“Extralegality is often perceived as a ‘marginal’ issue similar to black markets in advanced nations, or poverty, or unemployment. The extralegal world is typically viewed as a place where gangsters roam, sinister characters of interest only to the police, anthropologists, and missionaries.

“In fact it is legality that is marginal; extralegality has become the norm. The poor have already taken control of vast quantities of real estate and production. Those international agencies that jet their consultants to the gleaming glass towers of the elegant quadrants of town to meet with the local ‘private sector’ are talking to only a fraction of the entrepreneurial world. The emerging economic powers of the Third World and former communist nations are the garbage collectors, the appliance manufacturers, and the illegal construction companies in the streets far below. The only real choice for the governments of these nations is whether they are going to integrate those resources into an orderly and coherent legal framework or continue to live in anarchy.”

—The Mystery of Capital