Causes and consequences of the Sicilian Mafia(voxeu.org)
voxeu.org
Causes and consequences of the Sicilian Mafia
https://voxeu.org/article/causes-and-consequences-sicilian-mafia
37 comments
It's an excellent book. I was visiting Naples after reading the book, and I truly love the city, food and the people. The problem is, how my Neapolitan friends say, that visiting the city is safe and lovely, but living there maybe not.
I remember from the book how Camorra controls most of Europe's drug trafficking, how they test the new stuff with junkies in Scampia and only spread them to the north if the junkies don't die. For German/English party-goers to consume.
Or how they just basically dump toxic waste to the nature, spoiling one of the best kitchens in the world. How would you know the buffala mozzarella is not contaminated, or the delicious tomatoes...
I remember from the book how Camorra controls most of Europe's drug trafficking, how they test the new stuff with junkies in Scampia and only spread them to the north if the junkies don't die. For German/English party-goers to consume.
Or how they just basically dump toxic waste to the nature, spoiling one of the best kitchens in the world. How would you know the buffala mozzarella is not contaminated, or the delicious tomatoes...
Any hints on what one must see? I might go to Naples for a Sting concert in August and I'm trying to make a list of the most interesting sight-scenes?
Surprised you're downvoted, but perhaps it's tangental to the discussion. It's also the weekend, so eh.. :)
My personal biggest takeaway from Naples was a question of what happened between Italy and America that the food lost something. This is probably true of all cuisines that migrate to new countries and don't have access to their original ingredients. After Naples and Amalfi, I became that annoying friend that comes back from Italy and raves about how great the food was over there.
In terms of sightseeing, the things I still remember a few years later:
- Madre is a great contemporary art museum there and they were featuring lots of Italian artists when we went
- We really enjoyed the Piazza Bellini neighborhood both during the day at night. There's an art school there and it just has a really good vibe. At night it's also a popular spot.
- We did two underground tours of their cisterns. The one that meets in front of Caffè Gambrinus [0] feels more grassroots (like a couple folks who do this as a weekend hobby) and hopefully your group will only have 2-6 people. The larger one is at Via dei Tribunali. This one has a more corporate feel as tour guides are seasonal staff that know how to speak English. The sights are more stunning here, though.
- We rode the funicular up to Vomero in the west which is a wealthier neighborhood, hung out in the park there, then climbed up to Castel Sant'Elmo. Poked around its lovely courtyards and art collection, and walked down the backside while enjoying the view
- Pizza. Pizza. Pizza. Lots of blogs have written about this. Get there early, otherwise don't go at all because you'll waste half your day waiting.
Lastly, you're in the middle of everything. Mount Vesuvius and Pompeii are right there. Or take a ferry to Sorrento and explore the Amalfi Coast. The only thing is that it's super popular in the summer, so you'll need take in consideration dealing with the other tourists and higher prices.
[0] Gambrinus - http://www.lanapolisotterranea.it/orari_ing.htm
My personal biggest takeaway from Naples was a question of what happened between Italy and America that the food lost something. This is probably true of all cuisines that migrate to new countries and don't have access to their original ingredients. After Naples and Amalfi, I became that annoying friend that comes back from Italy and raves about how great the food was over there.
In terms of sightseeing, the things I still remember a few years later:
- Madre is a great contemporary art museum there and they were featuring lots of Italian artists when we went
- We really enjoyed the Piazza Bellini neighborhood both during the day at night. There's an art school there and it just has a really good vibe. At night it's also a popular spot.
- We did two underground tours of their cisterns. The one that meets in front of Caffè Gambrinus [0] feels more grassroots (like a couple folks who do this as a weekend hobby) and hopefully your group will only have 2-6 people. The larger one is at Via dei Tribunali. This one has a more corporate feel as tour guides are seasonal staff that know how to speak English. The sights are more stunning here, though.
- We rode the funicular up to Vomero in the west which is a wealthier neighborhood, hung out in the park there, then climbed up to Castel Sant'Elmo. Poked around its lovely courtyards and art collection, and walked down the backside while enjoying the view
- Pizza. Pizza. Pizza. Lots of blogs have written about this. Get there early, otherwise don't go at all because you'll waste half your day waiting.
Lastly, you're in the middle of everything. Mount Vesuvius and Pompeii are right there. Or take a ferry to Sorrento and explore the Amalfi Coast. The only thing is that it's super popular in the summer, so you'll need take in consideration dealing with the other tourists and higher prices.
[0] Gambrinus - http://www.lanapolisotterranea.it/orari_ing.htm
My favorite sightseeings were the restaurants. Just eat a good pizza, some seafood and drink the wine. The city itself is pretty amazing, but navigating there can be tricky.
Amalfi coast is amazing. Pompeii very interesting. Napels Spanish quarters. As Pimeys says the restaurants are just too good. The seafood is very very good.
> how they test the new stuff with junkies in Scampia and only spread them to the north if the junkies don't die.
GC/MS would be cheaper and faster...
GC/MS would be cheaper and faster...
With GC/MS you can test for composition, but not for biological effects. And I'm not sure about the GC/MS being cheaper either.
Saviano came out of hiding to give a talk and described the UK as the most corrupt country in the world.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/may/29/roberto-savian...
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/may/29/roberto-savian...
Yep, there's more than one kind of corruption. It's hard to compare dollar amounts and lives
The TV show is even better. So highly recommended.
And it's on US Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/80079255
Ten or twelve years ago a truck driver tried to sell clothes to me for peanuts in an industrial zone near an "outlet factory" south of Madrid. I was puzzled by the scene, specially for the details. Now it suddenly makes sense. Maybe the legitimate shops refused the cargo suspecting it was counterfeited or stolen. Oh, and guess where the truck and the driver where from.
appears to have significantly reduced literacy,
increased infant mortality, limited the provision
of a variety of local public goods, and may also
have significantly reduced local political competition
If you look at your typical in-group microcosm, a leader often refuses to accept the leadership of others. This promotes that individual to their own level of incompetance, so to speak. Leaders usually attract people less capable than themselves, and extremely domineering personalities enjoy lording over people they perceive as their lessers. I've watched this concept cut across tons of low-level menial jobs and up into higher level executive cliques.
Meanwhile, violence as an action to produce an effect has differing effects at the scale of a populace in which strangers co-exist, than within the individual microcosm. Alternatives to violence might include exile, which for the social group has an effective outcome that matches crippling injury, murder or jail. An individual is removed from the game. Clashes in leadership are at the core of violence. But violence is unsophisticated, and it's usually not your geniuses resorting to it reflexively.
For an extreme example of the sustained effect of violence removing participants from a society, look at Afghanistan, which has been dealing with violence as a fact of life since the 80's. Brain drain, orphans everywhere, no parents, no one going to school, because learning to survive at all is the only education that pays off.
On a gradient, the premise of continued violence between strangers in a small town scales similarly, and all the worse if every town in a region is dealing with the same shit. The less time anyone has to sit and think about some trivial diversion, the dumber society is on a whole, and the less everyone gets back from the benefits of permitting others to sit and think, in return.
From the article: "The historical record shows many instances in which the Mafia fought against the Peasant Fasci and collaborated with the military in suppressing protests and killing protesters."
However, according to Wikipedia: "Some historians emphasize that the leagues were engaged in class struggle against a coalition of landowners and mafiosi and ignore evidence of strategic alliances between the Fasci and the Mafia."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasci_Siciliani#Mafia_involvem...
I wonder which is it. Perhaps the Mafia was opportunistic and would ally with the Fasci (the workers) or the landowners depending on the local conditions. Its not like the Mafia is one single entity but composed of smaller (themselves warring) factions.
However, according to Wikipedia: "Some historians emphasize that the leagues were engaged in class struggle against a coalition of landowners and mafiosi and ignore evidence of strategic alliances between the Fasci and the Mafia."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasci_Siciliani#Mafia_involvem...
I wonder which is it. Perhaps the Mafia was opportunistic and would ally with the Fasci (the workers) or the landowners depending on the local conditions. Its not like the Mafia is one single entity but composed of smaller (themselves warring) factions.
There are 3 sides to every story. In the US the mafia "supports" the workers but violeny hijacks unions for it's own profit.
The "Fasci" "workers" became the Fascist government that went on a murderous rampage across Europe
The "Fasci" "workers" became the Fascist government that went on a murderous rampage across Europe
> Not to be confused with Fascio.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasci_Siciliani
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasci_Siciliani
The Peasant Fasci had nothing to do with the Italian fascist government and had been suppressed decades before it came to power. The Peasant Fasci were left-wing and socialist and their support base later supplied fighters to the anti-fascist, communist partisans. The Italian Fascist Party was, needless to say, violently anti-socialist.
> The "Fasci" "workers" became the Fascist government that went on a murderous rampage across Europe
I googled this and couldn't find any relations between them. Could you provide a link? Also, why did you put workers in scare quotes, were they something else?
I googled this and couldn't find any relations between them. Could you provide a link? Also, why did you put workers in scare quotes, were they something else?
Fun fact: the Sicilian mafia's annual revenue is comparable to that of Amazon. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/22/the-women-who-...
they don't exactly file tax returns, I wonder how it's calculated
From a high enough vantage point, I'm willing to bet there's a gaping hole that economists can clearly discern, that a calculable quantity of money just "falls into" somehow, and that there's a corresponding class of citizens that are curiously plump, and their feet don't seem to touch the ground, even though they aren't particularly well known, and don't seem to have lucrative careers.
If you took all the public data, and tried to trace all the economic output, as it fell into the pockets of individuals, and tried to follow the spending patterns of individuals, tracing the return path acting as inputs to fund all the legal businesses out there, you probably can quickly notice a gap too large to chalk up to inefficient friction and people hiding money under their mattresses, and it probably looks more like a willful diverting of funds to parts unknown.
By induction and intuition you might hazard a guess about the story behind such phenomena.
If you took all the public data, and tried to trace all the economic output, as it fell into the pockets of individuals, and tried to follow the spending patterns of individuals, tracing the return path acting as inputs to fund all the legal businesses out there, you probably can quickly notice a gap too large to chalk up to inefficient friction and people hiding money under their mattresses, and it probably looks more like a willful diverting of funds to parts unknown.
By induction and intuition you might hazard a guess about the story behind such phenomena.
[deleted]
well they do file tax returns, but you know what I'm saying :P
This desperately needs a regression analysis. They've determined that the presence of the Sicilian Mafia is strongly correlated with the presence of the Peasant Fasci, and also strongly correlated with a decline in literacy and increase in infant mortality.
They immediately jump to "the Mafia causes a decline in literacy" without even considering that the Peasant Fasci might have been responsible for said decline in literacy.
How the hell did this get published?
They immediately jump to "the Mafia causes a decline in literacy" without even considering that the Peasant Fasci might have been responsible for said decline in literacy.
How the hell did this get published?
The correlation with "infant mortality" is a subtle nod to prostitution, rape and abortion.
Dead babies come from accidental or unwanted pregnancies, particularly when combined with drugs and alcohol.
If the underground black market has a strong supply of prostitution (and not just human traffic sob stories, but also prostitution as party time and consenting my-vagina-my-choice power plays, aka: porn without the camera) and the johns are kept in line with strong arm tactics, you get a lot of ladies offering services, and a cross section of pregnancies that represent a poor business decision.
Charting an uptick in dead babies and unattended children running around is a bellweather for women doing whatever, and having whatever done to them, in larger quantities. Really large quantities, over a sustained span of time looks more like big business producing unsavory norms, the kind associated with vice.
In the periphery of legal pornography production there's a quantity of abortions that, in the early 20th century would have cropped up as "infanticide" and "infant mortality" for lack of better terms.
Low literacy rate is a measure of the unwanted pregnancies that lived. Kids that have parents that don't care about them won't bother with compulsory education when they approach ten years old, and dealing with other students starts to become truly unpleasant. Individuals may obtain pragmatic reading skills, but creative writing and reading for fun would decline right along with an uptick in other adversities.
Dead babies come from accidental or unwanted pregnancies, particularly when combined with drugs and alcohol.
If the underground black market has a strong supply of prostitution (and not just human traffic sob stories, but also prostitution as party time and consenting my-vagina-my-choice power plays, aka: porn without the camera) and the johns are kept in line with strong arm tactics, you get a lot of ladies offering services, and a cross section of pregnancies that represent a poor business decision.
Charting an uptick in dead babies and unattended children running around is a bellweather for women doing whatever, and having whatever done to them, in larger quantities. Really large quantities, over a sustained span of time looks more like big business producing unsavory norms, the kind associated with vice.
In the periphery of legal pornography production there's a quantity of abortions that, in the early 20th century would have cropped up as "infanticide" and "infant mortality" for lack of better terms.
Low literacy rate is a measure of the unwanted pregnancies that lived. Kids that have parents that don't care about them won't bother with compulsory education when they approach ten years old, and dealing with other students starts to become truly unpleasant. Individuals may obtain pragmatic reading skills, but creative writing and reading for fun would decline right along with an uptick in other adversities.
They do [1]. That's just a summary.
http://www.nber.org/papers/w24115
http://www.nber.org/papers/w24115
plus:
no checking against population density / structure of environment e.g. rural/small town/urban center - would not urban areas produce more poverty or provide more 'cover' for illlicit activities, or conversely more prosperity, etc etc
no cross-checking checking against economic structure - more specifically access to shipping/ports, whatever industry, etc. might exist - all of which could create cover business, access to distribution, etc
connection/lack of connection of those poorer sicilians affected by the mentioned famine, etc to US immigration and increased opportunity for international criminal activity especially as concerns the vast rise of us/italian mafia during prohibition.. maybe all the 'smart people' from the mafia areas simply left for the US to become gangsters, as one exaggerated potential counterpoint..
zero discussion of local / regional political factors w/r/t the italian unification, etc, which was a massive event co-occurring with the early time period related to the being discussed..
zero discussion of socio-philosophical/cultural/religious aspects aside from the singular 'fasci' socialist group.. much mafioso folklore is tied with romanticized notions of protecting ones people, creating war against enemies, etc, and the relation of corrupt members of the vatican to the mafia are not exactly fiction..
assuming a certain progression of trajectory as 'natural' and equally applicable to all areas implicitly, and further that deviations from this 'norm' are attributable to the pre-presumed causes due to correlative effect ..
etc etc etc.
no checking against population density / structure of environment e.g. rural/small town/urban center - would not urban areas produce more poverty or provide more 'cover' for illlicit activities, or conversely more prosperity, etc etc
no cross-checking checking against economic structure - more specifically access to shipping/ports, whatever industry, etc. might exist - all of which could create cover business, access to distribution, etc
connection/lack of connection of those poorer sicilians affected by the mentioned famine, etc to US immigration and increased opportunity for international criminal activity especially as concerns the vast rise of us/italian mafia during prohibition.. maybe all the 'smart people' from the mafia areas simply left for the US to become gangsters, as one exaggerated potential counterpoint..
zero discussion of local / regional political factors w/r/t the italian unification, etc, which was a massive event co-occurring with the early time period related to the being discussed..
zero discussion of socio-philosophical/cultural/religious aspects aside from the singular 'fasci' socialist group.. much mafioso folklore is tied with romanticized notions of protecting ones people, creating war against enemies, etc, and the relation of corrupt members of the vatican to the mafia are not exactly fiction..
assuming a certain progression of trajectory as 'natural' and equally applicable to all areas implicitly, and further that deviations from this 'norm' are attributable to the pre-presumed causes due to correlative effect ..
etc etc etc.
Note that mafia also spilled its influence up north, to south france, Marseille and Lyon. These guys apparently initiated a lot of dark ops of the day, that reached common practices in national governments (cutely named security forces). Mafiosi also imported drugs from northern africa to distribute over large cities suburbs. And lastly, it seems the CIA enjoyed their support for intelligence (french connection). My memories are blurry, so I may have listed twisted facts, but there are documentaries about the matter.
Your comment intrigued me so I went on some quick reading.
Worth pointing out that the group at play in Southern France seemed to be predominantly Corsican - though not to say that Scilians or the Scilian Mafia were not involved.
Worth pointing out that the group at play in Southern France seemed to be predominantly Corsican - though not to say that Scilians or the Scilian Mafia were not involved.
Not a documentary but very good nevertheless:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Prophet
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Prophet
Ah good point, different islands. There probably are links between those groups but still, different islands, my bad.
Another fantastic book on the subject: Excellent Cadavers. Amazing story of the rise of the fascists and their transformation into the modern day Mafia. And the infiltration into the highest levels of the Italian government is riveting and telling about all governments.
On a related note, I'd like to strongly recommend the book "The Moral Basis of a Backward Society"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Basis_of_a_Backward_...
From Wikipedia:
The Moral Basis of a Backward Society is a book by Edward C. Banfield, a political scientist who visited Montegrano, Italy (Montegrano is the fictitious name used by Banfield to protect the original town of Chiaromonte, in the Southern Italian region of Basilicata) in 1955. He observed a self-interested, family centric society which sacrificed the public good for the sake of nepotism and the immediate family. Banfield as an American was witnessing what was to become infamous as the "Mafia" or families (in Sicily and other parts of Southern Italy) that cared only for its own "members" at the expense of their fellow citizens. Banfield postulated that the backwardness of such a society could be explained "largely but not entirely" by "the inability of the villagers to act together for their common good or, indeed, for any end transcending the immediate, material interest of the nuclear family".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Basis_of_a_Backward_...
From Wikipedia:
The Moral Basis of a Backward Society is a book by Edward C. Banfield, a political scientist who visited Montegrano, Italy (Montegrano is the fictitious name used by Banfield to protect the original town of Chiaromonte, in the Southern Italian region of Basilicata) in 1955. He observed a self-interested, family centric society which sacrificed the public good for the sake of nepotism and the immediate family. Banfield as an American was witnessing what was to become infamous as the "Mafia" or families (in Sicily and other parts of Southern Italy) that cared only for its own "members" at the expense of their fellow citizens. Banfield postulated that the backwardness of such a society could be explained "largely but not entirely" by "the inability of the villagers to act together for their common good or, indeed, for any end transcending the immediate, material interest of the nuclear family".
Great article! It's really fascinating to see data indicate correlation between a weak centralized government and generally bad outcomes (higher infant mortality, lower literacy rates).
[deleted]
Socialist threat? Peasent demands? Right... Are we maiybe missing the forest for the trees? The cause of the peasents plight is to be blamed, not the fact that the poor landowners couldn't turn to the state to repress them. Geez.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/jan/12/crime.mafia
> The Neapolitan Camorra, or "the System" as it is known by those on its inside, is a vast, pullulating world of gangs. They form, split, descend into vicious feuds, and re-emerge in new alliances only to be annihilated in some new internecine war. Whereas a Sicilian capo can confidently expect to see his grandchildren set out on their criminal careers, a senior camorrista is lucky if he reaches 40... Following a series of highly credible death threats, since autumn 2006 Saviano has been given an armed escort at public expense.
https://www.esquire.com/style/news/a50424/italy-mafia-counte...
> Quoting Italian journalist Roberto Saviano from his 2006 book Gomorrah: Italy's Other Mafia, the article points out that: The workforce in clan operations is highly skilled, with decades of experience under Italy's and Europe's most important designers. The same hands that once worked under the table for the big labels now work for the clans…Which means that the clothes made by the clans aren't typical counterfeit goods…but rather a sort of true fake. All that's missing is the final step: the brand name, the official authorization from the motherhouse.
> Basically how it works in Italy is that multiple factories would bid on a job to produce clothes or accessories for a fashion brand. The brand would then supply fabrics and designs to each of the factories, and whichever one supplied the garments fastest and with the highest quality would be paid. Those factories that didn't win the bid would then re-brand the clothes and sell them through the Camorra's retail network. It's part of the reason why today, nearly 10 percent of all fashion related-products sold in Europe are counterfeit.
The book itself is a shocking read - highly recommended.