It angers me that Fascist Italy could push the Mafia to the brink of extinction but Democratic Italy can’t.
Did they? I’m pretty sure that’s just political propaganda of the regime.
A novelist who took on the Italian mafia and lived
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Re: A novelist who took on the Italian mafia and lived
#32Off topic, but I'm always amazed by Archive.md/.is/whatever. To this day I don't understand how they manage to bypass a lot of paywalls. The mystery about the owner makes it even more intriguing.
Maybe they have a paid account? I don’t think there’s much magic behind
Re: A novelist who took on the Italian mafia and lived
#33It angers me that Fascist Italy could push the Mafia to the brink of extinction but Democratic Italy can’t.
Did they? I’m pretty sure that’s just political propaganda of the regime.
I don't think they actually pushed the mob out, but evidently they did succeed in pissing off the mob enough to make the mob happy and willing collaborators with the Allies.
Re: A novelist who took on the Italian mafia and lived
#34It angers me that Fascist Italy could push the Mafia to the brink of extinction but Democratic Italy can’t.
The purpose of democracy is to create stable governance with peaceful transitions of power, so that people feel confident about the future and are willing to invest in long term things that require long term stability. It's not because we think the plebiscite are really wise and effective at governing, they're not, but stability is more important and ultimately more humane than government which is truly effective but not stable in the long run.
Re: A novelist who took on the Italian mafia and lived
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not true. Organized crime operates largely where people have money, i.e. in Europe, it's mostly UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Sweden...etc.
I’m no expert on global crime stats, but it feels like organized crime used to be way more 'in your face.' Back in the day, the countries you mentioned including Eastern Europe, you’d hear about car bombings, public shootouts, and blatant protection rackets. Doesn't the relative disappearance of that kind of chaos suggest things have actually improved? Look at the UK, for instance the fact that average police officer…
Organized crime doesn't like publicly visible violence. That's bad for business. They only resort to that when they feel they have no other choice. They do shit like bomb judges and get into shootouts with the police when they have to exert their power, not when they feel secure and business is good.
A better measure of organized crime is the sort of crime they profit from, like the general availability of illegal drugs, trafficked women, etc.
Re: A novelist who took on the Italian mafia and lived
#36It angers me that Fascist Italy could push the Mafia to the brink of extinction but Democratic Italy can’t.
Did they? I’m pretty sure that’s just political propaganda of the regime.
I learned about it in the article.
> Under Mussolini, Moorehead argues convincingly, the Mob merely became dormant.
I did some googling and seems like this is a popular belief.
Re: A novelist who took on the Italian mafia and lived
#37It angers me that Fascist Italy could push the Mafia to the brink of extinction but Democratic Italy can’t.
I don't doubt that a fascist regime can solve problems like organized crime effectively. This is because they don't need to care about human rights or the rule of law. The problem is that once the mob is gone, the fascists stay.
Re: A novelist who took on the Italian mafia and lived
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not true. Organized crime operates largely where people have money, i.e. in Europe, it's mostly UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Sweden...etc.
Hell, Belgium is basically a narcostate at this point.
If you think Belgium is a narcostate - oh my :)
People lose touch with reality when life becomes too rich and comfortable, and they become too focused on security. You miss all the other corrosive influences on society.
I've travelled the entire United States, multiple times over, and seen quite a bit of Europe and South America, and I'm in Colombia now.
Latin America, and Colombia in particular would be far more of a "narcostate" according to the popular Northern definition - but perception often isn't reality.
I've never seen the gripping poverty and desperation that's common in the United States anywhere in Latin America; even the poorer communities here tend to be vibrant and well functioning, with families and little farming communities everywhere that are living life well. The fabric of society functions pretty well - health care and healthy food is far more available, far less conflict with government apparatuses (try walking into a DMV anywhere in the states, vs. walking into a government office in Latin America - I think you'll find it enlightening).
The security-obsessed mindset in the United States and Europe leads people to want to stamp out the mafia and cartels, but if you look at the actual outcomes I think it's pretty clear that that approach fails in the long run. Look at Mexico for the worst example of what can happen - being next to the United States the pressures have been high, and it hasn't worked, and cartel violence is absolutely ludicrous.
When people have more of a "live and let live" approach, things tend to stabilize in unconventional arrangements that are on the whole much less toxic to society. So Colombia, which does have cartels, doesn't have the same level of warfare or violence that affects the average person as Mexico does - where you'll regularly see a half dozen army/swat guys on patrol in a pickup with M-16s. Even so, you don't feel the same level of tension about that in Mexico vs. seeing a LEO presense in the United States, where that often means outright harassment for the populace.
There's a lot more to having a functional society than just eliminating elements that run contrary to "popular order".
And Belgium is great :)
Re: A novelist who took on the Italian mafia and lived
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hell, Belgium is basically a narcostate at this point.
If you think Belgium is a narcostate - oh my :) People lose touch with reality when life becomes too rich and comfortable, and they become too focused on security. You miss all the other corrosive influences on society. I've travelled the entire United States, multiple times over, and seen quite a bit of Europe and South America, and I'm in Colombia now. Latin America, and Colombia in particular would be far more of…
> I've never seen the gripping poverty and desperation that's common in the United States anywhere in Latin America; even the poorer communities here tend to be vibrant and well functioning, with families and little farming communities everywhere that are living life well.
with all the respect but what a naive paragraph. i suggest you to go away from touristics places or get into a poor part of any big city in Latin america. the stuff is nasty. what you are comparing is relatively stable rural families that would be an akin to a rural medium class on the USA... you can almost say in 100% of the cases a medium class North American is equivalent of someone from the upper class here. in term of goods/comfort, not work. and if you still romantize as a traveler these poor communities on the backcountry, i suggest to try a week or 2 of their work. just take the routine of a +40 y/o man to check what being 'medium class' is about. being on the hunger line with a bare house is poverty and Latin America has many examples
Re: A novelist who took on the Italian mafia and lived
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
With Putin's Russia transition to authoritarian and recently becoming fully totalitarian, the Russian Mafia of 90s (with the 90s being the most democratic time in Russian history), is pretty much no more. FSB and police have replaced them in the protection and extortion domain. Thus nowdays an arrested colonel of FSB or police may easily have a couple cubic meters of money (euro and dollars) at home, to the envy of m…
How about America? And what about Trump?
America doesn’t have bribery! It has “lobbying”. This has been a problem long before Trump made it shameless.