From: glevy@PRATT.EDU
Date: Sat Oct 14 2006 - 11:53:25 EDT
> My reference to "the secret of original accumulation" is of course > tongue-in-cheek, but the serious issue to which it refers concerns the > problem of how you can create markets where there are none because people > are too poor to buy very much Hi Jurriaan, This is indeed a serious question for many millions of poor non-waged people in the world today. To see how it is answered more concretely you have to look at the many experiences in the petty commodity, or "informal", sector in many economies. However, in response to the above, let me just note that in a substantial number of cases, the buyers in addition to other poor people: * firms in the "formal" sector; * the wealthy; * "formal sector" and/or higher-paid wage-workers; * agricultural producers with some discretionary income; * in some cases, even local government. What tends to be the case -- for obvious reasons -- is that the start-up cost for these activities tend to either be very small or non-existant (as would be the case with many labor services). In solidarity, Jerry
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