Off the Books

The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor

Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9780674257375
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Urban Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

In this revelatory book, Sudhir Venkatesh takes us into Maquis Park, a poor black neighborhood on Chicago's Southside, to explore the desperate, dangerous, and remarkable ways in which a community survives. We find there an entire world of unregulated, unreported, and untaxed work, a system of living off the books that is daily life in the ghetto. From women who clean houses and prepare lunches for the local hospital to small-scale entrepreneurs like the mechanic who works in an alley; from the preacher who provides mediation services to the salon owner who rents her store out for gambling parties; and from street vendors hawking socks and incense to the drug dealing and extortion of the local gang, we come to see how these activities form the backbone of the ghetto economy.What emerges are the innumerable ways that these men and women, immersed in their shadowy economic pursuits, are connected to and reliant upon one another. The underground economy, as Venkatesh's subtle storytelling reveals, functions as an intricate web, and in the strength of its strands lie the fates of many Maquis Park residents. The result is a dramatic narrative of individuals at work, and a rich portrait of a community. But while excavating the efforts of men and women to generate a basic livelihood for themselves and their families, Off the Books offers a devastating critique of the entrenched poverty that we so often ignore in America, and reveals how the underground economy is an inevitable response to the ghetto's appalling isolation from the rest of the country.

Chapter One

Living Underground

Marlene Matteson was the person least likely to mourn the death of Johnnie “Big Cat” Williams, leader of the Maquis Park Kings, the local neighborhood gang. Marlene knew firsthand the destruction that gang activity could bring upon families. A mother of three, she was also a widower as a result of the gangland slaying of her own husband. “My husband died like [Big Cat] did,” she said, noting the similarities of Billy Matteson’s murder in 1992 and Big Cat’s fall on a cold, blustery morning in 2003. “Big Cat never knew what hit him. Just like my Billy. Came up on his back, shot him when he wasn’t looking. Probably didn’t feel nothing.” Both Billy Matteson and Big Cat were slain late at night, in the presence of their bodyguards, who were also injured. The killers were never found.

Marlene Matteson accepted the news of Big Cat’s murder with a mixture of relief and apprehension. As the president of the 1700 South Maryland Avenue Block Club, she knew that gang activity created persistent safety problems in her area. She saw in Big Cat’s death a sign of difficult times ahead. Life was going to change, sharply and perhaps for the worse, in Maquis Park. She could no longer call on Big Cat to keep rank-and-file members out of parks in the afternoon, when kids came back from school. She could no longer wake him and demand that he put an end to the late-night carousing of younger gang members on her block. With little help from law enforcement, she wondered who would help her police the gang members who overtook public spaces with abandon and whose rhythms and inner clocks did not match those of the residents, like Marlene, who woke each morning to go to work or take children to school.

On that December 2003 morning, a week after Big Cat’s death, Marlene Matteson sat with her thoughts and with a dozen other residents of the community in the back room of the Maquis Park Prayer and Revival Center, a small storefront church on Indiana Avenue in Chicago’s historic Southside black community. She was not the only person in the room struggling to make sense of Big Cat’s death. The others in attendance were unlikely to express great sadness for a gang leader who peddled drugs and brought violence and instability to the neighborhood; but they, too, were touched by sadness, anger, and an uncertainty about what lay ahead.

“You know they’re going to be after each other now,” said Jeremiah Wilkins, a local pastor, referring to the inevitable internecine battles among local gang members to fill Big Cat’s void. “No one knows yet who’s taking [Big Cat’s] place.”

“Yeah, well, it ain’t gonna be pretty, but we been there before,” said Ola Sanders, the proprietor of Ola’s Hair Salon on 16th Street. “Someone’s going to be the leader, but it don’t matter who. We got to stay together. That’s what’s really important, okay?”

“Look, whatever these brothers do, we can’t stop them,” chimed in James Arleander, a local handyman who for twenty years had been repairing cars off the books for local residents in the parking lot behind the church. “Let’s not pretend we’re sad or nothing. I mean the man was a killer! You all are acting like he’s your friend. Don’t make any sense to sit here crying. Man was a killer.” James’s voice trailed off.

“I agree,” said Dr. J. T. Watkins, director of Paths Ahead, a small social service center that ran programs for Maquis Park’s youth. “Look, we got to go ahead. We all know why we’re here. I mean no offense, Pastor. We’re mourning, but we got to make our money. Do you all agree? Well, am I right or not?”

There was silence. The room was still except for Pastor Wilkins’s finger tapping the wooden table in time with the clock on the wall. For nearly five minutes, no one responded to Dr. Watkins’s question, in part because no one could justifiably dispute his contention—money was the chief reason for the group’s convening that morning. The livelihood of these community leaders was at stake. Yes, they were all concerned about the escalation in violence that was certain to result with Big Cat’s passing: other local gangs would be battling to control the Kings’ drug-trafficking territories in the neighborhood. They were all aware of the chaos that could come as a new hierarchy was chosen. But Big Cat’s death placed in sharp relief their own reliance on dangerous and illegal ways of making ends meet. They were forced to confront their own deep involvement in an outlaw economy.

Although some found it difficult to admit, everyone in the room that morning had benefited materially from Big Cat’s presence. Their motive could have been personal financial gain, political power, or a desire to do their own work more effectively, whether that be preaching or changing a tire. Big Cat not only helped Marlene to police younger gang members; he also gave money to her block club for kids’ parties, and members of his gang patrolled the neighborhood late at night because police presence was a rarity. Dr. Watkins and Pastor Wilkins would need to find a new source of philanthropy, now that Big Cat’s monthly donations to their respective organizations had ended. Big Cat’s gang ensured James Arleander a near monopoly on local off-the-books car repair by intimidating other mechanics who tried to cut into James’s business. Ola probably would not receive $500 each weekend for letting the gang turn her salon into a thriving nightclub—the weekly “Maquis Park Dee-Jay” contest had been one of Big Cat’s favorite social activities. And others in the room that morning were no different: some received money from Big Cat, others benefited from the customers he sent their way—for everything from homemade meals to fake social security cards— and still others were hoping to use Big Cat’s influence over two thousand young men and women to win electoral office or organize downtown protests. All of them allowed Big Cat’s gang to operate fluidly, whether that meant tolerating drug selling, presiding over funerals of deceased gang members, participating in citywide gang basketball tournaments, or “cleaning” the gang’s profits through their own businesses.

Such is the bizarre reality of life in Maquis Park. The demands of the ghetto require an economy utterly different from what most of America can imagine. The barber may rent his back room to a prostitute; the mechanic works out of an alley; the preacher gets donations from a gang leader; and everyone has a hand in keeping the streets tolerable and keeping the goods and services flowing. The economy brings together an assortment of actors who may otherwise have little reason or interest in exchanging—let alone communicating—with one another. This mix is dangerous, but it is part of living underground in Maquis Park.

Big Cat’s prominent position was the visible tip of the iceberg that is Maquis Park’s shadow economy. He represented a very small part of the innumerable financial exchanges that are not reported to the government. From off-the-books day care and domestic work to pimping and prostitution, unreported earnings wove together the social fabric in Maquis Park and surrounding poor neighborhoods. Big Cat was just one of many traders, brokers, hustlers, hawkers, and, of course, customers, who moved about in the streets, homes, and alleyways selling inexpensive labor and goods—or searching for them. He was certainly one of its most famous—and infamous—but he was just one of many who performed functions most Americans associate with the mainstream economy and the government agencies that regulate legitimate exchange. He was only one of many local stakeholders who resolved economic disputes because the state had no formal authority. Many other local people enforced contracts, or resolved disputes, or, for a fee, could find you a gun, a social security card, or even a job as a day laborer or a nanny for a wealthy family. Others may have claimed control over parks, alleyways, and street corners; these people would have to be paid if one wanted to fix a car, sell drugs, or panhandle at that spot. And there were many local loan sharks, besides Big Cat, who could loan you cash, or who could find you customers—for stolen stereos or drugs, for prostitutes or home-cooked lunches—in a matter of a few hours.

The individuals who offer these services and goods in Maquis Park are not always notorious, like Big Cat, nor do they operate solely in the clandestine world. Some move with ease between underground and legitimate economies. And in Maquis Park they may be the pillars of the community. Some, like Ola Sanders, are well-known proprietors whose businesses have suffered in recent years. They cannot resist the opportunity for immediate cash to supplement their legitimate earnings. So they rent out their space to a gang or another underground trader. They develop creative hustling schemes and do not report their income. They might even exchange services with each other off the books, letting barter replace taxable income altogether. Others, like Pastor Wilkins, are religious leaders who do not boast a wealthy congregation that commutes from the suburbs, and who instead counsel and console those near to them: the poor, the delinquent, the marginal, the disadvantaged, and the criminal. They offer solace and consolation and favors to the forgotten while asking few questions about the source of donations. With only one local bank, anyone with access to cash is a potential lender and creditor, although the exorbitant interest rates they charge make these loan sharks less pillars of the community and more a necessary evil. And there are police officers and officials who themselves understand and accept that residents live outside of the formal economy. They let James Arleander fix cars without threat of arrest; they resolve disputes secretly between entrepreneurs rather than confiscating their goods; and at times they use a “scared straight” approach with a teenage drug dealer rather than dump the youngster into the criminal justice system. Whether as traders, dealers, customers, or mediators, it would be difficult to find anyone in Maquis Park not somehow involved in the underground economy.

With such overlap of people and goods and services, it is difficult to say where the underground economy begins and ends in Maquis Park. Despite the moralizing of some, we cannot truly understand the “shady” economy if we see it as a dirty, lawless world of violence and disrepute, one that tarnishes an otherwise pristine sphere where everyone pays their taxes, obeys the laws, and turns to the government to solve disputes and maintain order.¹ Life underground is dangerous, and conventional morality is flouted there, to be sure. But its boundaries are not so clear. Nor, for that matter, is the underground economy inhabited by a single, distinct class of citizens. Anyone could be entrepreneur, client, or broker in this world. With few well-paying full-time jobs available in the neighborhood and with access only to the most menial jobs elsewhere in the city, any Maquis Park resident may turn to hustling as a temporary means to keep food on the table, clothes on a child’s back, and rent paid up. Anyone might parlay their meager savings into a clandestine source of loans for neighbors and friends, sometimes at severe interest rates. And even the most religious persons might make themselves available, for a few dollars under the table, as a third party who can settle a pricing dispute or enforce a shady contract. Some may just dip and dabble in the shady world, while for a few others it becomes the sole means of survival. But even these distinctions oversimplify, because in Maquis Park nearly everyone lives underground.

Just as the shady world exists in many shades of gray, not all who participate are criminals and not all activities are heinous. If we look beyond the surface, we find an element of necessity, of pragmatic logic, even while laws are broken and even while the standards of a just life are constantly changing. How does one judge the police officer who mediates a violent contractual dispute with backroom diplomacy, where otherwise a formal attempted murder or assault charge might have been levied on one or both parties? Is the officer in question displaying care for the community by settling the incident and enabling the two individuals to keep their livelihoods intact? Or is he a rogue cop taking the law into his own hands and further depriving residents of the useful services of the criminal justice system? In this and every other case of shady behavior, residents must relentlessly define and redefine what is acceptable and what is destructive to family and community. Perhaps like any community with people working outside the legitimate economy, residents of Maquis Park will make moral and ethical distinctions—although for inner-city residents the choices may include not only relatively innocuous activities, like sales of homemade clothing, but also dangerous trades like narcotics sales. The Southside residents must differentiate between those who harm and those who annoy, between those who make a little money on the side and those who jeopardize the community, recognizing all the while that they may be the trader one day and the one passing judgment the next. The judgments are not easy, nor made lightly, for dollars are scarce, times are hard, and compromises must be made if life is to go on.

This book is about the underground economy. It explores how people work beneath the radar, earning a living and providing for themselves and their families. It examines how people cope with the attendant risks and consequences, and ultimately it tries to understand how a community lives and breathes—how it continues to function—within a very different set of rules. At its core, the underground economy is a widespread set of activities, usually scattered and not well integrated, through which people earn money that is not reported to the government and that, in some cases, may entail criminal behavior. In other words, the unreported income can derive from licit exchange, such as selling homemade food or mowing a neighbor’s lawn, and illicit practices, such as advertising sexual favors or selling secondhand guns without a permit.

Most underground exchanges are short-term efforts to make a buck, but they can nevertheless follow strict patterns. Individuals know where to meet one another to trade off the books; there are usually particular places where this trading occurs and particular people who are known to be involved. People will have a rough idea of prices or rates of barter and trade before initiating the exchange. And it is not difficult to predict when conflicts may arise; nor are people entirely unaware of the means for addressing disputes over quality, pricing, and service. In other words, while there are endless reasons to participate in the underground (or to stop doing so), there are always rules to be obeyed, codes to be followed, and likely consequences of actions.

Gangs and mafias anchor our popular imagination of underground trading, but the reality is far more complicated. In urban neighborhoods of all races and ethnicities one will find not only gangs, but networks of personal tailors and clothiers, burglary and gambling outfits, stolen car rings, livery services, and other organizations that develop clandestine entrepreneurial schemes. But these organized groups are more a notable exception than the norm. Fundamentally, underground exchange is a transaction between individuals. Other parties—not only the buyer and seller— may be involved if regulation is necessary, be it third-party arbitration, holding cash or goods in escrow, or to deal with unforeseen consequences, like a threat to household security or public safety that ensues because a conflict has gotten out of hand. Thus, the underground can provide ample opportunity to make money for individuals interested in offering a variety of services and playing many roles.²

Underground transactions are so varied and commonplace that they escape any attempt at systematic documentation. It would be nearly impossible to gather accurate information on, let alone uncover, every type of earning that is not reported to the government. Even for a particular activity, like home tailoring, informal tax preparation, or drug trafficking, it is doubtful that one could put together an exhaustive accounting on how many goods are being traded or how much money is being earned in a given neighborhood. These exchanges are hidden from the state and not necessarily publicly advertised, which is one kind of barrier. A second is that some activities, like snow shoveling or weekend poker games, are so ingrained that they are not really perceived as “underground economic activity” even though participants can make substantial earnings from them and they might produce some financial gain for a wider circle of families, friends, and neighbors. These kinds of taken-for-granted practices might never be recorded, even in the most systematic effort to document the shady side of economic life.

Perhaps most important, the interpenetration of outlawed and legitimate ways of making money makes it difficult to establish accurate information on underground economies. This is not a novel problem, and it affects how we can understand shady activities in Maquis Park. Since the early seventies, when the first studies emerged, there has been continuous and lively debate among social scientists over what constitutes an underground economy. In fact, the disagreements begin with the very terms that are used to reference unreported earnings. The terms informal, parallel, alternative, illegal, and black market appear as frequently in the scholarly writings as the term underground.³ At the heart of the debates, there is the question whether one should distinguish between licit and illicit behavior. Some researchers hold that activities, such as drug trafficking and prostitution, that are outlawed and whose earnings are unreported to government agencies, should be kept distinct from licit practices that are illegal only because there is no official government regulation of them. These scholars designate the former as “criminal” in order to isolate the latter realm of economic exchange, which they hold is quite similar to legitimate economic activity—and indeed, could be legitimate if the manager or proprietor followed workplace restrictions, paid a minimum wage, declared the income to the Internal Revenue Service, and otherwise adhered to the conventional forms of government oversight and monitoring.⁴

But attempts to separate so-called illicit goods and services from licit ones are not always successful. The distinctions are often fuzzy and the demarcations seem arbitrary. Peyote, for example, is legal for religious use by Native Americans, but federal law is unclear whether non-Native Americans can claim it as a medicinal substance if they claim adherence to Native American religious precepts. So too with prostitution and marijuana use, which are permissible in some states and not in others. Sodomy laws also vary. And all of these laws can vary over time; indeed, where referendums are in place, they can be overturned or put back into effect every few years by the electorate, thereby making substantive distinctions even more difficult. As a consequence, attempting a priori to remove criminal behavior in discus...