AN EXERCISE IN WORLDMAKING 2009 - ISS

10 Understanding Informality In A Colombian Context 115
scious acts to defend the status quo and respond to the privileged interest
groups or state dependence on the informal sector to supply goods
and services the state cannot or will not” (Rakowski, 1994:41). In other
words, the Legalist school recognizes that the government is a central
entity that blocks the entry to formality either consciously or out of neglect
in order to maintain its monopoly position, and thus by instituting
bureaucratic mazes, stunt the opportunities of small or informal producers.
Current Notions of Informality
Linkages have remained central to the current understanding of informality.
Both the nature of enterprise and the status of employment form the basic
units of analysis, thus covering all economic activities. The lack of
formal arrangements in either category is what particularly thwarts access
to the institutions necessary to fortify either the enterprise or the labor
relationship that affords security and growth. As such, discourse has
largely shifted towards issues of access, to capital, infrastructure or benefits.
From this notion of access, the Micro-enterprise development approach
has been adopted both by state agencies and non-governmental
organizations who perceive potential benefits of stimulating local economic
development. Intervention is seen as a practical means to ensure
that formalizing status and relationships allow individuals and enterprises
to pay contributions to the state. The state in turn would develop the
capacity to provide more physical capital and social benefits to the overall
working population and their dependents. This point is particularly
important as with the exception of welfare states, legislation in many
countries “make social security dependent on employment rather than a
universal citizen right” (de Oliveira and Roberts, 1994: 57-58). In other
words, those who participate in the informal economy are shunned from
accessing these basic measures of social security, unless the state decides
to expand the scope of inclusion of its social policies.
Given the centrality of the state, either defined as a principle cause,
contributor, intervener or solution provider for the local informal economy,
it is important to draw the processes of state formation and development
to be able to understand the domestic interpretation of the informal
economy and its required interventions.