OFF THE BOOKS. The underground economy of the urban poor. By Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh. 310pp. Harvard University Press. Pounds 18.95 (US $27.95). 978 0 674
02355 0
There are long stretches of Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh's vivid, almost novelistic descriptions of the dealing and hustling in Maquis Park, a ghetto neighbourhood on Chicago's South Side, that make you think he is weaving an urban idyll, a hymn to cooperation in adversity, to plucky ingenuity, solidarity and all those qualities that the poor are supposed to have more plentifully than the rich.
And then, from time to time, he makes a remark that is so casual it could be overlooked entirely, but which lends the whole account a more sombre tone: "a local pastor helps Marlene and other domestic workers find families to work for, but he charges 10 per cent for each successful placement". Pastors are portrayed with a good deal of affection in this study, but they are as rapacious as anyone else, even if they are higher up the food chain and evidently able to afford a generous gesture from time to time.
Some of their fellow citizens (like the prostitute who has slept with "most of the preachers in this community") become more cynical in consequence, while others yearn more fervently for a higher power who "has me a home waiting that no man can build". Even if a pastor "just wants his money", to quote Marlene, "so he likes to stay in control", that control can also bring the ability to do some community favours, such as negotiating a peaceful compromise between rival gangs, or keeping playgrounds free of drug-dealing during daylight hours. You realize after a while that this ecosystem is neither idyllic nor exemplary. It just exists -like countless others unsung by such talented chroniclers -and those seeking to meddle with it, whether as residents, visitors, or public officials, must do so at their own risk. Its members may be strong or weak, brutal or kind, but Venkatesh tries hard to avoid categorizing them in any terms that might connote approval or censure.
The one quality the author wants us to think everyone in this neighbourhood possesses in unqualified abundance is intelligence -raw, strategic street wisdom.
If the university of life awarded diplomas, this neighbourhood would be full of PhDs. What makes the difference between predators and prey is just circumstance, the sheer luck of which side of the risky transaction you find yourself on. As in all ecosystems there are fundamental conflicts about space and territory, and in the underground economy these become fierce because nobody's right to space is enforceable by law. "Underground entrepreneurs possess skill, business acumen and tremendous potential for innovative skills and strategies. What most lack is a physical space to ply their trade." So the competition for space takes place at various levels, of which Venkatesh distinguishes three. First, there is the simple sale of goods and services, some illegal in principle such as drugs and sex, others legal but undeclared to the tax authorities, all of them transacted in a space that is only temporarily and precariously available. Second, there is the competition from "regulators", who in return for a payoff or "street tax", might "offer protection against the police, prosecution of non-paying customers, or arbitration of contractual disputes". Third, there are the "predators", the "car thieves, robbers, stick-up artists and pickpockets (who) make money in public areas, (and) disrupt the practices of the trader and the regulator, and the arrangements between the two". What Venkatesh doesn't say explicitly, though it is abundantly clear from his descriptions, is how fluid the boundaries between these categories are, and how often individuals move from one to the other and back again.
The description and the classification in this remarkable book are extraordinary, but in his concern to avoid making moral judgements, or to make his subjects seem other than very smart indeed, Venkatesh seems unwilling to engage with the sheer frustrating dysfunctionality of this ecosystem, and to ask precisely why so much intelligence, energy and courage chase each other fruitlessly around the block leaving the participants so exhausted and depressed. An interesting clue comes when he describes why so few of the ghetto's inhabitants are willing to leave, to try their luck elsewhere. Much of their capital turns out to be highly personalized, dependent on their network of contacts and loyalties, on favours given and returned, and to have little or no value to anyone who tries to set up in a different city or even a different neighbourhood. People are risk-averse, and the neighbourhood is an informal insurance system, so it takes an unusual degree of self- assurance to take the gamble of leaving. But isn't this insurance very dearly bought? What might enable all this talent and energy to be harnessed to more positive ends? Would more money for education help? More regulation of labour markets? Less regulation of labour markets? After all, regular jobs even at the minimum wage are a luxury here, so does this make the minimum wage an irrelevance, or is it a part of the problem?
Most of all, the underground economy is clearly much more of a swamp in some places than in others, and for some of its participants more than for others.
There are few citizens even in the most respectable neighbourhoods who always declare all their payments for home improvements and domestic help to the tax authorities, as the travails of Supreme Court appointees before confirmation committees regularly remind us. At what point does involvement in the underground economy pass the point of no return? These are big questions, and a case study of one neighbourhood will never answer them, but the evidence provided in Off the Books is even richer than its author acknowledges.
Economists and many sociologists are used to trying to explain the predicaments of individuals by reference to their characteristics -their physical and human capital, their talents and their skills. Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh reminds us that each person comes with a web of contacts and connections, of links to others, which are untranslatable into other environments and which in their impact on that person's life can dwarf the contribution of their more individual and separable qualities. Intervene with one person and the whole ecosystem may react, in quite unpredictable ways. It is a salutary warning to anyone tempted by old-fashioned social engineering; but it leaves one thirsty to know more, to know above all what might allow that remarkable array of talent to do more honour, more often, to the painfully frustrated aspirations of the inhabitants of Maquis Park.
