In order to be a taxi driver you need to get a licence in that particular city. The licence is yours and you can sell it to someone else that wants to enter the business.
So what happens is that people take huge loans to buy a taxi driver licence, and then they sell it when retiring. We are talking about something which is worth around hundreds of thousand euros in big cities.
So they do a lot of political lobbying to impose no competition. They do massive protests where they block the streets (imagine the wasted money they produce in a city like Rome!) and usually get what they want.
That isn't unique to Italy. Canada has a similar regime in many provinces. The city decides how many licenses by a population ratio; sets small fees for taxi license; taxi driver license; and license transfer but in practice the taxi license is privately transferred for hundreds of thousands of dollars and as a licensed driver to rent a taxi costs a fortune. There are more taxi drivers than cabs but the government puts no limit on the number of drivers. Additionally, governments have responded to Uber by creating two separate regulatory regimes leading taxi unions to advocating for new rules to to improve their business or make it harder for the competition.
No way! If I got it right, you were on Mount Etna the day after I was. I would have loved meeting you.
Btw, while in Sicily, my friends and I had the same thoughts over traffic in the Centre and South (particularly Rome and Naples, we had not seen Palermo yet) compared to the North of Italy, and looked up some data on our phones, coming to the conclusion that -despite the traffic being far more orderly in the North- there are fewer deaths in the South. Didn't control for km spent on the road though. Anyway, the discussion was around the same goat-on-the-mountains idea: yes, maybe people in Rome, Naples and Palermo just know how to survive near-anarchy roads in demographically dense cities.
I have spent a lot of time in Naples and was taught to drive there by a calm and patient Neapolitan. It is anarchic, and there is some selfish or aggressive driving (and parking), but it often feels to me that everybody on the road shares the goal of keeping the traffic moving and we're all working to together to achieve that.
A Neapolitan friend who has lived in the north for many years says that in Naples, nobody follows the rules, but they are relaxed when they drive- in Torino, everybody follows the rules, but they are perpetually angry at other drivers, honking and yelling.
"My best explanation: “Culture is everything” stories are both deeply right and deeply wrong. When the price of bad behavior is negligible, the top negative southern Italian stereotypes are true-to-life. Yet culture remains malleable. Modest incentives drastically slash bad behavior."
"Being a righteous scofflaw. Follow just laws. Break unjust laws when the expected gains are positive. The latter happens surprisingly often, because the demagogues who rule us know that the public is often too squeamish to support draconian punishments."
Sicilians appear to be diligently applying Bryan's suggestion to break unjust laws when the expected gains are positive (for them), I'm surprised he's upset by all the broken glass.
Tongue out of cheek:
In a low-trust society like Sicily, people will break most (all?) laws that are convenient for them to break, whether or not the laws are just. In a high-trust society like Germany, people will follow most (all?) laws, whether or not the laws are just. Bryan's suggested third society type, where people obey just laws even if inconvenient but break unjust laws when not coerced, is probably not a stable equilibrium and would likely cause that society to devolve into the low-trust equilibrium.
From my experience driving in Honduras, it looks very crazy and it is, but it is so congested that you can't go fast and so it turns out the to be only dangerous to getting somewhere fast.
BTW My grandparents on my mother's side came from Messina.
A person who begins the speech by saying that Palermo can be "easily" confused with a third world city has never seen the third world and uses that term as an insult. 0 credibility
I saw what I would describe as a slum in Ercolano and it really wasn't that bad. Nothing like a third world slum, where people are living in makeshift shelters and the street is a sewer. Also better than American slums, because there were intact families, it felt safe in the daytime when I was there, and people were pleasant towards obvious outsiders.
For the "slums" of Naples you are referring to Scampia, a popular residential area built decades ago where poverty and social exclusion prevail, very far from the definition of "third world" and not different from the poor neighborhoods of other large european cities. So don't use the term "third world" casually, you just end up being not serious.
I stayed there for a week--I quite liked it, my wife hated it. Food was hit and miss for me, but as you note, the driving was insane but somehow worked.
A comment on taxis in Italy.
In order to be a taxi driver you need to get a licence in that particular city. The licence is yours and you can sell it to someone else that wants to enter the business.
So what happens is that people take huge loans to buy a taxi driver licence, and then they sell it when retiring. We are talking about something which is worth around hundreds of thousand euros in big cities.
So they do a lot of political lobbying to impose no competition. They do massive protests where they block the streets (imagine the wasted money they produce in a city like Rome!) and usually get what they want.
That isn't unique to Italy. Canada has a similar regime in many provinces. The city decides how many licenses by a population ratio; sets small fees for taxi license; taxi driver license; and license transfer but in practice the taxi license is privately transferred for hundreds of thousands of dollars and as a licensed driver to rent a taxi costs a fortune. There are more taxi drivers than cabs but the government puts no limit on the number of drivers. Additionally, governments have responded to Uber by creating two separate regulatory regimes leading taxi unions to advocating for new rules to to improve their business or make it harder for the competition.
That t-shirt you're wearing on the first picture. Am I guessing right that it says: "Richter war richtig!"? ;-)
No way! If I got it right, you were on Mount Etna the day after I was. I would have loved meeting you.
Btw, while in Sicily, my friends and I had the same thoughts over traffic in the Centre and South (particularly Rome and Naples, we had not seen Palermo yet) compared to the North of Italy, and looked up some data on our phones, coming to the conclusion that -despite the traffic being far more orderly in the North- there are fewer deaths in the South. Didn't control for km spent on the road though. Anyway, the discussion was around the same goat-on-the-mountains idea: yes, maybe people in Rome, Naples and Palermo just know how to survive near-anarchy roads in demographically dense cities.
I have spent a lot of time in Naples and was taught to drive there by a calm and patient Neapolitan. It is anarchic, and there is some selfish or aggressive driving (and parking), but it often feels to me that everybody on the road shares the goal of keeping the traffic moving and we're all working to together to achieve that.
A Neapolitan friend who has lived in the north for many years says that in Naples, nobody follows the rules, but they are relaxed when they drive- in Torino, everybody follows the rules, but they are perpetually angry at other drivers, honking and yelling.
"My best explanation: “Culture is everything” stories are both deeply right and deeply wrong. When the price of bad behavior is negligible, the top negative southern Italian stereotypes are true-to-life. Yet culture remains malleable. Modest incentives drastically slash bad behavior."
"Being a righteous scofflaw. Follow just laws. Break unjust laws when the expected gains are positive. The latter happens surprisingly often, because the demagogues who rule us know that the public is often too squeamish to support draconian punishments."
Sicilians appear to be diligently applying Bryan's suggestion to break unjust laws when the expected gains are positive (for them), I'm surprised he's upset by all the broken glass.
Tongue out of cheek:
In a low-trust society like Sicily, people will break most (all?) laws that are convenient for them to break, whether or not the laws are just. In a high-trust society like Germany, people will follow most (all?) laws, whether or not the laws are just. Bryan's suggested third society type, where people obey just laws even if inconvenient but break unjust laws when not coerced, is probably not a stable equilibrium and would likely cause that society to devolve into the low-trust equilibrium.
From my experience driving in Honduras, it looks very crazy and it is, but it is so congested that you can't go fast and so it turns out the to be only dangerous to getting somewhere fast.
BTW My grandparents on my mother's side came from Messina.
I loved the line "When Italians hear about government growth, they hastily visualize themselves as happy parasites rather than unhappy hosts. "
It does sound a lot like the SIVH which you've been critical of before though. Would love to see a post expanding on this.
Beautiful story, can see a content and closely knit family.
Your gifts as a fine dad might out do your splendid writing prowess.
Thanks for sharing your experiences of Italy.. Bryan you've spawned interest for me to take our daughter and 3 sons very soon too..
:)
An american aussie living in Sydney
Doug Devine
There's a good part about Sicily in Thucydides' book.
Great travel journal. You have raised the status of Sicily in my mind.
How was the teaching experience?
Put number four on your list the poetry of Salvatore Quasimodo. https://allpoetry.com/poem/8611619-To-My-Father-by-Salvatore-Quasimodo
Thanks for a insightful and reflective update :)
Come to Bologna next time bryan!
A person who begins the speech by saying that Palermo can be "easily" confused with a third world city has never seen the third world and uses that term as an insult. 0 credibility
Could be. Though I heard the slums on the outskirts of Naples near Vesuvius are really on the third world level.
I saw what I would describe as a slum in Ercolano and it really wasn't that bad. Nothing like a third world slum, where people are living in makeshift shelters and the street is a sewer. Also better than American slums, because there were intact families, it felt safe in the daytime when I was there, and people were pleasant towards obvious outsiders.
For the "slums" of Naples you are referring to Scampia, a popular residential area built decades ago where poverty and social exclusion prevail, very far from the definition of "third world" and not different from the poor neighborhoods of other large european cities. So don't use the term "third world" casually, you just end up being not serious.
I stayed there for a week--I quite liked it, my wife hated it. Food was hit and miss for me, but as you note, the driving was insane but somehow worked.