Across the globe, 1.8 billion people -- a quarter of the world's population -- work off the books each day. They are paid in cash for the goods they sell and the services they provide, and due to their ubiquity, there's a word for these merchants in nearly every language. As Robert Neuwirth reports, in French colonies, they're known as débrouillards -- self-starters, entrepreneurs, all outside the bureaucratic system. They might be vendors selling revolutionary goods in Egypt's Tahrir Square, Nigerians selling mobile phones, or the guy down the street hawking flowers on the corner. Whoever they are, they work in the world's fastest-growing economy: System D.
As Neuwirth writes, System D, slang for "l'economie de la débrouillardise," is the crucial blackmarket, providing opportunities where the regulated global economy has failed. Its value is estimated at roughly $10 trillion, meaning, as Neuwirth points out, that, "If System D were an independent nation, united in a single political structure -- call it the the United Street Sellers Republic (USSR) or, perhaps, Bazaaristan -- it would be an economic superpower, the second largest economy in the world." The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) predicts that two-thirds of the world's workers will be employed in System D as soon as 2020.
Above, a Pakistani carpet vendor, above, waits for customers at his roadside stall in Quetta on Sept. 16.
A Libyan vendor displays his merchandise at Freedom Square on Aug. 22 in Benghazi, Libya. Vendors selling revolutionary paraphernalia popped up quickly after the uprising began. "The people had a thirst to have something related to the revolution to show their quest for freedom," Abu Bilal, who owns one of the stalls, told the Telegraph.
Indian men search through garbage for scrap at a landfill site in New Delhi on Oct. 11, 2007. An estimated 300,000 waste collectors -- known as ragpickers in India -- rifle through the city's trash to pick up metal and plastic, which they sell to recycling companies.
A migrant worker rides his tricycle loaded with recyclable cardboard and other waste materials on a hazy day in Beijing on Dec. 9, 2009. It is estimated that 15 million people globally make their living by sorting trash for recycling, according to the AFP.
A vendor of mobile phones at the "Computer Village," a market for mobile phones, second-hand computers, and other electronic items in Lagos, Nigeria, on April 23, 2007. Many cities in Africa, including Lagos, have been greatly helped by System D, as legal businesses don't find enough profit in bringing cutting-edge products to the developing world.
A Zimbabwean vendor sells sweet potatoes and cooking oil on July 11, 2007, in the slum of Epworth in Harare. According to the Boston Globe, items such as cooking oil dissapeared from stores due to price spikes, but could be found on the black market for hugely inflated sums.
