Self-interest, an individual’s behaviours that consciously or unconsciously, has underpinned capitalist economic thinking for several centuries. From the time of Adam Smith and the notion of the invisible hand, reflections on the self over community, or society, are predicated on self-interest ultimately generating community benefit. The reality for many societies, however, is that where there are power imbalances, inequalities can not only arise, but expand over time. This is seen in countries globally, but these inequalities are particularly prevalent in the countries of the Global South. This, in turn, has had a profound impact on the nature of economic activity in these countries, where a significant proportion, even a majority, of activity is informal in nature. Inequality has led to social tensions alongside the prevalence of informality, that have had significant impacts on economic, political and social stability in the many countries of the Global South so affected. One such country is Nigeria. Recently, studies have started to reflect on how indigenous African philosophies can be drawn upon as a basis for healing the divisions in Nigerian society, such as Ubuntu (Woermann and Sanni, 2020; Eke and Onwuatuegwu, 2021) and Harambeeism (Irabor and Onwudinjo, 2021). Reflecting on these divisions from an economic perspective, reflecting especially on the institutional context of economic policies and activity, a further source of conflict can be identified. There is evidence of a gap between the formal institutions of government policies that are seeking to shape economic activity in the country, and the informal institutions of beliefs, values, cultures, histories, that are so deeply instilled in people that their behaviours represent and active fight against the neoliberal tendencies of many formal economic policies. In this paper, we draw on extensive fieldwork conducted in Lagos, Nigeria, to explore citizens’ attitudes towards informal traders, as manifest through the motivations that are driving their purchasing decisions. The evidence demonstrates that whilst there are self-interested concerns driving these behaviours, we also find clear evidence that the informal institutions underpinning citizens’ worldview also shapes their interactions with, and decisions to purchase from, informal street hawkers. Indeed, these forces are so strong that they are influencing behaviour despite the government criminalising both street hawking and buying from hawkers. In this way, we offer tentative evidence that whatever the challenges are that are facing Nigerians, there is a suggestion that the kind of values expounded by Ubuntu, and by Harambee, can be found in the ways people live their lives in the hustle and bustle of Lagos.

I was invited by the Menard Family George Washington Forum to participate in the ‘Capitalism and Informality’ conference. This is one of two papers presented at the conference.

Citation : Igudia, E. and Ackrill, R. (2023) You say ‘self-interest’ is buried, but I say you can’t ignore its ghost – evidence from Lagos, Nigeria study. The Menard Family George Washington Forum: Capitalism and Informality, Ohio, 14-15 April 2023.

URL

https://hdl.handle.net/2086/22936

Research Institute : Institute for Applied Economics and Social Value (IAESV)

ISSN : 0042-0980

Peer Reviewed : Yes

Collections

School of Accounting, Finance and Economics [736]