ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we examine the issue of movement into and out of the cash economy. All indications are that the cash economy is on the increase worldwide and is posing a challenge for sovereign states aiming to control its growth. An increasing economic literarure is addressing the factors that drive its development and map its effects on the official economy, and society at large. Less widely researched is the behaviour of those moving into and out of the cash economy, what motivates them to take part, and what keeps them at a distance from this kind of activity (see Wiegand (1994) as a notable exception). The literature on individual tax evasion points to a number of possible explanatory variables, among them perceptions of justice, civic virtue, moral obligation, social identity, and social norms, to say nothing of the classic self-interest variables of human greed as an instigator, and fear of punishment as an inhibitor (see Webley, Robben, Elffers and Hessing, 1991; Andreoni, Erard and Feinstein, 1998; Richardson and Sawyer, 2001 ). In this chapter, some of these ideas are drawn together through the concept of motivational postures. Motivational postures are central to the operation of the social rift model of regulatee responsiveness, which comprises a set of explanatory propositions for how and why people distance themselves from authority and find the psychological freedom to act outside the constraints imposed by that authority. While social distancing is not a sufficient condition for taking part in the cash economy (people must find the prospect attractive or advantageous to them), it is a necessary condition for throwing off the constraints imposed by an authority through laws and regulatory practices, persuasion and punishment, obligations and moral pressure.
