Protests and Pushcart Vendors

The ice-cream man works his way by
with his pushcart.

Two or three times every week some sort of small protest or road block erupts in the center of the Bolivian capital.  I’ve slowly started to notice that there’s a flourishing informal industry catering to protestors.  Pushcart vendors capitalize on the frequent influxes of hungry crowds.  Their mobility allows them to follow demand, whether it marches down main streets or mobilizes to various barrios throughout the city. 

These pushcart vendors represent the quick response of free markets – where there is demand, supply follows.  The designation of “informal economy” also exhibits in contrast the restrictions of today’s free markets.  In the formal economy, there will almost always be barriers to entry, economies of scale advantages, and, with corporate competition, dominant market powers.  But here at the protests, anyone can buy a box of bubblegum and start selling individual pieces for a peso.

Vendor exchanges a small bag of peanuts
for a shoe shine.

In addition to energizing local populations with candies, snacks, popsicles, hotdogs, and the rest, these pushcart vendors help keep my mind wandering, contemplating the effects (both positive and negative, varying from protest to protest, cause to cause) of roadblock and protests.  Are protestors’ demands worth halting commerce for?  What is the long run economic benefit of providing a voice to the disadvantaged?  Who gets hurt when businesses shut down or industries go on strike?  Every time protestors march down main streets, waving signs, chanting slogans about workers’ rights, I ask myself all these dissecting questions.  After figuring out who wins and who loses, I try to decide Is this protest a worthy cause? Or is it just another nuisance to the greater public and hurting an already ailing economy?

Either way, the most immediate beneficiaries of these protests always seem to be the pushcart vendors.

Protests and Pushcart Vendors