The Negative Counterculture of The Italian Camorra

Over the thousands upon thousands of years that humanity has been around, culture has been the spark that set humans apart from any other animal known to Earth. With diverse sets of culture and norms, there’s no surprise that several groups of people break off of, and eventually turn against, dominating ideologies. A simple term has surfaced to describe this exact scenario; a term well-known to every sociologist: counterculture. Countercultures range in every aspect, however, there is one in particular that is most interesting in the terms of its history and how it has shaped the world around it; it is most known as the Italian Camorra, a powerful and bloody mafia.

According to “Mafia” by Jonathan Steinberg, the Italian Camorra used to simply be named the Mafia, and although the term Mafia has been generalized to many other crime syndicates (e. g. Russian Mafia, Chinese Mafia, etc. ), the Camorra was truly the original. However, the exact origin date or founders isn’t factually known. Many sources date as far back as 1863, but the first documented cases of the Camorra show up around 1940’s. The most concentrated activity from the Camorra show up in Sicily, but it slowly migrated as far as Northern Italy. The region of Naples, Italy, however, eventually became the official headquarters for the Camorra as it is today (Steinberg pars. 1-2).

The main goals of the Camorra, or of any organized crime group, is the same as that of any legal business: to make money. The catch, though, is the act of making money through illegal means. In John Pike’s manifesto of the Camorra, he states that the main goal was always to gain profit through any means, good or bad. Organized crime was actually an ironic term, for the Camorra wasn’t organized by traditional means. There were no elected leaders or officers. It naturally organized itself through different clans like states within a country. Many groups of armed gangs interact and coexist among territorial lines like packs of wolves. Despite the fact that there are several clans of the Camorra, they still run as a unified group (Pike pars. 2-9). As for profits, the Camorra highly participates in drug trade and prostitution, but the most money is made through public-sector fraud and the blackmailing of political leaders (Britannica par. 1).

With organized crime about, societal norms have been challenged in several ways. The most obvious norm they violate is how they gain their profit, but there’s much more to it than that. On the negative side, the Camorra contributed to the rise in drug addictions, as well as sex work. Certain families in local Italy became interlaced with the Camorra, immediately associating many names with the crime syndicate that more or less shaped the upbringing of many children. Values of loyalty and hard work became defined in ways that were different from the norm. Depending on which clan one is most around, those values varied. According to Medagalia and Bregolin, the economic impact of the Camorra was great. They generated 30. 1 billion USD to the economy (Bregolin and Medagalia par. 4). Not only did this shape society’s view of the Camorra, but it even sparked the idea that they were economic relief. This largely affected the amount of people who went to the Camorra in desperate need of financial stability. Not only that, but with organized crime being so common in Italy, this made an impression among other parts of the world as well, thus creating stereotypes.

Compared to other countercultures, the Camorra is more of a negative one. The illegal activities performed by the organized crime group ranges in many ways, as does their effects. Although the Camorra has created many bloody battles within the country of Italy, it largely shaped the view Italians had within their own society, as well as other societies have towards them.