Informal Sector or Petty Commodity Production: Dualism or Dependence in Urban Development?

The ‘informal sector’ and the political economy of development

“…The so-called structuralist school instead stressed that there were important links between the formal and informal sectors, and posited that 'Because of the dependent relationship between large-scale capitalism and petty commodity production', the problem of persistence was essentially political as 'policy solutions designed to assist the latter almost invariably end up by promoting the former' (Moser 1978(Moser : 1062. 10 In sharp contrast to the dualist view, that the informal sector is not a transitory phenomenon in the development process, waiting to be absorbed by the formal sector.…”

“…This paper advances combined insights from these two sets of literature, which seemingly independently have dealt with two ubiquitous development issues: informality and politics. The objective is to take an initial step in exploiting rather marked complementarities in the focus and approach of these two sets of literature, and so advance microanalytical rationales in support of the relevance of the political dimension that has been repeatedly brought to the fore over the years (e.g., Leys 1973;Moser 1978;de Soto 1986;Djankov et al 2002;Auriol and Warlters 2005;and Chaudhuri et al 2006). The paper highlights numerous insights from the informal sector literature and related literature regarding the specific restrictions and incentives that individuals respond to in organizing activities within the informal sector, but focuses on emphasizing how distinct institutional premises can rationalize relatively poor capacity to influence policy.…”

Informal economic activity: Early thinking, conceptual shifts, continuing patterns and persistent issues – a Michigan study

“…Indeed, the informal sector was seen by some as contributing to global economic growth by providing low cost consumer goods, indigenous capital goods and a more labor-intensive form of industrialization. Yet others, argued that Third World informal economy workers were no more than disguised wage laborers, since their production was subject to control by industrial capital which set the volume, type and quality of the goods produced and fixed the prices below their true value [84].…”

The struggles for survival of street traders in Umtata, Transkei, 1980?89

“…During the 1970s and 1980s writers from the school of petty commodity production recognised the existence of a deep rooted subordination of street traders to capital (Moser 1978;Gerry 1979;Forbes 1981). The subordinate role of street traders is exposed by constraints and regulations imposed by governmental authorities upon the activities of street traders in many cities of the developing world (e.g.…”