The function of dysfunction

By all conventional measures, many remote Aboriginal communities are what we'd generally - and perhaps generously - term completely dysfunctional.
High levels of unemployment, substance abuse, violence and abject poverty make them depressing places for outsiders or those like myself who've been brought up with an understanding of western, (sub)urbanised ideals.
Yet, somehow, they manage to work. Food gets bought, kids get fed, battered wives are sheltered and bills are paid.
I suspect much of it has to do with the overwhelming strength of 'family', and the loyalties that go with it. Everyone is some sort of relative up here, which means you'll almost always be taken care of, whether that means a meal, money, a bed or booze. Time, distance and relationship level mean little - it doesn't matter if it's your brother from next door, or your third-cousin-twice-removed from a town 600 kilometres down the track who you haven't seen for 10 years, you'll take care of them when they land on your doorstep. If that means 20 people in a house built for four, so be it. If it means something as complex as raising someone else's kids or as simple as handing over your last smoke without so much as a please or thank you, so be it.
It leads to a culture that makes little recognition of individual ownership or personal possession, instead taking a collective approach to benefit the wider community.
The result? Function from dysfunction...just as long as you don't measure it conventionally.