While a lot of that is true, there is also a recent sharp uptick in better visibility on the problem. A bit like improving disease detection makes the rates shoot up.
In particular the Madlanga commission mentioned in the article has been uncovering eyewatering levels of incompetence and corruption in law enforcement so there is suddenly a lot of talk around that
That's not to dispute that the situation is bad and the trajectory is negative...but think the economist could have highlighted that context a bit better.
I grew up in South Africa, and there was this classic newspaper cartoon back in the day: a kid goes to his dad and says "Dad, I want to become a criminal!" and the dad asks, "Government or private sector?"
And then you realize that, ironically, LLMs and archive.today, both actual bots, can scrape the site just fine. The latter also serving you the content with no paywalls, ads, JavaScript, permalinks that 404 after a year, and all the other anti-features. It's almost as if news websites looked at the pains one has to go through to legally play a video game in 2026 and all unanimously went "I want this!".
And then a few years later when the site shuts down because nobody was willing to pay for the content that it would still be around if you and others had just ponied up the cost of one morning latte each month.
This is quite an inflammatory comment that warrants more justification. Many countries have struggled with organized crime infiltration of government and have no connection to colonialism, and many colonies also had organized crime. You are implying at one that colonialism prevented this organized crime problem and would eliminate it and the harms of colonialism are lower than organized crime. Those might be defensible positions but you neither articulate them nor defend them.
Americans and Western Europeans have no idea what it means to come from a country where the government can’t maintain a monopoly on violence, and when you say stuff like this it comes across as complaining about “first world problems.”
What’s happening in South Africa is a phenomenon that happens around the third world. And it’s an enormous tax on half of the human population, even in relatively affluent countries like Mexico. Even in many of the countries that don’t suffer from internal destabilization by non-state actors, the solution has been dictators like Saddam Hussain in Iraq or El-Sisi in Egypt. It’s a subject that warrants thoughtful analysis and problem solving by people in the first world. We need you guys to think about how you overcame those problems so those lessons can be applied to countries that desperately need the help.
As someone who was born in Russia and lived there in 1990s, I have quite a good idea of this arrangement. This was not mafia state yet. The mafia state is the modern Russia, where former organized crime groups became fully integrated into the government. Technically, the state retains the monopoly on violence. Practically, violence comes from influence of competing groups within the state. And yes, US is moving towards the same regime type. This is clearly visible to me, from my Russian experience, but I don't understand how to convey this to Americans.
What you’re describing is feudalism, which Russia has never been able to shake. Russia remained stubbornly feudalist while other European countries were developing modern states, and it remains that way. But feudalism, where the government relies on feudal lords to maintain power is distinct from what we’re talking about with organized crime. The argument that the U.S. is heading towards a feudalist state is still wrong, but a much more plausible argument than your original comparison to south africa.
the US is absolutely moving towards feudalism, and the ones pushing it are big on techno-feudalism a la Yarvin and his adherents -- Peter Thiel and Musk, etc.
Yes, most liberal or libertarian white people can’t look at a place like say Egypt and understand why a dictator like El-Sisi is genuinely popular. They don’t have the mental structures to even understand what they’re seeing in a society that’s so different from their own.
> We need you guys to think about how you overcame those problems so those lessons can be applied to countries that desperately need the help
We have studied this problem ad nauseum. The West knew the answer until about a century ago.
Europe became orderly through shame culture, executing criminals and destruction of clan culture.
El Salvador is a modern example.
The remedy is violent, unkind, and not communist so we get indefinite unbounded suffering instead.
El salvador has a dictator whose dragnet policy has locked up plenty of innocent people in a torture chamber without trial, or seemingly any chance of release. There's also plenty of evidence about there being effectively an alliance with the gangs/cartels that got their leaders to stop activities (and probably get freedom as well)
> El salvador has a dictator whose dragnet policy has locked up plenty of innocent people in a torture chamber without trial, or seemingly any chance of release
That also describes European monarchs during the period when modern states were forming. So maybe crushing competitors to the state’s monopoly on violence is just a necessary milestone on the path to liberal democracy?
the Yakuza isn't running local or national governments
in Italy, there are deep ties to governments, esp. in the south, and they've had their fingers all the way into national leadership before; see also: bunga bunga
In particular the Madlanga commission mentioned in the article has been uncovering eyewatering levels of incompetence and corruption in law enforcement so there is suddenly a lot of talk around that
That's not to dispute that the situation is bad and the trajectory is negative...but think the economist could have highlighted that context a bit better.
> Reasons may include:
> Rapid taps or clicks
> JavaScript disabled or not working
> Automated (bot) activity on your network (IP X.X.X.X)
> Use of developer or inspection tools
I mean, I guess. I'm using Firefox, I have an adblocker, and I have tampermonkey installed? And turning off Javascript isn't a bad idea, either.
And there is nothing anyone can say to talk me out of adblockers - ad networks are a delivery system for malware and fraud.
>Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker
Also https://archive.ph/I82C0 works
I'm not sure that particularly matters at this point?
What’s happening in South Africa is a phenomenon that happens around the third world. And it’s an enormous tax on half of the human population, even in relatively affluent countries like Mexico. Even in many of the countries that don’t suffer from internal destabilization by non-state actors, the solution has been dictators like Saddam Hussain in Iraq or El-Sisi in Egypt. It’s a subject that warrants thoughtful analysis and problem solving by people in the first world. We need you guys to think about how you overcame those problems so those lessons can be applied to countries that desperately need the help.
The ideological and demographic makeup of certain internet communities makes them incapable of understanding what you mean by this.
We have studied this problem ad nauseum. The West knew the answer until about a century ago. Europe became orderly through shame culture, executing criminals and destruction of clan culture.
El Salvador is a modern example.
The remedy is violent, unkind, and not communist so we get indefinite unbounded suffering instead.
That also describes European monarchs during the period when modern states were forming. So maybe crushing competitors to the state’s monopoly on violence is just a necessary milestone on the path to liberal democracy?
in Italy, there are deep ties to governments, esp. in the south, and they've had their fingers all the way into national leadership before; see also: bunga bunga
https://www.sars.gov.za/wp-content/uploads/2025taxstats/2025...