"We cannot truly understand the "shady" economy if we see it as a dirty, lawless world of violence and disrepute, one that tarnishes an otherwise pristine sphere where everyone pays their taxes, obeys the laws, and turns to the government to solve disputes and maintain order" (Venkatesh)
Vankatesh references another author with this quote, but what drew me in was the connection to The Wire and the resistance of understanding the ghettos in a Middle class society. It is so easy to be insulated in the cloak of privilege and not even recognize the cost that it has on other socioeconomic group. This reading resonated with the NAFTA discussion we had on Tuesday. In the Maquila factories, there are vast human rights violations that go unrecognized, just as there are types of interchanges of commerce in "Off the Books". Both are not discussed and underground, but really discuss the way in which the poor in both circumstances survive the poverty they are in. Vankatesh mentions the glass ceiling of upward mobility, and the structure of the off the books economy is both a bi-product and precipitator imitating the upward mobility. I really value the argument that there is fraud on all sides of the issue and wish that in our own bubbles would recognize the internal violations of law in the middle and upper class.