INFORMAL ECONOMY--BLACK MARKET CRIMES OR EVERYDAY ACTIVITIES?

The informal economy usually engenders in the mind of the hearer notions of people selling fake Nike branded T-shirts on the streets of a less developed country somewhere.

Often we criminalize it--vilify it--as something that is beneath any of us, good, law-abiding, 1st world citizens. Informality has a lot of different definitions, but the thing that most academics mostly agree on is that informality mean activities that lie beyond the purview of state laws and regulation (Kanbur 2015). 

So that's not any of us, right? Did you ever babysit without reporting it on your taxes? Mow lawns over the summer without a business license? What about drive a car in Nevada? BUSTED! It is illegal in Nevada to drive a car because it would frighten horses. At least according to this graphic. Check out the other zanny laws still on the books:




So you see, in many cases, we are operating "informally" without even realizing it. You may say: "THAT'S NOT TRUE! IT EVEN SAYS IN THE GRAPHIC THAT THE STATE CHOOSES TO ALLOW VIOLATIONS OF THOSE LAWS, SO IN A WAY THEY ARE SANCTIONED."

This deepens the point that informality is in all of us becuase it means that even the state is using it when it is inefficient to change the laws formally.

Roy (2009) made that observation as well, noting that the state operates in informal mode a lot of the time, and, in effect is saying, "I the sovreign am outside of sovreignty"--kind of ironic.

But the point is, a lot of people have seen informality as behaviors that do not meet certain requirements. However, I can really relate to those scholars like Roy that have describe informality as a "mode". Informality is flexible, fast and creative--sometimes the only thing that will get the job done.

When has informality saved the day? After Hurrican Katrina, the government was criticized for its sloth-paced response to the needs of the victims. But tens, maybe hundreds, of informal relief groups started to immerge. No official rules, bylaws or organization--just something thrown together in a hurry to get the job done. Good thing too, or things may have gotten a lot worse in the already terribel aftermath.

Executive Orders from the President of the United States--also informal, and responding to times when the formal path to "proper" legislation just won't due (like when you have fewer than 5 years to act!).

The next time you think about informality, maybe you will have three images pop up in your mind instead of one: