Interesting graph.
I remember in the late 60s when I worked in an auto plant in Ohio, there were always guys in the parking lot selling cartons of low tax Kentucky cigarettes. And this was when cigs were a quarter a pack.
Still a good deal here in san diego area, go to the duty free stores along the border, get smokes, some times some never heard of brand, 2 cartons/12.00 and u and a friend bring them into mexcio and come walk back thu customs and viola at least 50.00 bucks.. I know ppl who do this every day...
Socialism greatly magnifies black market activity. Avoidance of government intrusion into personal financial activity is a primary dynamic of all trade. Taxation and regulation are never motivational except as negative influences.
Entrepeneurship always begins as black market, unregulated and untaxed. Only when it becomes established in the public sector does it become necessary to accede to government intrusion.
Certainly the uncontrolled market for goods and services globally is at least as large as government controlled markets, perhaps larger. Every yard sale, every Craig’s listing, every kitchen poker game, every barter, most house cleaning, all are black market, outside the purvey of government. Fully half of all purchases, trades, arrangements and deals are unreported. The more government attempts to govern these activities the deeper it is driven underground. Private, after all, means private.
I had a friend in college who made big bucks on the KY-OH run. Basically, he paid his tuition with it over the summer. THEN, he found out that it was a ticket to federal prison, not just “they’ll just take the van, we have more of those” as the owner of the “business” told him.