"shaddy" economics in blighted areas not too different from communist russia

There is a rather large, 500 billion a year, underground economy at work in the united states. People offering services under the table in exchange for money, goods, and services. This does not sound all that different from the stories my grandpa would tell me about communist russia, sounds like you had to do the same kind of hustle. Except crack we had vodka! Another difference, is that in russia you had to hustle because there were no goods available to the public, supply was limited and everyone was trying to get his. In this case it's got to be different, unless what makes things prohibitive is the price of goods, so people hustle to get goods and services for cheap. Which is interesting, because you artificially undervalue the worth of the other human being, where's in russia the economy did that for you.

Anyway, if you're interested, there's a book about this called "Off-the-books: the underground economy of the urban poor," from an economics professor who lived with poor, urban, chicago families and witnessed this economy at work first-hand.