How to Create an Underground Economy in Five Easy Steps

 

It is easy to create your own underground economy and all that entails.  Here are the five easy steps to make it happen.

1. Find a product that is enjoyable, creates euphoria, possibly addictive, that is used by a fairly large population base of mostly non-voting people who trust things will always work out when the government is taking care of them.  Good examples include alcohol, cigarettes, narcotics, or mild psychoactive compounds.
2. Organize a group of control oriented and voting citizens into a consolidated and focused cause to outlaw the sale, use, and possession of the product selected above.  Many businesses and entrepreneurial people will also back this cause as soon as they see the economic possibilities if the cause is successful.
3. Pass laws making it criminal to possess, sell, or use the selected product.  The penalties should be rather moderate at first, and then be ramped up over time as people begin to disregard the risk of getting arrested and convicted.  Encourage the lawmakers to capitalize on the strengthening of legal penalties as a strike for the moral good and welfare of the entire nation.
4. Focus a significant portion of the nations resources on the arrest, prosecution, and incarceration of people who violate the laws outlawing the selected product.  The taxpaying public will generally feel proud to fund the attack on the offending product.  Lawyers, police, and other government officials associated with the courts and prison system will firmly support the process and should be treated as a strong support base.
5. Add continual legal pressure on the individuals and other targets that are easy to catch.  This will highlight to the public that you are serious about the subject.  In addition it will promote and reward organization of the groups involved in the importation, distribution and sale of the selected product.

If you have followed these steps successfully, then you will have created an entire underground economy.  Literally billions of dollars will have left the tax base and been redistributed to portions of the economy that seek to evade detection.  In addition you will have created an entire class of workers who now rely on the product remaining illegal.  These include local police, federal law enforcement, lawyers, criminal justice system employees, as well as probation officers, social workers, etc.

Simple really, isn’t it.