My Business Pays Me: Labourers and Entrepreneurs Among the Self-Employed Poor in Latin America

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-yeild activities, with little opportunity to grow their resources?".