Why is southern Italy poorer than northern Italy? | Hacker News Reader

Why is southern Italy poorer than northern Italy?

statsandsociety.substack.com

35 pointspaulpauper25 comments

Anyone who wants to understand southern Italy should read "Il Gattopardo" (The Leopard) by one of the last peers of Sicily.

Not sure about the malaria cause, but it is true that the South of Italy has traditionally been far less free and far more dependent on agriculture than the north. It has a history of being conquered over and over again by different foreign powers which led many times to extractive regimes (and inevitably less innovation - some parallels to the American south before the abolition of slavery). Such an environment led to them invent something even worse than a disfunctioning state, namely the mafia.

Until reunification in the 1860s Italy had a bunch of city-states in the North, tight fisted control by the Church in center Italy, and an extractive / agriculturally dominant economy in the south ruled by the aristocracy.

One of my parents is from Ragusa and I've spent more than half of my life in Sicily. The answer can be summed up in "Culture, Corruption, Infrastructure, in this order".

I can see the last point improving over time. I give absolutely 0% chances to the first two points changing over time, bar some apocalypse-level destruction and rebuilding of society.

Friend of mine, from northern Italy (Piedmont), puts it down to "bloody meridionali", but it's possible he might be ever so slightly biased :-).

Calling someone a "bloody...ahem meridionali" sounds a lot like those guys who would address a black guy as an "annoying N...nuisance, I mean".

Tell him he can drop the politically correct facade and call us Terroni (or Terun, with an hard-R), no need to pretend otherwise.

Up north the services are just better. I have also read about LEP (essential service levels), the ones down south are disastrous, especially in the worst backwaters. Culture is downstream from that. People down south are neurotic, bent on "survival" over building up, and as such their choices are less optimal. There is no need for apocalypse, because in some cases the South of Italy has already gone through it.

In response to this question, my Sicilian grad school roommate says:

"Sicilians are horny and lazy, it's not complicated, I'm not reading this."

He now works in banking. Much to think about.

Italian banker...

This phenomenon isn’t confined to Italy. You see it across Europe, the US, and (reversed) in Australia. Charitably, you could chalk it up to sunnier regions being better for agriculture and not cities, but I think that heat simply causes the human brain to thermally throttle, which makes humans in hotter climates slower (and dumber). And less enterprising, and wealthy. And certainly humans need to be more resourceful to survive in areas with less food available. Is it a coincidence that the last uncontacted tribes are all in the equatorial belt? Coelacanths of the modern world!

More speculatively, Europeans in particular could have been subject to extreme selection pressure during ice ages. Glaciers made it all the way to central Italy, which would have definitely shaped the evolution of humans, both biologically and socially, in those areas.

Finally, humans are less fertile at higher ambient air temperatures, and the risk of death greater than in milder climates. A population boom spurs all kinds of cultural and evolutionary and epigenetic changes.

There's got to be more to this. Otherwise Russia wouldn't exist as is.

What about Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Roman Empire, India, Maya civilizations, Islamic Golden Age societies, Singapore etc? Northern regions have also historically been poor, isolated, and technologically stagnant. Seems pseudoscientific racial/climatic determinism to me.

We got a 3000m tall volcano in the middle of Sicily (currently full of snow unless it changed somehow since I last saw it this morning) and the Appennini in Umbria and Marche (800-2400m elevation) whose temperatures are roughly on par with those in most of northern Europe.

People living in those areas are not particularly smarter than those living on the coast, I'm afraid. Correlation is not causation, yadda yadda.

yup, this applies worldwide with some exemptions (Singapore), the closer you are to equator less motivation you have to develop various ways to survive since the land provides you with everything, further you are from equator more hostile the enviroment, thus you need to develop to survive

https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2012/03/20/why-is-there-s...

Why is there such a rich history of now-wealthy countries colonizing the Global South? Could their enterprising nature not provide for themselves without stealing?

That low-effort Forbes article just talks about correlation. With some groundbreaking speculation thrown in.

> If I saw a six-month Swedish winter coming around the corner, I'd probably be pretty quick to get my act together and start laying in supplies

> Could their enterprising nature not provide for themselves without stealing?

Oh no, it could. Stealing is just easier, you see.

Some people in the wealthy countries of the world use a large portion of their income on rent, have to own a car to commute 1h+ to work because they have to live on the urban periphery—because of rent—and can spend their free time doomscrolling about how their lavish lifestyle of commuting and eating processed food is causing climate change. Making the uncontacted tribes look like anti-civilizational geniuses in contrast.

Yes, that's precisely the reason why California is one of the poorest states in the US. People are just dumber there, it's the heat you see.

What a load of pseudoscientific garbage disguising racism.

He didn’t mention race anywhere in his comment. Unless you think Californians or Sicilians are a different race, which is an, uh… interesting theory.

I mean, after having spent some time in both LA and Sicily, I can see some merits on the idea /s.

Unfortunately no, outside of the clubbing and the winemaking scene there are way too many differences. Trying to sell a coffee in Palermo for $5 would be cause for public commotion, for a start.

When I moved from California to a place with seasons I became way less slack with getting tasks done (because winter was coming) and had a personal shift relating to time, tasks, work versus enjoyment (I need to make work more productive because I need to enjoy my tiny amount of summer days, I can't just say 'I'll go do that later' because later will be the wrong weather). Notably this did not involve me changing race.

Or just take today. It feels amazing/invigorating, because the weather is finally nice, there are flowers and beauty all around (after months and months of cold and dark and grey). Life is experienced differently when you have dramatic seasons. I never really had that to such an extreme in Santa Cruz. But Santa Cruz allowed me to be way more chill and aware of myself instead of my environment (it's hot, I can do this later when it's not hot, I'm not dumb, I'll do this later versus 'this has to be done now no matter what turn off attention to what your body is telling you' be it chopping wood in 100f+ heat or shoveling snow in -20f). I think this is why the German/Swiss zombie stereotype is (you have to have less response to negative feelings, winter doesn't care) versus the loving/connected southern zone stereotypes (you aren't going to freeze if you don't get this done so you can care about other things). All with zero race in the mix.

California was attractive because it attracted talent. Most of the people that I grew up with were like me, way more chill than the average person irrespective of their race, in fact the slacker surfer stereotype has traditionally assumed a white guy.

For 99% of human history the warm places did everything in the world. The current 1% blip is in the process of being reverted.

Very interesting read!

Long shot - but I wonder if climate also plays a part, as in the development of Singapore: https://www.vox.com/2015/3/23/8278085/singapore-lee-kuan-yew...

I spent 5 weeks in southern Italy last year.

It felt like visiting a third world country.

My guess is that it is primarily a culture issue.

holy shit these comments are garbage

ctl-f for "genetics" showed zero results. I'll pass.

So you're saying it's a bad thing that the US has spent most of my lifetime squandering its social capital?

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