[busyant]

Thank you for the link.

If you haven't heard of this book, you may find it interesting:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Basis_of_a_Backward_...

The Moral Basis of a Backward Society is a book by Edward C. Banfield, an American political scientist who visited ... the ... town of Chiaromonte, in the Southern Italian region of Basilicata ... in 1955. He observed a self-interested, family-centric society, which sacrificed the public good for the sake of nepotism and the immediate family. As an American, Banfield was witnessing what was to become infamous as the Southern Italian Mafias and a self-centered clan-system promoting the well-being of their inner group at the expense of the other ones. Banfield postulated that the backwardness of such a society could be explained "largely ... [by] the inability of the villagers to act together for their common good or, indeed, for any end transcending the immediate, material interest of the nuclear family."[1]

Banfield concluded that Montegrano's plight was rooted in the distrust, envy, and suspicion displayed by its inhabitants' relations with one another. Fellow citizens would refuse to help one another unless their own personal material gain was at stake. Many attempted to hinder their neighbors from attaining success, believing that others' good fortune would inevitably harm their own interests. Montegrano's citizens viewed their village life as little more than a battleground. Consequently, there prevailed social isolation and poverty and an inability to work together to solve common social problems or even to pool common resources and talents to build infrastructure or address common economic concerns.