The Stealth of Nations; Robert Neuwirth.

(Robert Neuwirth, journalist and author, has written two books--Shadow Cities and The Stealth of Nations-- about the informal economy that so many members of the human race work, shop, and survive in.)

The world traveling journalist, Robert Neuwirth, has opened up the pages of a largely ignored narrative in world economics. In his book "The Stealth of Nations" released this past year; Neuwirth takes the reader on a journey through various shades of grey in all sectors of the world's informal economy. With the dramatic effect that the informal but not illicit. (Neuwirth distinguishes the two with the former being the subject of this book. Informal being all of the actions which would be legal if the merchants simply were licensed by a government to do their work and to pay taxes.) This informal economy he calls "System D" (a term which was first coined by anthropologist Keith Hart) he explains as,

a slang phrase pirated from French-speaking Africa and the Caribbean. The French have a word that they often use to describe particularly effective and motivated people. They call them débrouillards. To say a man (or woman) is a débrouillard(e) is to tell people how resourceful and ingenious he or she is. The former French colonies have sculpted this word to their own social and economic reality. They say that inventive, self-starting, entrepreneurial merchants who are doing business on their own, without registering or being regulated by the bureaucracy and, for the most part, without paying taxes, are part of 'l'economie de la débrouillardise.' Or, sweetened for street use, 'Systeme D.' This essentially translates as the ingenuity economy, the economy of improvisation and self-reliance, the do-it-yourself or DIY economy.

            Seeking in part to bust the myth that those who work outside of the formal sphere are untrustworthy, he tells the story of many entrepreneurs who provide services to their people when the government cannot or will not and has spent years traveling across the globe seeking out the people who run businesses and markets outside of the overarching arm of governments and bureaucracies. He spends much of his time in the third world; referring often to time he spent in South America and Africa, particularly the smuggling of Chinese goods into Nigeria, but he is no stranger to System D entrepreneurs in America. Neuwirth sees and notes that States' are strangling their people's ability to prosper and do business and is aware that today's notion of neo-liberal capitalism is geared to favor massive international conglomerates. He even quotes Murray Rothbard several times, but while this may seem like the Agora from "Alongside Night" Neuwirth is clear to distance himself from any anarchist sentiment and seems to be more focused on what policies governments can implement to uses System D to build a better world though he does acknowledge the large role that System D will play in the world's future and is optimistic that it will be good for the people.

            He ends on a positive note by saying that despite the inequality and unfairness generated by the current system that the answer to what he considers the two biggest economic problems facing the modern world--unemployment and inequality-- will come not from the privileged halls of academia but from the storefronts and underground traders of System D and I agree with him. What he doesn't note is that the very existence of such an extensive System D is a syndrome of a form of capitalism that artificially favors the elite. When the competitive but regulated marketplace is skewed in favor of the biggest and most connected, the smaller or the new will leave the competitive but regulated market and form their own alliances, and establish their own de facto rules of trade. The book is able to go into this well and provides plenty of wholesome food for thought. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in the future of Liberty and of mankind itself. The future lies with System D.