7 ms·
It angers me that Fascist Italy could push the Mafia to the brink of extinction but Democratic Italy can’t.
by null_deref 8mo ago
It angers me that Fascist Italy could push the Mafia to the brink of extinction but Democratic Italy can’t.
- markus_zhang 8mo agoMafia exists because legal entities refuse to take responsibilities —- oh it’s too expensive to do X so we will leave it alone or legalize it. So eventually the underground takes over and Mafia becomes quasi governments. To eradicate you need a stronger central government that is willing to send its probes into the deepest of the society and has a strong hand. Unfortunately this also has unforeseen consequences as well so is not everyone’s cup. Some societies prefer a stronger central government and some don’t.
- fragmede 8mo agoDoes it need to be centralized?
- markus_zhang 8mo agoAfter a bit of thought, no it doesn’t. Actually a better way is to have strong citizens than a strong central government.
- locallost 8mo agoOne Mafia pushed the other out. No improvement for normal people.
- MrBuddyCasino 8mo agoThey can, they just don’t do it. This is the case in every western „liberal democracy“.
- alecco 8mo agoThey just loooooove the campaign contributions.
- blell 8mo agoWhy does that anger you? Democracy is fundamentally unable to solve such issues.
- null_deref 8mo agoPlease elaborate I think there’re quite a few examples that contradict this
- Etheryte 8mo agoNearly every democratic country in the world is a counter example to this, what do you mean exactly?
- dauertewigkeit 8mo agoNot true. Organized crime operates largely where people have money, i.e. in Europe, it's mostly UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Sweden...etc.
- blell 8mo agoHell, Belgium is basically a narcostate at this point.
- koverstreet 8mo agoIf 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 :)
- nkrisc 8mo agoThat’s just the state mafia replacing the other.
- viktorcode 8mo agoThey pushed them out of Italy, which forced mafia to adapt in the US, eventually becoming richer and stronger. A much more powerful transnational mafia returned back to Italy.
- oriettaxx 8mo agoby "they" do you mean Mussolini? What exactly Leonardo Sciascia mean in his "Porte Aperte" is the fascism merely "anesthetize" the mafia rather than eradicating it (gaining temporary Sicilian consent through illusionary repression)
- trhway 8mo agoWith 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 many mafioso around the world. Or Chechnja - instead of many smaller (and poorer and less organized) warlords of 90s, now there is only one with personal army of 40000 and exploiting the whole region in the style of the most cruel mafia.
- pandajoy 8mo agoHow about America? And what about Trump?
- y-curious 8mo agoAmerica doesn’t have bribery! It has “lobbying”. This has been a problem long before Trump made it shameless.
- cucumber3732842 8mo agoThis. We do't have bribery have made the bribery above the table to "legitimize" it and make the useful idiots and enablers simp for it. The "pure" act of lobbying is only the tip of the iceberg. There's all sorts of incestuous revolving door and distasteful but not illegal dealigns between government and the industries government favors. If I had a nickle for every time I read a "if you don't like your tax dollars being spend on <obvious handout bullshit with negligible positive impact on anything> then you should go vote about it" or "if you do't like the govermet squashing <something> at the obvious behest of <entrenched interest> just vote harder" comment I'd be rich enough to buy an entire train worth of boxcars to put those comment's authors on.
- fragmede 8mo agoThere's corruption, and then there's corruption. Yes, lobbying does look a lot like bribery, but it's a matter of degree, and the difference in the degrees matter.
- silcoon 8mo agoDid they? I’m pretty sure that’s just political propaganda of the regime.
- mikkupikku 8mo agoI 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.
- oriettaxx 8mo agoa couple of links about this https://historycollection.com/the-mafias-secret-role-in-helping-the-u-s-win-world-war-ii/ https://historycollection.com/the-mafias-secret-role-in-help... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborations_between_the_United_States_government_and_Italian_Mafia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborations_between_the_Uni...
- null_deref 8mo agoI 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.
- mikkupikku 8mo agoThe 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.
- karmakurtisaani 8mo agoI 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.