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_

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_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".