Amoral Immobilism: Or, What I Learned From a Half-Year Sabbatical in Rome and Naples?
As Italy navigates a period of rising nationalism and the influence of a far-right government, a mid-20th-century concept has regained attention. Edward Banfield’s notion of “amoral familism”—a social pattern characterized by strong familial loyalty alongside limited trust in wider society—was originally used to interpret the persistent underdevelopment of a rural southern village. While the concept has been debated and heavily critiqued, it may still serve in a reframed version for examining some of the tensions between traditional social structures and the expectations of a modern democratic state.
In my class on the mafia as “an organization between primitive rebellion and criminal enterprise,” it was compulsory to read Banfield’s seminal work on “The Moral Basis of a Backward Society.” In the mid-50s, he coined, together with his wife Laura Fasano, the concept of amoral familism, a social structure so narrowly focused on the nuclear family that it undermines broader trust and civic cooperation.
The Roots of “Backwardness”
Inspired by Tocqueville’s insight that association is the mother of all progress in democratic societies, Banfield conducted fieldwork in a Central-Southern Italian village. He hypothesized that certain communities remain “backward” largely due to cultural factors: an extreme conception of family ties discourages collective action and long-term planning. Individuals prioritize immediate gains for their own household, assuming others will do the same.
Banfield’s work ignited heated debates: Was society held together by ethics or historical socio-economic forces? Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm reminded us in his study of “primitive rebels” that Italy’s rural landscape was shaped by land struggles, social movements, and their violent suppression, factors that fostered both criminal organizations and totalitarian regimes in the 20th century.
Over the past eighty years, Italy has evolved from an agrarian society to an economic powerhouse, albeit unevenly. Industrialization, the rise of the service sector, and globalization fueled growth. Domestic migration and mass emigration since 1948 helped redistribute opportunities, while, since the 1980s, Italy has become a net destination for immigrants, even as it sometimes romanticizes its emigration past.
A Divided Italy
My arrival in Rome and later in Naples was a first-hand confrontation with my country of birth. Italy, reborn of an anti-fascist civil religion after World War II, now finds itself governed by a far-right prime minister. Since Giorgia Meloni took office in late 2022, the first woman and first post-fascist leader in the EU’s core, international observers have wondered: Is fascism back? How will she handle social cohesion and migration?
In practice, Italy’s cultural dynamics remain familiar. The state still struggles to maintain its vast patrimony, and Meloni has appointed loyalists, unfailingly male and far right-wing, to key cultural posts. Debates over “Italianità” (Italianness) have resurfaced, as the former culture minister proposes a Museum of Italianità in Emilia-Romagna, defining it as “that innate propensity for beauty and craftsmanship unique to our people. »
Who Gets to Be Italian?
Djarah Kan, a writer of Ghanaian descent, describes in a reportage feeling mocked by an invented Italianità that excludes her reality (see New York Review of Books, June 6, 2024).
“They are trying to invent out of whole cloth a model of Italianità that doesn’t match the reality of the country. They want to impose their idea of society on a society that is changing, however slowly. Because Italian society is changing and there are so many people in their thirties like me, of Chinese origin or African origin or Indian origin, who reside and live in this country.”
She and others of Chinese, African, or Indian origin, many in their thirties, laugh at these nativist definitions, yet it sickens them.
Ismahan Hassan, a second-generation Tunisian and civil servant whom I met at the University of Naples at the presentation of the 2024 Immigrant Report, fights for a genuine “jus soli.” Though educated in Italy, she is constantly reduced to her Arab name. She insists that true citizenship must recognize those born and raised here. To her, mobilization is the only antidote to a government that prizes exclusion. Meloni has a fierce penchant for singling out perceived enemies, migrants, same-sex parents, and intellectuals who have criticized her, as a way of building consensus.
Ismahan said many of her high school classmates, also children of African immigrants, were sent abroad for better opportunities after graduating. The same phenomenon is taking place at Italy’s poshest private schools, many of which are Anglophone. Italy is unique among the core EU countries in that its ruling class now prepares its children to leave. The brain drain has gotten worse over the years. We also talked about how hard it is for immigrants to get a foothold in Italy. Many Italians inherit family real estate; without that inheritance, the social order would collapse.
Redefining Italianità for a Shared Future
Italian society has been able to free itself from fascism, although many of its scattered fragments remain. The ambiguity of modern societies is nowhere better reflected than in the “Belpaese,” (“beautiful country,” a name for Italy used with both affection and a touch of sarcasm). Many things have remained in a state of suspension: conservativism and the need for change; authoritarian habits and the libertarian impulses; primitive nationalism and everyday cosmopolitanism.
The country is far from inert, but there is an immobilism that drives the nation and everybody down. Yet the energy of young Italians like Ismahan, who refuses to be defined by her name, offers hope. Their struggles against the “muro di gomma” (the rubber wall) testify to a deeper Italianità, the courage to redefine belonging and build trust beyond blood ties.
In this sense, perhaps “amoral immobilism” must give way to what Tocqueville envisioned: a society where association and solidarity become the true moral basis for progress. Only then can Italy, and its diaspora of emigrants and immigrants, craft a future that honors both its heritage and inclusion.
Gianni D’Amato is a Professor at the University of Neuchâtel, the director of the nccr – on the move, and the Swiss Forum for Migration and Population Studies (SFM).
