Description
Book Synopsis The idea of an informal economy emerged from, and is a critique of, the ideology of ‘economic development’. It originated from Keith Hart’s recognition of informal economic activity in 1960s Ghana. In the context of four colonialisms – German, British, Australian and Dutch – this book recounts Hart’s effort in 1972 to introduce the informal ‘sector’ into development planning in Papua New Guinea. This was problematic, because ‘the market’ was scarcely institutionalized, and traditional modes of exchange persisted stubbornly. Rather than conforming with post-colonial economic ideology, the subjected people pushed back against imposed bureaucracy to practice informal and hybrid modes of economic activity.
Trade Review “It is a sound piece of scholarship, directed at an interesting question with important policy implications, which ranges over a broad field of largely historical data and relevant literature. It is well written and makes a significant contribution to the literature of Papua New Guinea and to that of comparative development economics.” • Ronald May, The Australian National University
Table of Contents List of Maps
Preface
Acknowledgements
List of Acronyms
Introduction: An ‘Informal’ Economic History
Part I: Economic Informality: An Idea and Its Relevance to Melanesia
Chapter 1. Keith Hart and the Idea of Informality
Chapter 2. Precursors of the Informal Economy
Chapter 3. Melanesia in the Trade of the Malay Archipelago
Chapter 4. Melanesian Singularity: Insights from Neoclassical Economics
Chapter 5. Traditional Trade and Exchange in Papua New Guinea
Chapter 6. National Capitalism in the Three New Guineas
Part II: From Early Colonisation to the Pacific War
Chapter 7. German and Australian New Guinea before the Pacific War
Chapter 8. Chinese in New Guinea before the Pacific War
Chapter 9. Hubert Murray and the Contending Moralities
Chapter 10. The Idea of a Town in Anglo-Papua
Chapter 11. Papuans in Town before the Pacific War
Chapter 12. Hidden Valleys: A New White Highlands?
Part III: Informality in the Era of Economic Development
Chapter 13. Economic Development: Ideology and Apologetics
Chapter 14. Obsolescence and the Preconditions for Urbanism
Chapter 15. Remaking Port Moresby: The Formal Town
Chapter 16. An Informal Town: Villages and Settlements
Chapter 17. Reconstruction in Rabaul and the Seeds of Post-War Growth
Chapter 18. Informal Economy on the Gazelle at the End of the Colonial Era
Chapter 19. Chinese Enterprise in Rabaul: Apotheosis and Decline
Chapter 20. Bureaucracy and Market Economy on the Frontier
Chapter 21. Gorokans and Coffee in the ‘Lucky Place’
Chapter 22. Formality and Informality in the Coffee Economy
Chapter 23. The Triumph of Capitalism?
Part IV: Birth Pangs: All These Are the Beginning of Sorrows
Chapter 24. The Preparatory Idea
Chapter 25. Hart, Faber and the Informal Economy in Port Moresby
Chapter 26. An Uneasy Trio of Formality, Informality and Hybridity
Chapter 27. Dilemmas and Consequences of Urban Growth
Conclusion
References
Index
