And in South it had a good soil to develop further. The South was poor. There was no Italy before the end of 1800s. The South was mainly rural, very harsh to live.. the Church had the power, it took care of the functions of the state. The Church took care of the poor, and redistributed the income (taxes).

When Garibaldi came to South to "liberate it" he didn't do just good. He started taxing the people, and the tax money went North, making the South poorer. That made the soil more fertile for further development for any parallel system to the state.

Every region developed its 'art', most cities had different families, the they governed everything locally. From agriculture to politics, selling anything to just protecting businesses. You have a business - you pay me, and no one will rob you. From this point of view, modern assicuration companies do nothing. Yet you pay them - you get no guarantee your property will be in peace. You pay taxes for the state, and in many senses you get nothing back compared to the other tax (ages ago). The businesses are kept local when possible, the streets are safe as they will take care of the singolar molesters.

Things changed in the beginning of 1900. South was more poor than before, and millions of people emigrated. South America and United States were the biggest receivers of the emigrants (not only Italians migrated, most Europe did). Brazil, Argentina and other Southern countreis developed their own systems mixed of the existing ones (Italian ones and the Spanish). US (but still mostly Sicilian governed) clans started collaborating with the Sicilian ones. I cut here - there's more material that I can ever shorten it enough. The business got different. Drug and car money were easy and fast -- only then the mafia systems came to cities. Before they were just rural. With drug etc business it got more money and many things went wrong.

Things exist for a reason. Sicily has been governed by dozens of popoli (people, nations). Arabs, Siculi, Sicani, Elymni, Greeks, Spanish, Italians, Garibaldi, Germans, Romans .. all of them bringing something, leaving something.. what would the local people do? The only way during the history it could have anything of its own was by a parallel system to the state. The mixture is interesting. Sweets, with Arab and Spanish influences, architecture at its bes t unique .. and the system, stronger than the state could be. You can't cut it away with any state legislation, because it is stronger than what the state is.

Globalisation will be interesting. Already in Naples there have been conflicts with the Chinese people. Chinese are known for their own systems, and they are conflicting with the local. And are the phone centers of Palermo governed by the local families only or by emigrants too?

And another interesting issue is that many cities are still too rotten. Cleaning two pickpockets from the streets will resolve nothing. The pickpockets and other dirty work makers have only to survive, if the state gives you no work what do you do. Die or just survive?

The real cleaning should start from high. And in many citites the cleaning would be very big. It would affect the city councils, major universities, hospitals, construction companies, national research institutes .. the money comes, and it goes.

Universities get money, the Ones get that money and computers are still old, running Windows 98 or Mac OS 6.8, most computers running at least one pirated sofware (AutoCAD, ArchiCAD, PhotoShop, MS Office etc) rather than using the money on purchasing tools.. the buldings still collapse.

The buildings designed and signed by major university professors, the calculations go still wrong and every now and then there is a building that falls down (I do not want to give a concrete example here), that is built against the law (Punta Perotti), that is not strong enough for its intended use (University of Palermo, the new faculty of Architecture. Would fall down if it was used as university building, and it is not put down because that would cost money too), tens of hospitals that have been in construction for 20 years (e.g. in Castellaneta).

Clean all that, and the mentality of favors. Quit indroducing people to other people and paying them only for favors and just because they exist.

Parmalat was one of the biggest milk industries in Italy, and now it is in crisis because its money loundring to South America has been discovered.

Football is in "crisis" because if you own football (soccer) teams and some of the major tv chains too, you can tranquilly tell as a truth that soccer needs more money (because you have to charge so much for the viewing permissions). The star soccer players are in crisis, screw the fact that in South 60 % of the people under 30 years of age are not working.

The parallel system can work only when there are enough people on the lowel levels, if you don't have to live on the survival instincts there is no need for such structure in its complexity.

Feed the universities, so that you have students and not the unemployed... whatever you try when it's all too clustered, the money still will go thru the same people.

The truth is uglier than a tv show would show you.