L'économie informelle

B. the contribution on the social standing

In this point, we show the contribution offered by the abstract economy in the creation of employment on the one hand, and on the other hand present its role from the point of view of the improvement of the purchasing power of the consumers.

1° On the level of employment

Reading of professor Fields, we note that the abstract sector is at the same time one « sponge suitable to absorb (on levels of productivity and profits decreasing) all those which cannot find to get busy elsewhere, or if it is a source of innovation, creativity and not very capital intensive growth, likely to ensure an about decent life the many applicants for work which arrive on the labor market ^(55(*)).

Thus Kioni teaches us, the abstract sector is its own field of training because it forms the labor which it uses then and which uses also the formal sector ^(56(*)).

Doors (1983), Bromley and Gerry (1974) are of this opinion when by analyzing the standard concept of production, they affirm that the abstract manufacturing units are suppliers of paid labor disguised for the large modern companies ^(57(*)).

The social and economic crisis which prevails in Democratic Republic of constrained Congo the employees to work in the multi-activity. Indeed, the unemployeds as we already affirmed do not have any other alternative but to operate in the abstract one.

To the unemployeds, we must add another category of individuals who although having an employment, is obliged to carry on a palliative abstract activity with their moderate treatment.

Although not easily measurable, the intelligences agree to affirm that the abstract economy constitutes a relief valve and one gains bread as well for the employees the unemployeds.

2° At the level purchasing power it

In the lines which precede, we had to show that more half of the Congolese population carries on activities known as abstract.

These last occupy an income but labor which profits from thin incomes, certainly, getting the possibility of being able to increase collective and individual consumption. Although in margin of the formal system, it is not less one real socio-economic dynamics, by the demand and the supply which it creates, by the competition which it exerts etc

Cogitant on the estimate of the income of the activities of the abstract sector Harold Lubell shows systematically that the average profits of its heads of undertakings are higher (sometimes considerably) that the official minimum wage or that average wages of the formal sector.

Higher profits and an almost universal taste for a relative independence explain the attraction for the activities of the abstract sector ^(58(*)).

Presented kind, the abstract economy only gives the impression to us to be pink, the moroseness would thus not find there a place. The section below will have the merit to pin the evils generated by this economy which lets run such an amount of ink and saliva.

Section 3 : Consequences of the abstract economy

We already had to show that the agents which work in the abstract economy work in margin of light the lata or all less, exert with the edge of legality. The abstract economy thus appears to be a reality without legality.

This situation is supposed favorable to the individuals who work there, however it undermines the interests of the authorities which we will analyze at the tax level (Paragraphe1), the level of the economy (Paragraphe2), in the social plan (Paragraphe3) and finally at the international level (Paragraphe4).

* ⁽⁵⁵⁾ FIELDS quoted by TURNHAM D., SALOME B., and alii., art.cit.p.7.

* ⁽⁵⁶⁾ KIONI Kia BANTU, art.cit., p.96.

* ⁽⁵⁷⁾ TOKMAN V., art.cit., p. 113.

* ⁽⁵⁸⁾ LUBELL H., the abstract sector in the Eighties and Nineties, op.cit.p.15.