The off-the-books economy of Spain, Italy and Greece is amazingly large in both the private and goverment sectors. Your really have to live there to appreciate its size.

It seems to me that economies, like information, want to be free. Or that like the internet, they route around damage.

That's a nice way to put it.

Unfortunately, I don't think this is the way to a more free market.

Agorism is a political philosophy dedicated to the idea that free markets (and a more free society) can arise out of a trend toward disregarding governments in commercial matters. It comes with all the typical and commonly rejected anarchist ideas like "any state is inherently unjust and arbitrary," but isn't altogether unreasonable.

I thought that the economy of Spain and Greece can't collapse without ravaging its unofficial economy.

And Ireland, and Portugal... Spot the pattern?

What's the pattern?

PIIGS - the countries whose economies boomed and now are crashing so hard they're threatening to bring down the EU.

As a Portuguese citizen I consider that acronym as offensive. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PIGS_(economics)#Controversy

I think that we all agree that generalizations are the sign of narrow-minded individuals...

No offense intended - I'm an American citizen so I don't have tons of room to talk!

PIGS is an acronym - it just makes it easy to remember. That's the only reason I can name all 5 countries. No one things that citizens of those 5 countries are swine, just like they don't think that citizens of the booming BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) are dumb.

Yeah, what's the pattern? Never heard that Ireland had a large grey economy, yet it seems to me to be the most troubled of the bunch.

Not so much in Dublin perhaps, but rural Ireland is all about favours and bartering, it's not even really a "black market" since cash isn't the currency.

I dunno, it's cool, it makes it feel much more like a connected community, but you can't trade mackerel for fenceposts (this is a real deal in which I was involved) in the global economy without going via actual cash...

From what I've read about Greece, Ireland's problems are completely different. Nothing to do with a black market, more to do with an incompetent government that let property prices get out of control.