My Business Pays Me
Labourers and Entrepreneurs Among the Self-Employed Poor in Latin America
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4877469 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Robyn Eversole (0000-0001-7482-6188, Edith Cowan University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2003 |
| Volume | 22 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 102-116 |
| Publication date | 2003-01-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Bulletin of Latin American Research (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0261-3050 • E-ISSN: 1470-9856 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/1470-9856.00066 |
| OpenAlex | W2113973645 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 7 |
Are the independent economic activities of poor people "petty commodity production"-an informal way to earn a subsistence wage? Or are they "microentrepreneurship", a launching point for capital accumulation and growth? This paper draws on fieldwork in Bolivia, Peru and Guatemala, focusing specifically on the poorest businesses. In-depth interviews indicate that even the smallest-scale producers, merchants and service providers have goals of "improving" their business and "growing" their capital, not unlike their capitalist counterparts. Yet, while growth is desirable, maintaining one's business as a steady source of income is a sufficient achievement for many. Poor self-employed people are both "labourers" and "entrepreneurs"; the key macro-level question becomes, not "Do petty-commodity producers have different goals than capitalist entrepreneurs", but "What resources are lacking, and what obstacles exist, that keep many microentrepreneurs in low-yield activities, with little opportunity to grow their resources
Agriculture · Business · Capital (architecture · Commodity · Economic growth · Economics · Economy · Entrepreneurship · Labour economics · Latin Americans · Market economy · Political science · Production (economics · Scale (ratio · Service (business · Subsistence agriculture · Wage · Yield (engineering · Global trade, sustainability, and social impact · Innovation and Socioeconomic Development · Management and Organizational Studies · Finance
| Citations per year | 0.2 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2011 - 2017 (7) |
| Highly cited | No |