Social Services [via The Hipcrime Vocab]
Thursday, September 27, 2012
This short article about why Greece’s far-right Golden Dawn party is so popular is telling:
Basically, the Golden Dawn, as I learned when I was in Greece, operates as a kind of quasi services mafia. If you're an (ethnically Greek) old lady worried about getting robbed when you go to the ATM, a menacing Golden Dawn thug will escort you.
According to a source in Greece we heard from today, the Golden Dawn will also perform rent collections on behalf of landlords. The Golden Dawn even distribute free food and have opened up a Grocery store for Greeks only.
With the public sector hobbled and unable to provide what it used to to the citizens, the Golden Dawn has been able to step into a vacuum.... what's key is how the Golden Dawn has positioned itself as an aid to many Greeks at a time when other institutions are decaying.
http://www.businessinsider.com/popularity-of-golden-dawn-2012-9#ixzz27gYDowqy
When central authority declines, those who can step in and provide financial security and stability for the average person take over. This dynamic has been repeated throughout history down through the present day. The warlords that stepped in after the fall of the Roman Empire became the European nobility for millennia. Dmitry Orlov has often written about how street gangs and former KGB became the de facto authorities in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Communism. In the Middle East, groups like Hezbollah provide social insurance, schools, pensions and meal programs (widows whose husbands are killed fighting are taken care of for life). In Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia and elsewhere tribal warlords rule in the absence of central authority. Will we see that exact same dynamic in the West as capitalism breaks down? In America, I imagine it will be the evangelical mega-churches which will fill this role (and have a similar far-right agenda as GD). Orlov puts forward drug gangs, which already rule much of Mexico.
Libertarians often say that government is bad and we need to rely on each other instead. But this is where that often leads, and the results aren't pretty.
More and more it seems to me like the centralized authority of the empire or nation-state is a transient phenomenon in human history. Perhaps we’re just not wired to cooperate on that level.
Posted by escapefromwisconsin at 12:16 PM
This short article about why Greece’s far-right Golden Dawn party is so popular is telling:
Basically, the Golden Dawn, as I learned when I was in Greece, operates as a kind of quasi services mafia. If you're an (ethnically Greek) old lady worried about getting robbed when you go to the ATM, a menacing Golden Dawn thug will escort you.
According to a source in Greece we heard from today, the Golden Dawn will also perform rent collections on behalf of landlords. The Golden Dawn even distribute free food and have opened up a Grocery store for Greeks only.
With the public sector hobbled and unable to provide what it used to to the citizens, the Golden Dawn has been able to step into a vacuum.... what's key is how the Golden Dawn has positioned itself as an aid to many Greeks at a time when other institutions are decaying.
http://www.businessinsider.com/popularity-of-golden-dawn-2012-9#ixzz27gYDowqy
When central authority declines, those who can step in and provide financial security and stability for the average person take over. This dynamic has been repeated throughout history down through the present day. The warlords that stepped in after the fall of the Roman Empire became the European nobility for millennia. Dmitry Orlov has often written about how street gangs and former KGB became the de facto authorities in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Communism. In the Middle East, groups like Hezbollah provide social insurance, schools, pensions and meal programs (widows whose husbands are killed fighting are taken care of for life). In Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia and elsewhere tribal warlords rule in the absence of central authority. Will we see that exact same dynamic in the West as capitalism breaks down? In America, I imagine it will be the evangelical mega-churches which will fill this role (and have a similar far-right agenda as GD). Orlov puts forward drug gangs, which already rule much of Mexico.
Libertarians often say that government is bad and we need to rely on each other instead. But this is where that often leads, and the results aren't pretty.
More and more it seems to me like the centralized authority of the empire or nation-state is a transient phenomenon in human history. Perhaps we’re just not wired to cooperate on that level.
Posted by escapefromwisconsin at 12:16 PM