Stefano Shines a Light on the Mafia and the Black Market

Sometimes the people you travel with can give you as much interesting information as the local guides. We found this out every night at dinner when our friend Stefano Vaccara would share his thoughts about Italy over glasses of wine and bowls of pasta in Bologna.

Our last night found us in a grotto…we entered down a long ramp and there were rows and rows of bottles on the walls. Stefano teaches about Italian life and culture at the New School and edits an Italian language magazine called America Oggi. We talked about the mafia. He grew up in Sicily and I asked about whether today’s mafia is as powerful as it was in earlier decades.

“Do you know the one that thing really killed them? The one thing that deflated them and had the most disasrous effect was a visit in 1992 of Pope John Paul II, the Polish Pope. He wasn’t scared of them, and he spoke to a crowd in Agrigento of about one million. He directed his message directly–“You women, he preached, you donne, you help the mafia, if you do this you are no longer members of the church.”

From this day forward, he said, the mafia was never as strong, this blow was right to their heart. The mafia was and is always about power, not money, different from in the US.

We also talked about Italy’s black market economy, where as much as 40% of the labor is untaxed. “In the south of Italy, they sell more Fiats than the income on the books could possibly support,” Stefano said. Italy has much more money than anyone ever lets on, and this broken system just seems to work. It’s almost impossible to fire someone here, in a big company. The only way is if they don’t show up, but basically, you can’t get fired,” he told us.

Even though this restricts employers and takes away flexibility, the place is still a joy to visit and most people are happy. So a broken system, I guess, is one I’d love to live in.