In 1988, Alberto Flores Galindo reviewed the book “The other path” (1986) by Hernando de Soto in an article entitled “The horses of the conquerors, again.” In his essay, the historian criticized the economist for his research methods and neoliberal discourse. From his point of view, informality was not an expression of popular capitalism but the struggle of peoples and social resistance against the State. Flores Galindo died in March 1990. He could not see how the protagonists of that self -managed socialism voted for Alberto Fujimori.
Almost 40 years later, we continue to instrumentalize informality for ideological purposes. That left that decades ago saw Titoism and Kibutz everywhere today sees “ancestral miners” and “small merchants.” And not only defends informality for ideological and pecuniary purposes, but even claims that formalization must be attractive to the “mining people.” Magically, the environmental and feminist opposition of NGOs has disappeared in front of illegal mining, despite labor exploitation, white trafficking, pollution and common graves. However, these new crusaders of informality require their political rivals to have all their documents, permits and taxes in order. As Rafael López Aliagato which it is clearly claimed to comply with the formal procedures of your train. Formality that, however, is not required to the ‘good savage’ artisanal mining of peak and shovel.
It is the double Peruvian scratch again, paraphrasing Marshal Oscar Benavides: for my friends, informality. For my enemies, the law. Or rather, the ‘process’ and state bureaucracy. Or as an old sauce says: it is easier to apologize than asking permission.
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