Unemployment and 'informal' income-earning activity in Soweto. Part II

Abstract

In Part I of this collective work, we attempted to conceptualise in a rigorous fashion the nature and distinguishing characteristics of certain of the economic activities conventionally subsumed under the banner of the 'informal sector'. The analytical sterility of this term has now been widely recognized.(1) In reaction to the uncritical acceptance of the dualism inherent in the 'informal’/ 'formal' dichotomy and its translation into a series of policy proposals (2) by orthodox development theorists, a growing body of literature has focussed attention on the complex linkages and asymmetrically dependent relationships of the continuum of activities which cut across this division. … In this paper, our attempt to conceptualise 'informal' economic activity within the broad perspective of the overall reproduction of capitalist social relations will be developed around the central problem of the reproduction of capital's labour force. The particular focus of the paper will be on the relationship between certain aspects of the struggles of capital and labour over the way in which this process unfolds and the concept of the family a household unit as the primary site of the process in capitalist society