Communism and Camorra in Naples

The town of Marano borders Naples' city boundaries to the north. With a pop ulation of nearly 60,000, it has its own local administrative structure, al though in many ways it is part of the "greater Naples'' conurbation of clos e to three million people. One striking peculiarity of Marano is that it is the only town council in southern Italy administered by the far left party Rifondazione Comunista (Communist Refoundation, or RC). This peculiarity i s compounded when one considers that Marano has one of the highest concentr ations of organised criminal activity (which in Naples takes the name of Ca morra rather than Mafia) in the Naples urban area, historically led by the four Nuvoletta brothers - and a far left council administering a highly cri minal locality is a highly unusual occurrence in Italy. This article first presents the town of Marano and its history of Camorra activity, before ana lysing the national politics of RC and the activity of its members in Maran o, principally as administrators of the town council. It then concludes wit h a brief critique of the weaknesses associated with a strategy of traditio nal Keynesian public sector policies being enacted on a local scale, both i n terms of the corruption of local and national government, and the dominan ce of national and international economic trends which ultimately determine many of the major social and economic characteristics of towns such as Mar ano.