If you only read one article at the leading local, progressive website San Diego Free Press, read “An Informal Economy…“. It is one of the greatest examples of how free markets produce prosperity for the people who need it most. To wit:
The yard man hook up is inevitable when someone does a good job and the fair and effective mechanic has more business than he or she can handle without an advertising budget. Business cards appear overnight in windshields or driver side car windows or hang randomly from fence posts. Renters make a spare room and rent to a family member or friend to help cover the rent.
The informal economy is alive and well in City Heights.
Eighty seven percent (87%) of people in City Heights buy food and clothing outside the supermarket and big box stores according to a new study commissioned by the City Heights Community Development Corporation and the Ford Foundation. They are consumers engaged in the “informal economy” and most of them are low income and need to use the resources of the informal marketplace to survive.
The author’s commentary of this truly free market? Legalize it:
Second it is suggested that an “enterprise zone” be defined and authorized by City Council action to “legalize” informal businesses especially push carts, and develop a community level effort to grow them. For example the cost of getting a incense to operate a push cart is over $5,000 and requires that to stay stationery and attached to an existing business. The study also recommends a live work overlay zone that in certain areas would legalize the businesses operating out of garages and backyards.
My argument would be, of course, to grow that enterprise zone and become more inclusive by permitting more people to participate in the “informal economy”. Freedom works.