In 1999, I lived in Albania for a period of time after the complete collapse of both the government and the economy. This is what i saw…

Within 2 years, the people themselves had built a working local economy, even importing goods from other parts of the world, which had been impossible under the previous regime. They traded in cash, the Deutschmark, since their currency was worthless.

There were no functioning banks. Currency exchange happened in a particular part of town where money changers congregated, and you would negotiate trade percentages with them. Surprisingly, these places were largely crime free, and while the changers would try to trick you into higher percentages, they would not rob you because if they did, their long term ability to make money would be compromised through reputation. The other money changers tried to prevent crime to keep their business appealing. And because they were competing, you could get pretty good deals if you were smart.

These changers would trade with big time traders, usually mafia, who could get in and out of the country. They traded fairly with the changers in order keep the profits going, and um…”strongly discouraged” overtly criminal behavior on the part of the on the street changers.

Another unexpected thing was crime. While petty crime was rampant, large scale crime was almost non existent. I eventually learned from locals that the mafia made it clear that if you crossed a certain line, you would just disappear. The mafia understood that if society completely collapsed, everything they had would disappear. So they actually enforced a “no extreme violent crime” law of sorts.

But here is the weirdest thing.. people stopped at intersections. They generally obeyed traffic laws which no longer existed and could not be enforced. The people themselves did this to prevent chaos. This blew me away, and completely changed my ideas about government.

A restaurant i would frequent was owned by a large Albanian man who always had a 45 auto on his hip. No one got out of line there. And as he was on the beach, anyone who showed up by boat to steal pretty Albanian girls for trafficking, would be shot at, making his part of the beach one of the safest.

A few years later, when government began to be restored, all of the peoples small booth stores which had been built along the sidewalks were torn down by that government, taxes were re-instituted, and many of the imported goods i used to buy from those families were no longer available unless you were wealthy. Many of the out door events which the people would organize ceased.

Crime increased. Everything returned to normal.