ABSTRACT
This chapter raises the possibility that the informal sector might be seen not as a symptom of incomplete industrialisation but as actually offering models of work and labour organisation that are more attractive than those of the formal sector. But it suggests that it is very difficult to explore this possibility under bureaucratic systems of work regulation such as those characteristic of the USA. An alternative approach, developed in France and characteristic of southern Europe and Latin America, is a general system in which a single corps administers the whole of the labour code, The system puts in the hands of the labour inspectors a great deal of discretion to decide exactly how to regulate a given workplace. As a result, it is actually quite flexible and gives the inspectors the opportunity to experiment with different types of regulations It is thus a vehicle in which the potential of the informal sector could actually be explored without undermining the work regulations of formal employment.
