives of hundreds of millions. It’s time, Neuwirth says, for the developed world to wake up to what those who are working in the shadows of globalization have to offer.

Neuwirth has compiled evidence in support of the above statement in his new book Stealth of Nations: The Global Rise of the Informal Economy, and I may very well have to obtain a copy of it, preferably through System D.  I may even purchase two copies and forward one to David Graeber as the subject matter under discussion within the book would make for an interesting and provocative anthropological study, in real time.  No theorizing required.

The Wired piece from which the above quote is taken is titled Why Black Market Entrepreneurs Matter to the World Economy and was linked via a post by Fred Lapides titled Slumdog Economist.

Posted by John Venlet on 12/20 at 08:28 AM
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