Stealth of Nations
The Global Rise of the Informal Economy
(Sprache: Englisch)
Whether it's Nigerians selling Chinese cell phones back home in Lagos, or laid-off San Franiscans using Twitter to sell home-cooked foods, the denizens of this world are mostly entrepreneurs trying to find a way to scratch out a living. Neuwirth argues that...
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Whether it's Nigerians selling Chinese cell phones back home in Lagos, or laid-off San Franiscans using Twitter to sell home-cooked foods, the denizens of this world are mostly entrepreneurs trying to find a way to scratch out a living. Neuwirth argues that this world is far more systematic than one would think: what looks like a chaotic market in pirated goods is often a well-oiled machine.
Klappentext zu „Stealth of Nations “
An eye-opening account of the informal economy around the globe, Stealth of Nations traces the history and reach of unregulated markets, and explains the unwritten rules that govern them. Journalist Robert Neuwirth joins globe-trotting Nigerians who sell Chinese cell phones and laid-off San Franciscans who use Twitter to market street food and learns that the people who work in informal economies are entrepreneurs who provide essential services and crucial employment. Dubbing this little-recognized business arena with a new name System D Neuwirth points out that it accounts for a growing amount of trade, and that, united in a single nation, it would be the world s second-largest economy, trailing only the United States in financial might. Stealth of Nations offers an inside look at the thriving world of unfettered trade and finds far more than a chaotic emporium of dubious pirated goods.
Lese-Probe zu „Stealth of Nations “
The Great Rummage SaleThese are the products of some people s lives. Biscuits, balloons, and battery-powered lint removers. Rag dolls, DVDs, and cut-price datebooks. Individual packets of laundry detergent, roach killer, rat poison, face cream. Fresh fruit and finger puppets. Sunglasses and magnifying glasses. The Un-Bra (a pair of gravity-defying, self-adhesive, strapless silicone push-up cups.) Counterfeit Calvin Klein cologne cling-wrapped in Styrofoam clamshells.
A vendor selling slide whistles blasts a mocking trill several times a minute, seven hours a day. Across the street, a husky man standing in front of a huge heap of clothes hollers, Cuecas baratas! Cuecas baratas! Cheap underpants! Cheap underpants! in an increasingly hoarse tenor. Next to him, a hawker with a tray full of pirated evangelical mix tapes blasts a stereo powered by a car battery. Two women toss tiny toys in the air twin pinecone-shaped pieces of metal lashed together with elastic. These novas brincadeiras new jokes clack together like raucous rattlesnakes, creating a din destined to drive mothers and schoolteachers bonkers. Around the corner, two vendors with plastic windup launchers shoot small helicopters high above them (they drift back down, rotors a-frenzy) while another stands, back to the breeze, and silently releases child-size soap bubbles from a scoop that looks like a giant Ping-Pong paddle. The bubbles squirm after being born, their edges hesitant. They wobble on the weak current and burst an instant before they touch anything.
In her office six floors above the everyday economic carnival, Claudia Urias, general secretary of Univinco, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting and improving the market, took in the tumult rising from the street. She shook her head. É uma confusão total, she declared. It s total confusion.
Despite her up-close knowledge of the street, however, Claudia is wrong. Rua Vinte e Cinco de Março (the street of March
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25) in the center of São Paulo, Brazil, only seems like absolute anarchy. The street market here the largest in the city, where retailers from other markets come to buy, because many of the items you can get on this street are either unavailable or far more expensive elsewhere, even from wholesalers has unwritten rules and an unofficial schedule, almost as if all its merchants were punching a clock. The chaos here is meticulously organized.
Each market day starts well before dawn. At three thirty a.m., four men converge on a short commercial alley just the other side of the Tamanduateí River. Thin sheaths of onion skins crunch under their feet, perfusing the air with their scent. The men, however, seem immune to the acrid atmosphere. They enter a run-down warehouse and emerge with several dozen battered wooden crates and splintered and stained plywood sheets. They rope this haphazard cargo on top of dollies and roll them along Avenida Mercúrio and across the river to Rua 25 de Março. There, they pile the boards on top of the crates to make two rows of makeshift tables along a pedestrian alley that leads from Rua 25 de Março to Rua Comendador Abdo Schahin.
This is the opening ritual of a site-specific street performance, the construction of the stage set for São Paulo s wholesale market for pirated CDs and DVDs. Within a few minutes, several dozen dealers arrive. Some roll up in compact vans and sell their contraband right from the vehicles. Others arrive on foot, carrying duffel bags. They plop the bags on the tables, unzip, and É isso ai! as if a starter s gun has fired, the market has begun. First-run movies are often available a day or two after they open in theaters.
By fou
Each market day starts well before dawn. At three thirty a.m., four men converge on a short commercial alley just the other side of the Tamanduateí River. Thin sheaths of onion skins crunch under their feet, perfusing the air with their scent. The men, however, seem immune to the acrid atmosphere. They enter a run-down warehouse and emerge with several dozen battered wooden crates and splintered and stained plywood sheets. They rope this haphazard cargo on top of dollies and roll them along Avenida Mercúrio and across the river to Rua 25 de Março. There, they pile the boards on top of the crates to make two rows of makeshift tables along a pedestrian alley that leads from Rua 25 de Março to Rua Comendador Abdo Schahin.
This is the opening ritual of a site-specific street performance, the construction of the stage set for São Paulo s wholesale market for pirated CDs and DVDs. Within a few minutes, several dozen dealers arrive. Some roll up in compact vans and sell their contraband right from the vehicles. Others arrive on foot, carrying duffel bags. They plop the bags on the tables, unzip, and É isso ai! as if a starter s gun has fired, the market has begun. First-run movies are often available a day or two after they open in theaters.
By fou
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Autoren-Porträt von Robert Neuwirth
Robert Neuwirth spent two years infiltrating street markets and networks of low-level smugglers around the world to write Stealth of Nations. He lived in squatter communities for a similar amount of time to write his first book, Shadow Cities. These globe-trotting ventures were supported, in part, by the MacArthur Foundation and the Fund for Investigative Journalism. His work has been featured in many publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Financial Times Deutschland, Forbes, Fortune, Foreign Policy, Harper s, Scientific American, and Wired. Neuwirth has taught in the college program at Rikers Island (New York City s jail) and at Columbia University s Graduate School of Journalism. He is also in demand as a public speaker, and his TED talk on squatters has been viewed by close to a quarter of a million people.
Bibliographische Angaben
- Autor: Robert Neuwirth
- 2012, 304 Seiten, Maße: 13,1 x 2,2 cm, Kartoniert (TB), Englisch
- Verlag: Anchor Books
- ISBN-10: 0307279987
- ISBN-13: 9780307279989
- Erscheinungsdatum: 19.09.2012
Sprache:
Englisch
Pressezitat
Praise for Stealth of Nations:"Stealth of Nations is the most exciting shopping trip I ve ever been on. I thought I knew what the economy is, but I had no idea until Neuwirth filled me in."
Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed
"A valuable book because it challenges conventional thinking about what it means for an economy to develop."
The Wall Street Journal
"[Neuwirth s] exciting tour de force explains the economic underworld that dominates the economic stratosphere far more than we realize. . . . An impressive new book that reveals a global, informal economy, stretching from Africa to China to the United States. . . . The author s sources are vast and the remarkable depth of his research cannot be overstated."
The Star-Ledger
"An intrepid journalist examines the real world of wealth creation at the very bottom of the pyramid, where it matters most."
Stewart Brand, author of Whole Earth Discipline
"A provocative argument."
Salon
"We are just beginning to understand that today s advanced global economy rises along with a proliferation of informal economies. Nobody can document this better than the world-traveling journalist Robert Neuwirth. This is a must-read book."
Saskia Sassen, Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology, Columbia University, and author of A Sociology of Globalization
"After reading this book you will realize that working in an office, a shop, or in a factory, earning a steady salary, paying taxes and having health insurance and a retirement account is an anomaly. Most of the world s workers operate in the informal sector and in this fascinating book Robert Neuwirth reveals how The Stealth Economy works and what does it take to survive in it."
Moisés Naím, author of Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers, and Copycats are Hijacking the Global Economy
"What he [Neuwirth] does
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compellingly, readably, engagingly, and frequently, brilliantly is give the reader a picture of how the world s economies actually work, and a convincing argument that we need to respect and understand these economic systems. It s a good read and an important book."
Ethan Zuckerman, Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University
"A vibrant picture of a growing sphere of trade that already employs half the workers of the world."
Kirkus Reviews
"Neuwirth explores the global significance of the informal economy [and] makes a striking case for both the influence of System D and the need to engage it as a partner in economic development."
Publishers Weekly
"For the last three years, we all have looked at the economy with fear and trembling. . . . But we forgot to look at the people who survive in the shadows of the official world. One person, the American journalist Robert Neuwirth, has spent the last decade of his life studying just this realm. He lived for months in slums around the world, traveled to every continent, and learned about the complex underground business models that drive a huge part of the global economy."
MONO Magazine, Greece
"Robert Neuwirth spent four years roaming street markets around the world and came back convinced of the benefits of the parallel economy."
L Expression, Tunisia
"A very daring hypothesis."
Die Zeit, Germany
"Very controversial."
Exame, Brazil
"Neuwirth does an excellent job of recognizing and celebrating the entrepreneurial spirit."
How We Made it in Africa, South Africa
"The so-called informal economy is often viewed with suspicion by the agents of the state, as an underground and even criminal community. In reality, it is what Robert Neuwirth, in his book Stealth of Nations: the Global Rise of the Informal Economy, describes as a do-it-yourself economy based on self-reliance and innovation."
Daily Maverick, South Africa
Ethan Zuckerman, Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University
"A vibrant picture of a growing sphere of trade that already employs half the workers of the world."
Kirkus Reviews
"Neuwirth explores the global significance of the informal economy [and] makes a striking case for both the influence of System D and the need to engage it as a partner in economic development."
Publishers Weekly
"For the last three years, we all have looked at the economy with fear and trembling. . . . But we forgot to look at the people who survive in the shadows of the official world. One person, the American journalist Robert Neuwirth, has spent the last decade of his life studying just this realm. He lived for months in slums around the world, traveled to every continent, and learned about the complex underground business models that drive a huge part of the global economy."
MONO Magazine, Greece
"Robert Neuwirth spent four years roaming street markets around the world and came back convinced of the benefits of the parallel economy."
L Expression, Tunisia
"A very daring hypothesis."
Die Zeit, Germany
"Very controversial."
Exame, Brazil
"Neuwirth does an excellent job of recognizing and celebrating the entrepreneurial spirit."
How We Made it in Africa, South Africa
"The so-called informal economy is often viewed with suspicion by the agents of the state, as an underground and even criminal community. In reality, it is what Robert Neuwirth, in his book Stealth of Nations: the Global Rise of the Informal Economy, describes as a do-it-yourself economy based on self-reliance and innovation."
Daily Maverick, South Africa
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