That is an insane perspective. The favelas are a site of extreme exploitation, no matter how you try to rationalize it. This article is obviously propaganda meant to counter the headlines about the Worker’s Party leading in the polls. The working people of Brazil have suffered tremendously under Bolsanaro’s neoliberal government and Lula (Worker’s Party candidate who Bolsanaro imprisoned for 2 years on bogus charges)…
I don't think I disagree with you at all. I do not mean to downplay the harm done by organized crime, just to view the motivations of criminals from a materialist perspective. We can only pray that the CIA doesn't do to Lula what they did to Allende.
Allende existed in a different time and place. He was in contempt of Chile's Congress due to alleged violations of Chile's Constitution, was supported by Marxist paramilitaries being supported by the USSR, and had praised the Communist revolution in Cuba and the dictator that it had brought to power.
How the hell do they run these operations or have this amount of gear safely in a favela? When I did a full-on tourist experience of Rio, the guides were adamant that we not even go near any favela, as we'd immediately be robbed or worse. My understanding was that the crime in those areas was so astronomically high that nothing even resembling IT infrastructure could exist, as it would immediately be confiscated by t…
My ex girlfriend lived in Brazil for ~10 years and her job was running tours to the favelas. She told me there were fairly strict rules about this sort of thing. The gangs there cared about drugs and making money. As long as you weren't there interfering with them making money, they didn't really care about you as a tourist. They might get a phone or pocket change from you but why waste time and money on just that? B…
Tourists are highly likely to have money in their pockets and expensive gadgets with them, so they tend to be easy targets.
Someone foreign who learns the "ways" of the locals would easily be able to mingle though and go mostly unnoticed (Brazil has had peoples of all races for a long time, it's not like you stand out much by being blonde or asian, for example). And any local will immediately tell you to never walk around with money or expensive devices, and specially, never flash them around no matter where you go (near favelas there's a lot of unemployed/poor/desperate people - no one wants to live in one... so it ends up being a lot more dangerous in general than anywhere else).
> these gangs peace is more interesting and profitable than a lot of crime and chaos I think it is enlightening to look at these sort of situations through the lens of feudalism. Criminal gangs are not sociopathic comic book villains interested in violence for the fun of it, they are more like landlords, and are in it for money, security, and a sense of community. Medieval kings, the Italian/American/Japanese mafias,…
That is an insane perspective. The favelas are a site of extreme exploitation, no matter how you try to rationalize it. This article is obviously propaganda meant to counter the headlines about the Worker’s Party leading in the polls. The working people of Brazil have suffered tremendously under Bolsanaro’s neoliberal government and Lula (Worker’s Party candidate who Bolsanaro imprisoned for 2 years on bogus charges)…
There is absolutely no evidence for any of this global "neoliberal" conspiracy theory.
The Western states have been embracing social democracy, predicated on forced income redistribution - the very opposite of "neoliberalism" - at an unprecedented rate:
These ideological narratives that claim that political parties which advocate for more government power, are the underdog, going up against powerful forces who prefer free markets, looks like nothing more than propaganda to entrench and expand the power of the state and its functionaries.
I'm trying to imagine a good counterargument to anonporridge's actual stated position. If they're fundamentally wrong about violence as the legitimizing factor of authority, then there has to be some more important/more powerful legitimizing factor. Something that trumps violence without using violence or the threat of it. What works in the place of violence? Escape? Maybe you can have a diaspora society willing to r…
The problem I see in anonporridge's argumentation is that it seems to ignore the question of legitimacy. Using terms like "gangs' implies criminality, right? (not native English speaker, correct me if I am wrong). Not all violence is criminal. Not all violence is perceived as illegitimate. There are scenarios of monopoly on violence I would certainly not label as 'gangs' - obeying the pharaoh because he is believed t…
I think that's a worthwhile concern too. How do we know the current authority is legitimate/illegitimate? What if the pharoah is really not a god but behaving more like a devil? What if the most experienced hunter is stuck in his ways and pushes aside new, innovative methods that are absolutely needed to help the tribe? Their perceived legitimacy is bottlenecked by their efficacy - and the efficacy of a leader seems to be some combination of peaceful trust and violent control.
What you're saying applies to some modern and historical states, but not all. Would you consider the IRA in the early 1900s to be nothing more than a gang looking to control territory? Or were they an independence movement? What about the Continental Congress? What about the Viet Cong? The former two led to a democracy and the latter to an authoritarian dictatorship; all engaged in violence; but none was a gang whose…
> The former two led to a democracy The Continental Congress did not lead a democracy, any more than the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States does.
The problem I see in anonporridge's argumentation is that it seems to ignore the question of legitimacy. Using terms like "gangs' implies criminality, right? (not native English speaker, correct me if I am wrong). Not all violence is criminal. Not all violence is perceived as illegitimate. There are scenarios of monopoly on violence I would certainly not label as 'gangs' - obeying the pharaoh because he is believed t…
I think that's a worthwhile concern too. How do we know the current authority is legitimate/illegitimate? What if the pharoah is really not a god but behaving more like a devil? What if the most experienced hunter is stuck in his ways and pushes aside new, innovative methods that are absolutely needed to help the tribe? Their perceived legitimacy is bottlenecked by their efficacy - and the efficacy of a leader seems…
> How do we know the current authority is legitimate/illegitimate?
That is a very good question and I do not have a good answer. Maybe subjectively... that legitimate power is perceived as justified. I grew up in a communist regime and had the opportunity to experience the difference between obeying rules because you are afraid not to vs obeying rules because they are at least somewhat correlated to what the majority considers to be good. Sure, even in democracy you obey some rules just because you are afraid not to, but you also understand that you live in an imperfect world that is not centered around you and you can accept some level of power you don't perceive as justified as long as it is about something like zoning rules and not your fundamental freedoms.
But it seems highly subjective... maybe if I grew up in ancient Egypt I would believe that the pharaoh has the right do whatever he pleases and who am I to judge whether it is evil or not.
I think that's a worthwhile concern too. How do we know the current authority is legitimate/illegitimate? What if the pharoah is really not a god but behaving more like a devil? What if the most experienced hunter is stuck in his ways and pushes aside new, innovative methods that are absolutely needed to help the tribe? Their perceived legitimacy is bottlenecked by their efficacy - and the efficacy of a leader seems…
> How do we know the current authority is legitimate/illegitimate? That is a very good question and I do not have a good answer. Maybe subjectively... that legitimate power is perceived as justified. I grew up in a communist regime and had the opportunity to experience the difference between obeying rules because you are afraid not to vs obeying rules because they are at least somewhat correlated to what the majority…
I personally believe in something like the "Divine Right of Kings" or the "Mandate of Heaven". So basically I think the current ruler of a locale, even a drug cartel in its territory considered criminal by a larger government, is on some level be it great or small, the legitimate authority for that time because of providence, and their legitimacy can be fortified by the leader's justice or weakened by a lack thereof. How they treat people irrespective of what the local policy is is one important aspect of justice, and this is why I think democracy can feel like you describe, because the system was at least set up with the intention of serving a majority of the people (gerrymandering not withstanding). Compare that to 20th century attempts to implement communism which claims to enact another aspect of justice (striving for equality for the worker; fairness), and in practice created a system where the state ruled with an unjust level of fear. With those in light I can understand why different people would espouse these systems of government. It's complicated, it's wrapped up in current ideological battles, but I think these philosophical quandries point beyond our millieu, to meanings and maxims that can help us become better people.
Don't know much about Rio, but what I have seen and heard elsewhere in Latin America over the years. Often times organized crimes substitutes an absent government and enforce their own set of law and order in the community. They can't afford to just rob the people blind as sometimes portrayed in media. They rely on a somewhat sybmiotic relationship with the "citizens" to act as messengers, human surveillance cameras,…
I guess that’s how it has also been in parts of Italy (and maybe still is, to some extent…?)
I mean, the dynamic of people acting as watchdogs and the community bundling together can be noticed in a lot of villages over the world, I think. Of course, the special thing about the Favelas and Mafia-controlled areas is the violence and fear.
How the hell do they run these operations or have this amount of gear safely in a favela? When I did a full-on tourist experience of Rio, the guides were adamant that we not even go near any favela, as we'd immediately be robbed or worse. My understanding was that the crime in those areas was so astronomically high that nothing even resembling IT infrastructure could exist, as it would immediately be confiscated by t…
I am from Brazil and to be honest the government push for this is kinda silly. There are other problems to solve first. There was an event I participated about this, I was teaching about gamedev using opensource tools, a lot of people paid to go, the government then brought in a ton of people from the favelas as part of their "digital inclusion" program, although I was happy to teach them, later I heard many of them…
Having been a teacher for unemployed people that event just sounds like it was planned(unintentionally) to fail for these "inclusives".
If a sub-group (esp with people who probably knows each other) comes in with a far lower general skill level it's very easy to lose them to an inadequacy feeling that makes them give up if they expect to fail, being a teacher this is very very hard to notice because in a mixed group the top and middle percentages will ask questions and generally feel as "getting it" but those already feeling stupid often doesn't dare ask questions (but often nod or similar simulating being "smart" to not stand out).
Our history books tend to glorify ancient gangs and call them things like "nobles" and "royalty". But if you look beneath the veneer, they were gangs very much like the street gangs and crime organizations we have now. History is written by the victors.
Actually it's written by anthropologists. If you look at how our species came to self-organize, there has always been a strong component of innate, voluntary cooperation (and of course violent subjugation as well). It's a mixed bag for sure, but I just think your characterization is way too oversimplified -- and it probably wouldn't get too far you tried to pass it by people who have devoted their lives to studying t…
Apropos, I read some anthropology for my PhD, it became quite common to call the German nobility of the Middle Ages warlords, to stress the commonality between today's criminal regimes.