Oddbean

Oh, the incentives for those who secure a position among the mafia, in whatever capacity (Capo di tutti capi, down to street punk) are obvious and clear. The real problem are the peasants who rationalize the protection racket one way or another. In the West, our tremendous economic and material development during the centuries prior to the current encroachment by the State mafia has contributed to the fiction that it was the mafia itself who created it, or at least that the mafia is not an impediment to it. In reality, people here aren't aware of who stupidly rich we are, and the incredible momentum that we still carry from, say, 100-200 years ago, when the State wanted, as all mafias do, but simply couldn't do much because the technology wasn't there yet. And even back then, we had egregious examples of how the State managed to destroy fabulous amounts of wealth by itself using the few levers it had. For example, the Spanish Habsburgs, who were able to vaporize through monetary mismanagement and infinite debt to pay for wars of religion what was probably the largest amount in history in merely a 150 years since the arrival of the Castilians to America, throwing their Spanish and Italian possessions into perpetual economic, social and political underdevelopment to this day. Today the State mafia leech can keep sucking on at will. It will stunt any further growth, as it's happening in Europe most obviously. But there won't be any sudden collapse that people can immediately link to the mafia. It will be a long, slow decline and the peasants won't understand why each new generation lives worse than their parents "say" their parents used to live, while crying for even more State, because all they know is the State and there's nothing outside of it...