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    Stealth of Nations: The Global Rise of the Informal Economy
    Stealth of Nations: The Global Rise of the Informal Economy
    Stealth of Nations: The Global Rise of the Informal Economy
    Audiobook9 hours

    Stealth of Nations: The Global Rise of the Informal Economy

    Written by Robert Neuwirth

    Narrated by Kevin Foley

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Thousands of Africans head to China each year to buy cell phones, auto parts, and other products that they will import to their home countries through a clandestine global back channel.

    Hundreds of Paraguayan merchants smuggle computers, electronics, and clothing across the border to Brazil.

    Scores of laid-off San Franciscans, working without any licenses, use Twitter to sell home-cooked foods.

    Dozens of major multinationals sell products through unregistered kiosks and street vendors around the world.

    When we think of the informal economy, we tend to think of crime: prostitution, gun running, drug trafficking. Stealth of Nations opens up this underground realm, showing how the worldwide informal economy deals mostly in legal products and is, in fact, a ten-trillion-dollar industry, making it the second-largest economy in the world, after that of the United States.

    Having penetrated this closed world and persuaded its inhabitants to open up to him, Robert Neuwirth makes clear that this informal method of transaction dates back as far as humans have existed and traded, that it provides essential services and crucial employment that fill the gaps in formal systems, and that this unregulated market works smoothly and effectively, with its own codes and unwritten rules.

    Combining a vivid travelogue with a firm grasp on global economic strategy-along with a healthy dose of irreverence and skepticism toward conventional perceptions-Neuwirth gives us an eye-opening account of a world that is always operating around us, hidden in plain sight.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateOct 24, 2011
    ISBN9781452674827
    Stealth of Nations: The Global Rise of the Informal Economy

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    Reviews for Stealth of Nations

    4.5/5

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    • 4/5
      Written in much more of a literary travelogue style than I'd expected, although this isn't a criticism. Neuwirth does a great job of exploring the various incarnations of "System D", the underground grey and black markets of the global economy that defy, avoid, or even replace formal government. Contrary to our expectations, the shadow economy produces an enormous output, second only to the GDP of the United States. Neuwirth takes us to China, Nigeria, and Paraguay, introducing us to street merchants and informal market associations that do what governments can't or won't: providing a higher standard of living and all-important employment.

      Neuwirth is making a case for the free market, as evidenced by the play on Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, and indeed a quote from Smith's seminal economic work introduces each chapter. However Neuwirth doesn't evangelize and his case never crosses into the heavy-handed. He does make a strong case for engagement with the underground, a kind of quasi-legitimacy that allows formal institutions to operate alongside the informal markets and trade associations, rather than treating them as useless criminals.

      This isn't the capitalism of the brand we've come to expect in the West, dominated by large firms operating in close cahoots with civilian government, but rather the original entrepreneurism: the informal can-do make-it-happen spirit that should, ideally, define free market enterprise. Neuwirth is sympathetic to their cause and advocates for measures to negate some of the undesirable aspects of System D, while recognizing and promoting the obvious benefits of informality.

      All in all, an interesting read both for its look at the inner workings of the underground and an alternative to the way most of us are used to doing things.