Forget slow food, meet slow drugs!

After doing this for a long while, the farmers began to trust him. He helped organize them to pool their labour at harvest time, share equipment, etc. He then helped them achieve enough financial security to gain legitimate financing and end their relationships with the mafia loan sharks. Until he came and injected a little liquidity and trust into the system, each farmer could only count on the financial support of the mafia, which came with an enormous rice tag. He built up the social capital, and the mob lost their marketfor eoensive loans.

I can’t find the reference.

Maybe someone else knows this story.

It’s my impression that stimulants like amphetamines were the big popular drug. Back in the 90s, you’d alway hear of some man working himself to death after 48 hours straight at his desk or in his shop. Well, that’s a drug overdose actually.

But on the Putnam hypothesis, did the Veronese (high social capital) drug dealers function better/more efficiently/more innovatively than their Sicilian (lower SC) counterparts? Or are the mafias islands of high social capital wherever they are?

As someone who spent the 90s working in Russia in the metals trade (especially scrap) I’d say that Solzhentisin is also a good guide to both the Russian Mafia and the Communist era managers who held on. “Vory” is very much a useful template (sorry, was).

Back then standard advice was to choose your “krisha”*. Your “roof”. They would get a cut of the action, protect you, and also provide your export licences etc. One really rather disturbing thing was the way that “krisha” in sign language was the two hands facing each other by the palms, the ends of the fingers touching and the wrists apart. Think “here’s the church, here’s the steeple and here’s all the people” and stick with the steeple.

When Viktor Chernomyrdin ran for Prime Minister, the posters had his hands in that position, under the party name “Nash Dom Rossiya” ….”Our Home, Russia”.

• We chose a scientific institute, no thugs, no special licences, no bribes and this is why I now have a small Russian metals business, not a large one. Plus, at least on this point, a clean conscience.