McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld | Misha Glenny

McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld | Misha Glenny | The globalization of organized crime

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McMafia: A Journey...

	McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld Misha Glenny Knopf, 2008 - 400 pages average customer review:based on 26 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

An engrossing and comprehensive portrait of trans-national crime

The title of Glenny's book, McMafia, encapsulates the reality of the modern phenomena of organized crime: in our globalized world, organized crime has attained a size, sophistication, wealth, and reach that is comparable to the most successful multi-national corporations. In a series of engrossing vignettes that detail the inner workings of the most prominent trans-national criminal syndicates, Glenny illustrates that in many instances, criminal syndicates surpass multi-national corporations in influence, efficiency and wealth. Glenny's book traces the origins of the globalization of organized crime to the destabilizing effects of the collapse of the former Soviet Union, and the utter unpreparedness, and apparent unwillingness, of national governments and global institutions to contain the ensuing chaos. The reluctance to act, motivated in part by political expediency, and in part by a willingness to look aside when criminal activity results in greater profits for legitimate corporations, has created a situation where a system of global racketeering threatens to eventually subsume the system of global trade. Already, according to Glenny, criminal activity accounts for nearly one-fifth of global GDP.

Glenny delineates a criminal economy that is sustained by a set of interlocking core criminal enterprises: smuggling; drug-trafficking; counterfeiting of goods and currency; human trafficking; illegal mineral extraction; arms trafficking; and financial fraud. Glenny's richly detailed portrayal of the operations of trans-national criminal syndicates paints a stark portrait of the wide and ever-growing gulf between men and women, the ultra-rich and the desperately poor, and ethnic majorities and ethnic minorities. Ineffective or non-existent financial controls, combined with irrational policies governing labor migration, drug prohibition, and commercial trade--as well as an insatiable appetite for illegal drugs, illicit sex, and cheap luxuries--exacerbate these divisions, and nurture an environment in which criminal activity not only thrives, but is often the only resort if an individual wishes to survive.

As McGlenny's sober assessment of the corrupt state of the global economy makes clear, until national governments, international institutions and civil society come to terms with the reality that the economic and political fates of the world's nations are inextricably interwoven and devise a coherent regulatory regime that governs the international movement of capital, goods, services and labor in a just and rational manner, our descent into global anarchy will only accelerate.

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The globalization of organized crime

Glenny's McMafia records a host of examples of organized crime that burst loose after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The fall of authoritarian states in Eastern Europe allowed organized crime to step in and take over the economy. Former officials transferred state assets into private wealth. People who had lived on the margins of society took the chance to engage in selling illict goods abroad to amass a fortune.
Glenny articulates how the fall of the communist state and the concomitant opening up of hitherto isolated countries created new organizations that took control of domestic economies but also pervaded western economies that were attractive markets for illicit products like drugs, taxfree cigarettes, prostitution and the like. Lack of rule of law in the East combined with Western regulation made for a toxic mix of exploitation and extertion. The UN trade sanctions on Serbia and Montenegro also created opportunities for smugglers. Globalization further unleashed an exodus of people from China and elsewhere towards western countries to try their luck. The rise of prices of oil and other natural resources contributes to profits from organized crime. Glenny sketches a fascinating picture of the grim realities of the underworld with a keen view of the interdependence of law and lawlessness, state and criminal organizations.

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Good worldwide overview of global crime, marred by author's biases

Misha Glenny took on a great task in attempting to provide an overview of organized crime around the world. On the whole, he does a good job in describing the nature of organized crime in various countries. Glenny makes it clear that virtually every nation has organized crime and that it is intertwined to one degree or another with government. This incestuous relationship is not news; rather the news is the growing scale of organized crime.

The subject matter of each chapter (a different nation or kind of crime, i.e., drug trade) is interesting, but Glenny'a verbiosity and penchant for smothering the reader in minute detail rob the book of true vibrancy. Reading it, I found, was a bit of a slog.

Where Glenny fails is in allowing his own political views to color his narrative. Glenny's hostility to the United States and, particularly, its current administration is palpable - and obnoxious. His remedy to the problem of world wide crime comes from the left: more global governance. His comment that "organized crime aand corruption will combine with protectionism and chauvinism to engender a very unstable and very dangerous world" is almost laughable. The world's mechanism for "global governance" for the past sixty years, the United Nations, has proven itself to be very corrupt, chauvinistic, protective of its own ever expanding mandate and an abetter of crime among even worse sins.

The intelligent and sophisticated reader will easily filter out Glenny's politics and appreciate "McMafia" for what it is: a reasonably competent, if wordy, overview of organized crime around the world. In that regard it is well done. I would say it is frightening, but the truth is that this kind of crime and its love-hate relationship with government has always existed. It is more the scale that has changed than anything else.

Jerry

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mcmafia