[quote]Mufasa wrote:
[center]Sierra Leone Marketplace [/center]
Help me out because I’m missing something:
Isn’t it one thing if a “black market”, within a somewhat stable society, provides things cheaper; or allows us to avoid taxes; or allows us to barter services, etc…
And quite another if it is essentially our main mode of survival? (e.g. in places like Baghdad and Sierra Leone).
In the former, the black market is a “convenience” that allows us to “get by” or “get over”…
In the latter, you have a market that can be more exploitative than the Government it circumvents.
I think that people also tend to forget that even with regulations, people are exploited…so somehow we get rid of regulation and oversight and then… “poof”… they won’t be exploited, and we will all be holding hands and drinking tax-free milk, honey and Coke in the streets?
I think I’ll stick with the oversight and regulation (within limits…)
(Please let me know what I’m missing here…!)
Mufasa
[/quote]
What you’re missing is examples of said exploitation in these third world black markets.
Otherwise very interesting and possibly good point of argument.