Throughout European history, the importance of personal contacts has taken many forms and labels, the best known of which are nepotism, patronage and clientelism. The concept that contacts are crucial in coping with legal and bureaucratic organization is one aspect of the combination of group and individual interests that has profoundly influenced urban life (Weber 1978, esp. ch. 16) and, in fact, the rationalization of civil society.

Neapolitans say, ‘Chi ten' sant' va 'mparavis'’ (Contacts with saints get you to heaven). Our study of strong continuous interaction between resources of very different kinds has suggested that the popolino are bearers of a culture that links this maxim with values such as cleverness (sapè fà), ‘God helps those who help themselves’, ‘I don't want to be subject to anyone’, and ‘If you behave like a sheep, you'll become a wolf's meal.’ The political framework of this aspect of the agency/structure relationship in Naples indicates a complex moral conflict between different purposes, expectations and values. An outline, however rough, ought to address at least two major issues: first, the dichotomy between ordinary people's entrepreneurial spirit and the left's strategic interest in the formalization of social relations and the state-sponsored industrialization (and the related proletarianization) of the South and, second and more important, the historical bias generated by central-government assistance implemented through local potentates (Lepre 1963; Graziani and Pugliese 1979; Gribaudi 1980; Mingione 1985; Pardo 1993). This policy, particularly abusive because unsupported by structural investments, is resented by many Southerners as undignified benefaction (see also Prato (1995) and, with reference to different ethnographies, Hann (1996)).