Traditional communities and the labour market: wage employment and independent workers

If we recognize that economics as a science is historically and thus also geographically conditioned, since at a given time different societies experience different stages of development, then we have to use labels and definitions of economists very carefully. This is particularly true in the case of labourers and of labour incomes. At the same time, we have to be well aware that societies are far from being homogeneous. Thus, advanced societies have sectors that are both poor and underdeveloped, from the standpoint of methods of production as well as of ways of life. On the other hand, in underdeveloped countries we find sectors that are relatively advanced – sometimes these sectors have been promoted by foreign companies in their own interest.

In this context, the label ‘self-employed’ or ‘independent workers’ means different things in the two categories of country. In low-income countries ‘independent workers’ often mean active members of traditional communities, such as those constituting villages. In such areas, the labour market simply does not exist, although as a rule a kind of product market does exist: members of these communities bring part of the goods that they produce to the small markets of the towns.