5 ms·

The (far) north of Italy is a bunch of Germans that happen to speak Italian and wear better-looking clothes. The South of Italy is a bunch of nogoodniks who liv

by Arnt 8y ago

The (far) north of Italy is a bunch of Germans that happen to speak Italian and wear better-looking clothes. The South of Italy is a bunch of nogoodniks who live on handouts from the north unless they... I'm tired of overblown stereotypes already and can't find a suitable mafia-related slur. But even though that previous paragraph was overblown there are differences. Maybe because of the Mafia's firm grip, maybe for other reasons. The Italians seem to feel rather strongly about the differences. Google for "italy mezzogiorno" if you want more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autostrada_A3_(Italy)#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autostrada_A3_(Italy)#History and ponder the sums and delays. It'll make you feel better about the cost overruns wherever you live ;)

toomuchtodo 8y ago
Does the mafia still have influence in southern Italy?
- yulaow 8y ago
  Yes, in particular in the poorest areas. The mafia offers very good pays for criminals jobs in areas where basically there are literally no industries and everyone else is living by welfare support.
- yardie 8y ago
  Yes, and quite visibly too. We aren't even Sicilian, just a humble family preparing our boat for a sabbatical. But we knew which towns not to enter at night, (cough) Gela.
21 8y ago
Maybe, but at the same time, a bigger country is always better. Splitting Italy into two would be worse long term for both halfs. You have the same talk in US, that California and New York pay all the taxes and carry on their back other "unproductive" states.
- Udik 8y ago
  > at the same time, a bigger country is always better Why so? And for whom, exactly? Do you think the US would fare better overall if they joined with southern countries like Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Colombia? Also, Italy is inside the EU. I'm not sure that inside a supra-national entity as the EU the reasons for building bigger nation-states- reasons that were surely valid in the 19th century- still stand.
  - Nasrudith 8y ago
    Induction gives a hood answer. Would your country be better off balkanized with many small territories feuding and redundant administration on every new level? While there are occasional scaling issues there is a synergistic effect to larger unified territories - as opposed to actively occupied ones. Joining together would be a long term investment for the US. Given how well trade matches as size of neighbors attenuated by distance roughly it would pay off long term. Short term at least a significant minority would probably be discontent about it given what happened just with German reunification and they weren't even apart for a century.
    - Udik 8y ago
      As I said, Italy is already in the EU. Why would the small territories of Italy be "feuding" if they were all part of the EU? And I'm not sure that the administration would be much more redundant than it is now. On the other hand, you seem to be taking in account only the economic aspects of a unification. Yes, a unification process with poorer countries would be expensive, but maybe that's not the major issue with it. The issue I'm more worried about is that in a democracy the prevalent culture shapes the administration and, of course, the society. Unifying the US with, say, Venezuela, doesn't mean turning 31 million Venezuelans into Americans; it means making the US 10% more like Venezuela. It changes the identity of the country, and you might like the current identity better than the new one.
    - bobthechef 8y ago
      Redundant administration? By that logic, you might as well create a one world government, but it's a piss poor idea. Consider that redundancy is good in that it creates multiple points of failure. Consider that bureaucracy will scale with the size of the country and not necessarily in the efficient way you think it would. Consider that regional needs and cultures vary dramatically. Even in individual countries, subsidiarian governance is good in that it best matches law and policy with the particularities of each region because local authorities have better grasp of local issues (and where matters are escalated only as necessary). Blanket statements about bigger being better are flatly wrong. And where the US is concerned, the US benefits greatly from a very fortuitous combination of geopolitical factors. Russia, on the other hand, expanded eastward with no such commensurate benefits.
RangerScience 8y ago
I was just in Sicily and we managed to get a local to talk to us about the local economics - we're pretty sure he was willing to open because we were the only people around, and basically confirmed this: that the Mafia made it really hard to get (and keep) anything going.
- Udik 8y ago
  Hm. I think the mafia thing is mostly an excuse. When people- also in Italy- think of the mafia, they think of a vast and powerful criminal organisation- something like an evil multinational- with the power to infiltrate the State and resist to its attacks. The good people of southern Italy then love to depict themselves as the victims of this malignant entity and of the inability of the State to eradicate it. However I doubt the situation is so simple. First, while the mafia might have some form of primitive organisation, it's probably more akin to a coordination of warlords than a company board. Second, it doesn't exist in as vacuum: in the south of Italy illegal behaviour is widespread: corruption, welfare system frauds, absenteeism of civil servants and public employees, absurd privileges of politicians. Politicians often display a peculiar rhetoric, as sonorous as it is utterly void of any concrete meaning. The predominant culture is drenched in self victimisation and apathy. So I'd take the "it's the mafia" refrain with a grain of salt.
  - RangerScience 8y ago
    Well, the impression was less one of "a large organized crime syndicate" and more "wide-spread, pervasive, moderately organized corruption". So, what you described.
  - Arnt 8y ago
    The mafia might now be born in today's environment, but it was born, and still exists, even if its power is receding, and it's been strong enough for many decades to hamper the state's infrastructure. The roads that weren't built or that were poorly built still are poor roads, etc, even if the situation has improved.
squarefoot 8y ago
Here come the stereotypes. The Mafia, as all criminal organizations bearing other names (Camorra, Ndrangheta, Sacra Corona Unita, etc.), do their business on all national territory, with huge investments also in the north. They're not anymore a bunch of ridiculously clothed picciotti gathered around a single boss but well organized corporations which launder their money through investment in legit businesses in order to build strong capital to be used for political lobbying. They're more visible in the south because due to locals cultural differences, they want their presence to be seen over there in order to keep people under control, which is not the case in the north where they stay put for having a completely different way of doing business. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9006027/Mafia-is-Italys-biggest-business.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9006027/...
- riffraff 8y ago
  also, it is silly to believe the criminal organizations operate in Italy alone. For example. 'ndrangheta has been operating in Germany for years (see the Duisburg massacre), and a lot of camorra's drug trafficking goes through Spain. There have been some very high level cases even recently, such as the killing of Ján Kuciak in Slovakia who was likely murdered because he was investigating the connection between ndrangheta and the Slovakian government.

by Arnt 8y ago

toomuchtodo 8y ago

Does the mafia still have influence in southern Italy?

yulaow 8y ago
Yes, in particular in the poorest areas. The mafia offers very good pays for criminals jobs in areas where basically there are literally no industries and everyone else is living by welfare support.
yardie 8y ago
Yes, and quite visibly too. We aren't even Sicilian, just a humble family preparing our boat for a sabbatical. But we knew which towns not to enter at night, (cough) Gela.

21 8y ago

Maybe, but at the same time, a bigger country is always better. Splitting Italy into two would be worse long term for both halfs. You have the same talk in US, that California and New York pay all the taxes and carry on their back other "unproductive" states.

Udik 8y ago
> at the same time, a bigger country is always better Why so? And for whom, exactly? Do you think the US would fare better overall if they joined with southern countries like Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Colombia? Also, Italy is inside the EU. I'm not sure that inside a supra-national entity as the EU the reasons for building bigger nation-states- reasons that were surely valid in the 19th century- still stand.
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  Induction gives a hood answer. Would your country be better off balkanized with many small territories feuding and redundant administration on every new level? While there are occasional scaling issues there is a synergistic effect to larger unified territories - as opposed to actively occupied ones. Joining together would be a long term investment for the US. Given how well trade matches as size of neighbors attenuated by distance roughly it would pay off long term. Short term at least a significant minority would probably be discontent about it given what happened just with German reunification and they weren't even apart for a century.
  - Udik 8y ago
    As I said, Italy is already in the EU. Why would the small territories of Italy be "feuding" if they were all part of the EU? And I'm not sure that the administration would be much more redundant than it is now. On the other hand, you seem to be taking in account only the economic aspects of a unification. Yes, a unification process with poorer countries would be expensive, but maybe that's not the major issue with it. The issue I'm more worried about is that in a democracy the prevalent culture shapes the administration and, of course, the society. Unifying the US with, say, Venezuela, doesn't mean turning 31 million Venezuelans into Americans; it means making the US 10% more like Venezuela. It changes the identity of the country, and you might like the current identity better than the new one.
  - bobthechef 8y ago
    Redundant administration? By that logic, you might as well create a one world government, but it's a piss poor idea. Consider that redundancy is good in that it creates multiple points of failure. Consider that bureaucracy will scale with the size of the country and not necessarily in the efficient way you think it would. Consider that regional needs and cultures vary dramatically. Even in individual countries, subsidiarian governance is good in that it best matches law and policy with the particularities of each region because local authorities have better grasp of local issues (and where matters are escalated only as necessary). Blanket statements about bigger being better are flatly wrong. And where the US is concerned, the US benefits greatly from a very fortuitous combination of geopolitical factors. Russia, on the other hand, expanded eastward with no such commensurate benefits.

RangerScience 8y ago

I was just in Sicily and we managed to get a local to talk to us about the local economics - we're pretty sure he was willing to open because we were the only people around, and basically confirmed this: that the Mafia made it really hard to get (and keep) anything going.

Udik 8y ago
Hm. I think the mafia thing is mostly an excuse. When people- also in Italy- think of the mafia, they think of a vast and powerful criminal organisation- something like an evil multinational- with the power to infiltrate the State and resist to its attacks. The good people of southern Italy then love to depict themselves as the victims of this malignant entity and of the inability of the State to eradicate it. However I doubt the situation is so simple. First, while the mafia might have some form of primitive organisation, it's probably more akin to a coordination of warlords than a company board. Second, it doesn't exist in as vacuum: in the south of Italy illegal behaviour is widespread: corruption, welfare system frauds, absenteeism of civil servants and public employees, absurd privileges of politicians. Politicians often display a peculiar rhetoric, as sonorous as it is utterly void of any concrete meaning. The predominant culture is drenched in self victimisation and apathy. So I'd take the "it's the mafia" refrain with a grain of salt.
- RangerScience 8y ago
  Well, the impression was less one of "a large organized crime syndicate" and more "wide-spread, pervasive, moderately organized corruption". So, what you described.
- Arnt 8y ago
  The mafia might now be born in today's environment, but it was born, and still exists, even if its power is receding, and it's been strong enough for many decades to hamper the state's infrastructure. The roads that weren't built or that were poorly built still are poor roads, etc, even if the situation has improved.

squarefoot 8y ago

Here come the stereotypes. The Mafia, as all criminal organizations bearing other names (Camorra, Ndrangheta, Sacra Corona Unita, etc.), do their business on all national territory, with huge investments also in the north. They're not anymore a bunch of ridiculously clothed picciotti gathered around a single boss but well organized corporations which launder their money through investment in legit businesses in order to build strong capital to be used for political lobbying. They're more visible in the south because due to locals cultural differences, they want their presence to be seen over there in order to keep people under control, which is not the case in the north where they stay put for having a completely different way of doing business. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9006027/Mafia-is-Italys-biggest-business.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9006027/...

riffraff 8y ago
also, it is silly to believe the criminal organizations operate in Italy alone. For example. 'ndrangheta has been operating in Germany for years (see the Duisburg massacre), and a lot of camorra's drug trafficking goes through Spain. There have been some very high level cases even recently, such as the killing of Ján Kuciak in Slovakia who was likely murdered because he was investigating the connection between ndrangheta and the Slovakian government.