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Oh no, they built tons of cheap affordable housing. How terrible of them! I’d be interested to hear the viewpoints of Sicilians on this one
by davedx 3y ago
Oh no, they built tons of cheap affordable housing. How terrible of them!
I’d be interested to hear the viewpoints of Sicilians on this one
- toyg 3y agoThe Mafia always enjoyed some support among people who benefit from it, which is why they make this sort of populist move in the first place. That doesn't mean they are as legitimate as a proper democratic government. It's like saying "oh, the local feudal Lord helps us fight bandits!" - yeah, but he can also cut you down in the street without due process, doesn't care about your opinion, and might enforce ius primae noctis, without any recourse.
- sparrowInHand 3y agoHe also might be a upstart bandit in the first place. Such nobleness of mind and character. Gods chosen!
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- lelanthran 3y ago> It's like saying "oh, the local feudal Lord helps us fight bandits!" It's not exactly the same, because > - yeah, but he can also cut you down in the street without due process, doesn't care about your opinion, and might enforce ius primae noctis, without any recourse. If the mafioso goes too far they lose the support of the locals. I mean, sure, the population has no recourse when some henchman rapes some bride, but the organisation's management usually enforce their rules on their own members rigourously and violently, too. In the case of losing what little support they have with no profit involved, it's not hard to see why these organisations don't actually allow Droit De Signeur. They're a business, first and foremost. Allow, even encourage, violence to increase profits? Sure! Use violence just for kicks? Probably not.
- xandrius 3y agoAre you actually trying to argue in support of the mafia?
- lelanthran 3y ago> Are you actually trying to argue in support of the mafia? No, I'm saying that it's not exactly the same as fuedal overloads are. Organised crime are a business, first and foremost, and like all businesses (whether legal or not) focuses on profit.
- actionfromafar 3y agoFeudal overlords operated under similar constraints as the mafia today. They couldn't be too bothersome, or the peasantry could support a rival.
- doggacula 3y agoIn a Hollywood movie, sure, with obligatory leading warrior woman role. In real history, not so much. With very rare exceptions (like England [1], and some Eastern European lands were at least some of peasants were militarized) peasantry had little military value [2], and therefore little factor in any rivalry. Also feudalism had more strict rules in regard to competition for resources compared to modern criminals. A rival had to appear first, and in most cases needed to have rights at least somehow proven by genealogical tree, and old agreements. While it did happen, it couldn't just because of peasants. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assize_of_Arms_of_1181 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assize_of_Arms_of_1181 [2] https://academic.oup.com/book/39423/chapter-abstract/339145791 https://academic.oup.com/book/39423/chapter-abstract/3391457...
- Maken 3y agoThere was no need for a rival. Peasant revolts were actually quite common and in some cases they succeed in forcing their feudal lords' hands, to some degree [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Remences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Remences
- lynx23 3y agoSo, like every goverment, then. "The government always enjoyed some support among people who benefit from it, which is why they make this sort of populist move in the first place." Yes, checks out.
- sparrowInHand 3y agoWell, if its all equal, why not move to mogadishu?
- lynx23 3y agoNo, thanks. I've seen Black Hawk Down... Too many cowboys in that area.
- mamonster 3y ago>It's like saying "oh, the local feudal Lord helps us fight bandits!" Well, the whole point of the Mafia is that it's a sort of reactionary movement to defeudalisation/uniformisation in places that are far away from where the power centralizes (the exact same reason why Yakuza started after the unification and why a lot of gangsters are from Kyushu). It also pisses me off that people use the word mafia inappropriately, for example "Russian Mafia" or "Moroccan Mafia" have no meaning, these are not feudal organization like Mafia or Yakuza
- paganel 3y agoAt this point I'd take the feudal Lord a hundred times over any democracy, at least the feudal lord had the obligation to provide housing and a piece of land for his people/peasants, unlike democracy, which by this point is just an empty concept used to keep the current hegemonic system in place (and I could understand how come what they call democracy is still popular in places like this one here, places where people don't have to worry all that much about mortgages/paying rent)
- tgv 3y agoThat's the edgy opinion of someone with no knowledge of the past.
- paganel 3y agoNothing edgy about it, I think about this subject quite often, as a matter of fact. And I'll ignore the "no knowledge of the past" thing, even though a discussion around Marc Bloch's La Société féodale could be interesting (I've read it in Italian [1], what other edition/translation would have you recommended?) [1] https://www.lafeltrinelli.it/societa-feudale-libro-marc-bloch/e/9788806152536?inventoryId=4768921&queryId=5bd09c11a909dd4cfa88064b0261b706 https://www.lafeltrinelli.it/societa-feudale-libro-marc-bloc...
- toyg 3y agoLol, this hyperbole is laughable. Feudal lords were obliged to provide shit for peasants; if such peasants rebelled, 9 times out of 10 they would be massacred on the spot. The degree of arbitrary rule they expressed is something we just lost knowledge of, in the first world; but go ask Africans or South Asians from regions infested by warlords, to get a taste. What about one day you send your daughters to school, but it's the day Mr Lord decides he needs some new sex slaves, and your daughters just disappear? What about Mr Lord needs some cannon fodder for some hopeless adventure, so he just raids your village, rapes a few women, chains you and your kids, and leads you to inevitable death? That's just Another Day in Feudalism for you.
- paganel 3y ago
- sparrowInHand 3y agoLets see how that worked out for turkey. Oh, can i have syrup on those pancakes when the earth shakes. Mafia shit never works. Its tofudreg construction - in the midst of europe. Railway stations with no rails going in.
- 0xDEADFED5 3y ago> I’d be interested to hear the viewpoints of Sicilians on this one that's a big part of TFA, here's an excerpt: The Sack of Palermo did not happen because a criminal organization imposed it from the outside though the use of violence. It was, rather, a chosen, planned and enacted project involving most of the Palermo elite of professionals, entrepreneurs and politicians, cheered on by a new middle class looking to climb the social ladder, and accepted by the underclasses in need of jobs and housing.
- xandrius 3y agoIt's just like you have no idea how mafias operate. Cheap affordable housing from a government is absolutely not the same as cheap affordable housing from a criminal organisation.
- verisimi 3y ago[flagged]
- beAbU 3y agoNo snark intended below: I'm genuinely curious what the difference is according to you. From where I'm standing I sometimes struggle to see the difference between my government and a mafia. They behave in uncanny similar ways.
- mannykannot 3y agoAt the scale seen in Palermo (though not only Palermo, by any means) it is effectively a government (and this point is an element of the article), but without a constitution (unless you count "submit to violence" as one) and sustained economically by extortion, corruption, and drug- and human-trafficking. Lest this seems smug, let me say that, with SCOTUS struggling to find anything wrong in the events of January 6 2021, I am not feeling at all smug.
- psunavy03 3y ago> with SCOTUS struggling to find anything wrong in the events of January 6 2021 Might want to work on your reading comprehension there.
- xandrius 3y agoIt is not impossible for a government to act as a mafia (see Russia). But I believe it's impossible for a mafia to be a functional government, they are just built on different grounds. For me a functional government has the wellbeing of its citizens as a mission. There might be different opinions on how that would look like (hence democracy) but the idea is that; once the government is unchangeable and only cares about maximising the profits of its cadre then it starts becoming more and more like a mafia, just a legalised one.
- hellerve 3y agoI recommend visiting the Ecomuseo in Palermo [1] if you ever have the chance. They examine, among other things, the lasting impact of the subpar building of now mostly crumbling structures by the Mafia that still litter the cities of Sicily. Yes, the mafia built housing, but it’s not the kind of social housing we might hope for—it’s mostly slum-like. Of course, the city of Palermo is also EXTREMELY densely populated—I read something like the fourth-most densely populated city in Europe in a magazine once, but can’t source that now, so take it with a grain of salt. Nota bene: I’m not Italian myself; my wife’s family has their roots in Sicily. [1] https://www.marememoriaviva.it/ https://www.marememoriaviva.it/ (website only (?) in Italian)
- sparrowInHand 3y agoUnpopular but, the south of italy is a middle eastern country, in all metrics.
- lou1306 3y agoUnpopular? One of Italy's most popular historians likes to joke that, back in ancient Rome, any budding politician would have taken a post in Syria or Lybia over one in Gaul or (shudders) Britannia any day of the week. And every time, the audience just laughs and nods. The Mediterranean was a highway, not a frontier.
- HPsquared 3y agoMore like Greece, I think.
- AngaraliTurk 3y agoI've heard and read Greece being compared to the Middle East as well, more than one time.
- pmontra 3y agoMost of it used to be Greek colonies before Roman expansion, so yes.
- 3y ago
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Maken 3y agoIt's also falling apart, literally. I have been in Sicily and modern buildings, highways and bridges are in really bad shape due to faulty concrete. Closed roads and buildings wrapped in scaffolding everywhere.