From: Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM
Date: Fri Dec 10 2004 - 14:25:50 EST
> It seems to me that you have begged the critical questions. > Moving away from perhaps classic formulations, why-- in these days in > which so many are effectively excluded in much of the world -- not look > on the informal sector as the reserve army? Mike L, I think one has to understand that there is segmentation and exploitation within the petty commodity sector -- as the late David Drakakis-Smith explained. To view this sector as simply the reserve army fails in many ways to grasp the relations within this sector and the differing relation of the sector to the working class (e.g. in many urban areas, much of the food eaten by proletarians is sold to them by members of the informal sector) and capital (e.g. in many countries, capitalists have come to rely on informal sector producers for supplies/inputs) and landowners (e.g. squatters building and living on the top floors of buildings owned by landlords -- something which is illegal but which happens with the agreement of the landowners and often bribes to state officials). Also, there is often a different relation to the state because of the illegal or semi-legal status of informal sector activity. Also, in many countries large numbers of homeless children provide for themselves in this sector, but in what sense could these children be seen as being part of the reserve army? It seems to me, indeed, that to argue that the informal sector is merely another name for the reserve army begs the critical questions and moves one _towards_ classic formulations. > How many of those street traders are there because they want to be? Very few, but that's not the issue, is it? In solidarity, Jerry
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