Gambetta%201993%20The%20sicilian%20mafia

8/7/2019 Gambetta%201993%20The%20sicilian%20mafia

1/170

_,THE SICILIANMAFIAThe Business of Private Protection

DIEGO GAMBETTA

HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESSCambridge, MassachusettsLondon, England


2/170

Copyright 1993 byt~e Presiden t and Fe llows of Harvard Col legeAll rights reservedPrimed in the United States ofAmer icaThis book ha s been dig it al ly r eprinted . The conrenrr emai n s i den ri c al to [h at o f previous prilltlllgS.First Harvard Univers ity Press paperback edition, 1996Library of Congress Cataloging- in-Publication DataGambetta, Diego, 1952-

[Mafia siciliana, Engush I . .The Sici li an Mafia: the business ofpriva te pro tect ion / DiegoGambetta.

p. em.Translation of: La mafia slciliana.Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 0-674-80741-3 (doth)ISBN 0-674-80742-1 (pbk.)1. Mafia-Italy-Sicily. 2. Organized crime-Economic aspects-

Italy-Sicily. I. Tide.HV6453.l83M34513 1993364.1'06'09458-


3/170

vi - ACKNOWLEDGMENTSand preserve a number of sources and were generally very helpful.Carlo Garnbetra, my father, put his meticulous inspection of the dailypress to very good use to supply me with an impressive collection ofclippings about the mafia.I received funding from two sources. An International Fellowshipfrom FORMEZ (Training and Studies Center for Southern Italy) sup-

ported me during my fieldwork in 1986-87. For this I am particularlyindebted to Guido Martinott i for his spontaneous backing. In 1989 theEconomic and Social Research Council of Great Britain gave me a grantto employ a full-t ime research assistant for a year. Finally, King's Col-lege Research Centre hosted the project and provided both office facil-ities and a friendly environment.An earlier version ofportions of Chapter 6 and Appendix A was orig-

inally published in 1991 as "In the Beginning Was the Word: The Sym-bols of the Mafia,' A rc hiv es E ur op ee ne s d e S oc io lo gi e 32(1): 53-57.My debt of gratitude to Heather Martin and Amanda Heller, whoseedit ing skills have made this book both grammatical and more concise,has reached heights which words cannot adequately express (and they

would edit them out anyway). My deepest thanks are reserved forValeria Pizzini, my collaborator for the last two years, whose cri ticalacumen in sift ing through the empirical evidence has had an incalcu-lable impact on the quality of this book.

> - ; . .

Contents

Introduction 11. THE INDUSTRY OF PROTECTION

1. The Market 152. The Resources 343. The Industry 53

II. THE INDUSTRY IN SICILY4. The Origins 755. The Cartel 1006. The Trademarks 127

III. PROTECTION IN PRACTICE7. Dispute Settlement 1598. Orderly Markets 1959. Disordered Markets 226Conclusion 245Postscript 257

Appendix A:Etymologies ofMafioso and MafiaAppendix B:Descriptions of the Mafia RitualAbbreviations 271Notes 275Bibliography 315Index 325

259262


4/170

Introduction

s-'..

Archaic codes, brutal executions, obscure symbols, blood ceremo-nies: the mafia's manifestations appear so bizarre that itis natural to seethem as remnants of a defunct subculture. Mafiosi seem radically dif-ferent from "us," and the categories which make sense of our dealingsand rituals are deemed unsuitable for understanding theirs; the mafia ismore readily associated with nonrational forces. The mafiosi them-selves fuel and exploit this mythology to increase their power of intim-idation. This book, by contrast, tries to make sense of the mafia insimple, rational terms.But what exactly is the mafia? 1The hypothesis developed here isthat

the mafia isa specific economic enterprise, an industry which produces,promotes, and sells private protection. The mafia represents this indus-try asit has developed in Sicilyover the last one hundred and fifty years.Examples of the same industry are present in different forms in otherparts of southern Italy and in other countries as well. In Sicily itself themafia is not the only brand name; it grudgingly shares the market withsmaller groups which also deal in protection.To consider the mafia an industry is not a novel idea. Writing in

1876, Leopoldo Franchetti called it "l'industria della violenza," and hemeant industry in the literal sense. As his definition suggests, however,the commodity with which the mafia has been most closely associatedis violence, not protection. "Monopoly on violence" is a standard ex-pression in mafia studies to indicate what the state has failed to achievein southern Italy, namely, full control over the use of force. This failurehas been singled out as the main impetus behind both the rise and theperiodic recrudescence of the mafia (Blok 1974; Arlacchi 1983a: 106).This understanding of the problem is in keeping with Max Weber'sfamous definition of the state as an agency that successfully claims a


5/170

2 INTRODUCTIONmonopoly over the legitimate use of physical force within a given ter-ritory, a definition which in turn goes back to a central tene~of ~odernpolitical thou.gbt: from Machiavelli to Hobbes, the orgamzanon andmonopolization of the means of violen~e has been r~garded ,as thequintessential activity of governments. It 1S also the basis on which themafia and the state have been equated.Although facile analogies must be resisted, in analyti~al ter~s thestate and the mafia do indeed deal in the same commodity. ~~1S not,however reducible to the use of force alone, Despite Franchetti s study,which re~ains arguably the best on the Sicilian mafia ~odate, to de~nethe mafia as "the industry of violence" is open to misunderstanding.Vi I' t end a resource not the final oroduct, The10 ence IS a means, no a~~~._,.~ ._ ....,~ , . .. '~"""_~::-::"'E::.=.----C~moditith~ati~reany-at stakdsp!?t~c:~O"n.lt 'may oe a,rgued thatultimately protection rests on the ability to use fo~ce, but It does ~otfollow that itcoincides with it. Protection isan ambiguous commodity.As Charles Tilly writes: "The word protection sounds two contrastingtones. One is comforting, the other ominous. With on~ tone 'protec-tion' calls up i~~~!~against danger provld~d by a pow-erful friend, a large insurance policy, or a sturdy roof. Wlth the other,i tevokes the J}I.~ketn which a local strong man forces merchants ~opay ..tr.ili~de;i:o-avoi.d damage=damage the strong man ~lmselthr;tenitQ~aetiver" (1985:"1701. Those who su~~ly protectlo~ areinclmedoo exaggerate and manipulate its desirabil ity; ~he state 1s,noexception: "Since governments themselves commonly simulate, snrn-ula te or even fabricate threats of external war ... governments the.m-selve~ often operate in esseniially'the -siiway':~r~ckc::te~Es:' (Tllly1985: 171). Rather than ennobling the mafia,tnls parallel makes usreflect on some disturbing aspects of the state.Protection can nevertheless be a genuine commodity and play ~ cr?-cial role as a lubricant of economic exchange. In every transac~lOn inwhich at least one party does not trust the other to comply with therules protection becomes desirable, even if it is a poor and costly sub-stitu~e for trust. This book shows that mafia protection fulfills this,role,albeit in an erratic and limited fashion. The market istherefore rationalin the sense that there are people who find it in their individual interestto buy mafia protection. While some rnay be victims of ~xto~tion, m~nyothers are will ing customers. This situation was perceived m th~rune-teenth century, yet its implications have never been explored m full,perhaps owing to the difficulty of reconciling the facts that the mafia

INTRODUCTION - 3can supply a real service while being at the same time an evil that mustbe opposed. There is a propensity to reduce cognitive ..dissonance byreverting to the view'ofmano'sTis m:ere~exrortlonisii~'--'~--~itdo~s-~OIlow that consumers6fprivate'protection would not be

better off in a hypothetical world where trust was "naturally" availableor else protection was supplied by the legitimate state. The mafia's"consumers" are quite cynical about it and know that mafia protectioniso ften not a good but a l~vil. So~~.~r~ven a",,"~rethat the m1l:~ahau!one much to destroy whatever trust miglifliave developed inde-peridenay:Yet~although the use of private protection may appearobjectionable in principle, in practice it is often a sensible option forcertain individual~Ca. l~,damage the environment, make city liteunbearable, kill appi~~~Sanl"pe~;;~ a year in' Italy-alone; and yet most of uscontinue to drive. T h i S contra'diction does notsurprise us. Similarly, ifwe look from the perspective of the protago-nists, we can grasp the rationale of utilizing mafia services. In both legaland illegal markets those who enlist mafiosi.to sOrJ9ut~he:ir>disputes,to retrievetheirstolen proper.ty, or to p~otect 'aieI~cartels f~orrareerid~an(:rt"Ompetitoisdo n o t perceive that protection as bogus. Theym'aY f e e r a I s s a t i s . 6 . e d because they are forced to pay often for a servicethey seldom use, as with insurance, or because they pay extortionateprices for it, as they do for other monopoly goods. Still, this practicediffers from extortion proper, where the payment aims only to avoidcosts directly threatened by the "protectors." And even if individualsare forced to pay protection--or to pay a tax to the state-it does notfollow that protection, whether by the mafia or the state, will thereforenecessarily be useless. The common view conflates coercion and use-~~~~i~EE2k,_QY_~9Jrast,.sho~s.in~heoi~(~_c:~~a~te: 1)and pra


6/170

4 INTRODUCTION

i

f la and order and public hazards are kept under control: the rela-~ivel;low rate of deaths by drug overdose in Sicily, for example, v . :asexplained by a Palermo commissioner as a c~nsequence ? f the qualityguarantee provided by the mafia. Moreover, in or~er to rid themselvesofcommon criminals or undesirable rivals, mafiosi have been known tooff~rtheir taCit cooperation to state officials. .These connections, however, apply to private e~forcers m general ,regardless of whether they are mafiosi . But th~ Itah~n state has devel-oped specific l inks, both polit ical and ideological, Wlt~ the ~afia. Pol~iticians of more than one party have formed ,Partnerships Withmafiosiin Qr.derto.e'iploit the abili ty of the latter to act as guarantor~. ?~~~m-~-~lex sal~~.()f."Qte~andil!!C::~~:~Jl!erpartyrrang~ll1e~t_~,_(seeCh~pte~ 7).It carl'llardly be expected.~lherefore, that once m power t~ey will dlfe~tstate insti tuti .ms to oppose the mafia. But the most wo~nsome n:xus ISless apparent, though it is seen in the leniency with whl_chsome Judgestreat mafia crimes. Fear and opportunism play only a mmor part. Care-fully disguised a quasi-professional admiration permeates some quar-ters of the judiciary, whose members bel~e~e b?t~that t~e mafiarepresents a legal system (ordinamento giuridico} m Its own right andthat its role'ls corriille.Qtentary rather than opposed to that of the state:In 1955 Giuseppe Guido Lo Schiavo, attorney general of the Corte diCassazione, wrote:The mafia has been said to despise the police and the j.ud~c~ary.Thisis inaccurate. The mafia has always respected the }UdlclaI}-th~law-and bowed to i ts verdicts; nor has it .obstruct~d the ~udgeswork. In hunting bandits and outlaws .. : It e~e~ sld~d WIth lawf Nowadays a name iscirculating within this secret con-en orcers. . . . . . . [ h fi'sorteria asthe officialsuccessor to Don Calogero VIz~ml t e rna a salleged chief in the 1940s and 1950s]. May he contribute to resp.ectfor the law ofthe state and the social advancement ofthe comrnUnity.(quoted inArlacchi 1983a: 59-60)

Although seldom stated in such explici t terms, this wa~ not one judge'seccentric opinion. Itrepresents an ideological con~eptlon ?~he role ofthe state which in turn builds on a specifically Itahan tradition ? f legalthinking. Since its consequences for the struggle of the state against t~emafia are asmomentous asthey are largely ignored, Imust dwell on thisview in some detail. .In a classic text published in 1918, reprinted several times after the

INTRODUCTION 5Second World War and sti ll studied in universit ies today, the Sicilianscholar Santi Romano asserted:From the point of view of the state they wish to overthrow, a revo-lutionary society or an association for criminal purposes [associa-z io n e a d el in q ue re ] will not be lawful [ gi ur id ic i] , . . but this does notrule out the possibility that such associations can comprise institu-tions, organizations, and codes which, intrinsically and in isolation,are lawful. . .. We know that, under the threat ofstate law,there areoften shadow associations whose organization could be deemedanalogous, on a small scale, to that of the state. They have legislativeand executive authorities, courts which settle disputes and mete outpunishments, agents who carry them out inexorably, an~Q_J:'I1p'lex....and precise statutes similar to those of the state. These associations-tnerefo'r~-create their own order, like the state and its legal institu-tions. ([1918] 1951: 44; 123-124)2These statements are the corollary of a relativist approach to therelationship between the state and the law ..B-


7/170

6 - INTRODUCTIONpolitics. It has enjoyed popularity with all kinds of a~tiliberal circlesright. left, and center. It was used insupport of ~orporatlsm, o! the stateas mediator between organic independent bodies (Romano hunself en-dorsed the Fascist regime and became president of the State Council).And it provided legal grounds for the claims toJP,Q~~.!!~_!!!}f$_QLth.e_Catholic church and its institutions (in one chapter of his book Ro-m;n-~~:i'i~~~ssesat length why the church should be regarded a! a~~~~.~,._the law of the state). But it also supplied the le!1=y.rh..1H!Jg!!m~~~_~g~un~any attempt by the state to bani.ini~~~~-popular associations, and r~y~olutionary. parties. .....'--""si~c~ the 'last war this relativist view has survived mutatis mutandisin the peculiar mixture oi-;:yniasmand Catholi~ism whi~h ~e~resentsthe quintessence of Italy's political structure: smce no m~lvldual orinstitution can identify the public good (only God can know It), the roleof the state cannot be to defend and promote something unknowable.The only achievable "public good" emanates from aceasele_~~_Pf~f:~of mediation between the various organized interests present m sociery.This ideological stance is epitomized by the style of govern,ment of th,eChristian Democratic party and has provided supP..Qr~J2~1~s.~ubser:v!_-ence to the church's interests, its propensity for endless compromise,-and its egregious lack of moral energy, consistently low even by theusual standards of politics.The preference for bargaining with rather than combating th~ mafiahas found in this ideology a suitable rationale. Even the ambiguousrelationship between the church and the mafia, documented in Chap-ter 3, could arguably arise from a co~v_~!.g~-~~"q_tJm~r~~!~n oPP91lL{l.state power and supporting the "la"Ylulries~:~~fJ?aral~~tis not surprising, therefore; that some members ofille JudiCiary applythat view to court cases. Corrado Garnevale,-a-judge ..of.the.Corte diCassazione achieved notoriety in the 1980s owing toaJong-string-of"'-~controvefsf~rrulings which systematically set mafiosi free by not up-holding lower courts' sentences. In a 1989 interview he repeate~, al-most word for word, Romano's view: "As far as I know, the mafia IS aninstitution an o rd in ame nt o g iu ri di co with its own rules. A criminalorganization without rules is something else; it isnot the mafia. It maybemore dangerous, but it isnot the mafia" ( La S t ampa , May 25, 198~).Carnevale's lenient verdicts were motivated either by the courts' fall-ures to comply with procedural details or by the assumption that t~etestimony of mafiosi turned state' s witness could not lead to certain

INTR OD UCTlON 7conviction. It isnonetheless plausible to wonder whether the zeal withwhich.this reasoning was applied issustained by an ideological motive,namely, the belief that the state should abstain from intervening inmatters which concern an independent institution, its rules and mem-bers, and these alone. Thus, ~at may appear to be i,Illrder, for in:.,stance, should be regarded as capital punishment, and every "outsjde~i~ventJQn must be deemecLanintJ:.usionjn~egal order" froD}which that act arose.~ very long time no initiative was taken to remove

this judge and others like him suggests that many people in power eithershare or have reason to tolerate his views. Yet even those who (unlikemyself) endorse Romano's relativist position because they earnestlybelieve that it safeguards the independence of civil society against therisk of an overpowering state should realize that they are going too far.This unfortunate outgrowth of antiliberal thinking gnaws at.the legit-imacy of the Italian state and colludes In.rhe.desnucncn-of southernsOCiety.Much of the futu;e relevance of the mafia will depend onwhether and how this conundrum is resolved.This book aims to make a contribution by showing that the paral1el

between the mafia and the state has clear limits, and, consequently, thatthe view of the mafia as a legal system in its own right does not actuallystand up. First, as Chapters 5 and 6 make dear, the mafia is not acentralized industr but is constituted by man individual "firms"united by a brand name and. intermittently, a cartel. T e normsacIopted by the cartel are often breached and manipulated, a~ in noway are they part of a fixed~ly agreed-on code; nor is thereany moral justificati I) f . Next, criteria of universality andequa iry er alone sparency re irrelevant: protection is sold on aprivate. basis" to in ivi ustomers; its price vaiies~accoiding toiJi~customers'weattnand position, the types of services required, and lastbut not least the whims of the seller. The mafia is not even a "minimalstate" as defined byNozick (1974 )-one which enjoys an undisputedcontrol over the use offorce in a certain territory and protects everyone.whether they like it or not. Finally, the parallel with a democratic stateiseven more tenuous: mafiosi are not accountable to their subjects, andthe mafia has not citizens but at best clients. The more accurate coun--erpart to the mafia is a business; To consider the mafia a lawful orderis therefore as absurd as thinking of the auto industry as an ordina-m e n to g iu r id ic o .


8/170

8 - INTRODUCTIONFurthermore, if the economic consequences are take~ into consid-

eration, any justification of the mafia, legal ~r o~~erwls:, makes ~osense. While this industry may satisfy some mdlv~d~al interests, Itsoverall effects are disastrous. SOCIetieSare notin which everything can be bought and sold. toceptably harmonious and comm.odi~ies efficiently ~roduce~changed, the administration of Justice, the~ of .......VI.....rights, the as~ignment of public offices, and the runrung of .cannot be privatized, and the trade in them must be . Rightsmust apply universally, their enforcement unrelated to personal wealth.If these commodities are subject to commerce, the consequences ,arenefarious. Even the libertarian right would think twice before prIva-tizing these goods.! Yet ifprotection isprivately traded~ these goods dobecome private. Southern Italy appears to have fallen into t~at unfo~-tunate category in which the liveliest markets are those which deal mthe wrong commodities. .Even though it ultimately prevents eC?nOmiC~e,vel.opment, the mafiamarket has its own intrinsic tenacity. It ISan equilibrium: ~o one has ~nimmediate interest to behave differently and fight it even Ifone ~eesItSdrawbacks. Miserable and unreliable it may be, but the m,afia,s pro-tection succeeds in making a profit from distrust, thus satisfying theinterests of many. Much of this book is devo~ed to exploring the mt~r-nal mechanisms of this phenomenon. But uleimately, were Itnot for Itsambiguous relations with the state, the mafia would not be such a trou-bling entity. . ,These ambiguities alone, however, do not explain some ?f the ma-fia's most violent actions, especially the2!!urders of so many Ju~ges.andlaw enforcement officials. Nothing of the sort has taken lace m ~It~erthe United States or' a an despIte t e presence 0 "industri,es" Similarto t e Sicilian mafia. Paradoxically, had there been a ~onsls,tently ac-qUIescent attitude-on the part of the state, had the state mvanably cho-sen to bar ain with the mafia, de facto acknowledgin its semilegalstatus--enjoyed, for instance, yt eya uz a mJap~n-the mafia wouldnot have b..ee~oleDt. But the fact is that the ItahCl.!l_~ate~~~E.sbot~__~~~~heroes. There is a split within the state itself whereby to the~n1vance 01 manl there corresponds the struggle of a few loyal ser-vants. Since the late 1970s the Italian state has launched a.ve.ryforc~~lantimafia campaign. If so many in its ranks have lost their .hves, this ISdue also to the fact that not every politician and state official was sup-

'~\.7GYW INTRODUCTION - 9porting them. In the United States the murder of an agent of the law istreated with the utmost severity, and this acts as a deterrent. Wecannottherefore say that the Italian state has lost its struggle against the mafia,simply because it never consistently undertook one.A great deal of the evidence analyzed in this book is directly attrib-

utable to the anrimafia campaign, in particular to the remarkable workcarried out byJudges Paolo Borse1lino and Giovanni Falcone and theircolleagues in Palermo and Agrigenro. The transcripts of the confessionsof eight so-called pentiti-Tommaso Buscetta, Antonino Calderone,Stefano Calzetta, Salvatore Contorno, Francesco Marino Mannoia,Vincenzo Marsala, Vincenzo Sinagra, and Leonardo Vitale-and therecords of the trials triggered by their revelations give the scholar anunprecedented wealth of material. It has been thoroughly scrutinizedand provides much of the evidence presented in this book. In addition,as the reader will no doubt appreciate, if one does not content oneselfwith secondary sources, research of this kind is bound to meet withobstacles. It is difficult to approach the best direct sources or to gainaccess to the most interesting areas of inquiry. This isone of the reasonswhy virtually no study of the mafia is based on fieldwork. Scholars donot like to waste their time with uncooperative sources who refuse totalk or, alternatively, to be shot; they have therefore wisely concen-trated on historical and judicial sources. And so have I. But I also pur-sued an additional route which provides the evidence for Chapter 8,namely, observing areas of interest-such as the wholesale markets inPalermo, the building sector, and taxi drivers-which, although seem-ingly peripheral, can be very revealing.Nonetheless, the theoretical approach propounded here cannot bemechanically applied to facts as if neutrally preexisting. It has a more

radical effect in that it helps us reconceptualize the facts themselveswith respect to other approaches. In particular, itrejects two alternativeviews of the mafia: mafiosi are not entrepreneurs primarily involved indealing with illegal goods, nor are they entrepreneurs in the sense ofhandling violently the production of legal goods. Mafiosi as Sitch dealwith no good other than erotectioD~ Joining the mafia amounts to re-ceiving a license to supply protection rather than simply consume it.Before undertaking this work I thought that the distinction was ana-lytically useful but blurred in reality; in fact it turns out to be dear-cutin the evidence (see Chapters 7 and 9).The mafia (as I argue in Chapters 2 and 3) is an ind ustry which, like


9/170

10 - INTRODUCTIONmany others, is managed consistently with its own peculiar require-ments and constraints. In this sense too, therefore, i t can beregarded asrational. Even the most outlandish behavior (as shown in Chapter 6)makes good economic sense. Facts that have received baroque inter-pretations can be simply explained as strategies which mafia familiesadopt in order to sell protection effectively. This does not imply thatbecoming a mafioso isa particularly rational thing to do; i tmeans onlythat once in the trade, agents must run it efficiently or someone elsewilltake their place.Bycombining a deductive model with a wide range of evidence, this

book tackles most of the issues surrounding the mafia phenomenon.Although it isnot a histo!y-of the mafia, inChapter 4 I do reconsider thequestion ofTts origins and reach a few conausions asto die causes ihiibroughtit~bout. F~rthermore, liighly


10/170

1 - The Mark et

A uaccaro (cattle breeder) I interviewed in Palermo succinctly ex-pressed the core elements of the hypothesis Iwish toprese.rt : "When thebutcher comes to me to buy an animal, he knows that I want to cheathim. But I know that he wants to cheat me. Thus we need, say, Pep~[that is, a third party} to b~ke us_3.l'~. And we both pay Peppe apercentage of the dea1." T IS statement has far-reaching theoreticalconsequences. There are mutual low-trust expectations generating ademand for guarantees on both sides, and there is "Peppe," a man ca-pable of meeting this demand and trusted by both butcher and vaccaroto be capable of doing so. But before subjecting the freshness of thevaccaro's style to the rigor of economic theory, I should place this con-versation in context.We were in a large furniture store in Palermo, where I had gone to

interview the owner, a man of about fifty, born and bred in that part ofthe city. We were talking about credit, trust, and the protection racketin the area. The person who had put us in touch (a guarantor isrequiredto facili tate interviews, to reassure both interviewee and interviewerthat it is safe to ta lk) had himself been living locally for a long time. Togive me some idea of the district, he told me the story of a butcher whowould offer him protection every time he or his wife bought meat at theshop. "Professore," the butcher would say with a heavy Palermo ac-cent, "if anyone bothers you, do not hesitate to call me." This butcher,at the time of the interview, was in jail, charged with being a "man ofhonor" connected to an "emerging" mafia family. While injail, he hadkilled a man who for some reason had to be "punished." This story,among many others, was told to me by my guarantor to demonstratehow common it isin Palermo even for well-to-do families to come intocontact with mafiosi.


11/170

16 - THl: iNDUSTRY OF PROTECTIONI ventured to ask the furniture dealer whether he knew the butcher

and could explain how a man with a successful business might end upin jail and become a murderer. He had previously claimed ~hat thecauses of widespread criminality in Palermo were to be found 10 you.thunemployment, and I thought that the case of the b~tche~,could ~lS~prove his sratemenr. He seemed irritated. by my quesnon. Mr. X IS afriend. Ihave known him since we were kids. Ifyou knew how he cameto be a butcher and what he had to do for it, you would not be s~r-prised." He was, I suppose, suggesting that by m~rdering on commis-sion, the butcher was paying off a debt of some kind to t~ose ~h~ ha.dhelped him in the past. No negative moral judgment ~as implied m hiswords but rather sadness at the fate of his butcher friend , .The furniture dealer himself was probably not part of any IUeg~1

activity or organization, but on his own. admission he ha~ to "be mequilibrium" with the environment. He did not pay protection money,at least not incash, but, as he said, hewas always generous and he~pful,ready to give discounts to the "men of respec~" and extend .credl t fortheir purchases. He was known in the district and was himself re-spected; no trouble had ever befallen him or his trade. At ~ost he ~asintisu a word which inPalermo designates those who, while not being"made members" as the jargon has it, share with the mafia some de reeof 0 ortunistic com lianee and understan' .._ As we were talking) the vaccaro came into the shop to pay for thefurniture he had ordered for his daughter 'S wedding present. He.was aday late inpaying, and he apologized profusely) claiming he had hlm~elfbeen waiting five months for the payment ofa sum a butcher owed him,The dealer introduced us and) after the bil l was settled, brought theconversation back to the subject oftrust bypointing out th~t he ha~ lentmoney to the vaccaro without requiring him to sign f~r It ~ut SImplytrusting his word, somehow implying that the respect IIIwhich he ~asheld was itself sufficient guarantee that the other man would pay himback. It was at this point that the vaccaro told me about the need for a"Peppe." . .The furniture dealer maintained that "peppen was mamly s.eUmg~ the~b.y_m~g_~ransactions poss~bl~, and that ~twa~for this service that he received a 2 percent comrmss ion , When 10 addition he acted as a_guarantor of quali~._~_Il_~.P.~J~,. t~e p~ta~increased. He himselTh~tho~ht ofE~eomm~a Pep~eon-tilelivestock market but was discouraged by the theatncal require-

THE MARKET - 17menrs of the job, which entails a perpetual exchange of insults, simu-lated outrage, ri tual claims of friendship, handshaking, and robustshoulder patting. Both agreed, however, that at least some of the time"Peppe" acted as a guarantor, and that over a given terri tory he oper-ated asa monopo~t.l\!l!!.te transactions in question were iJJegal.Theywere part of the so-called clandestine slaughtering market, a marketwhich has long been said-in one of those wholistic and sinister for-mulas common in this field-to be "under the control of the mafia."~ording tolaw, no transaction ~!>lyinRmeat may take plac~utside_the public slaughterhouse, the only permissible meet ing point forbutchers and cattle breeders. There the problem of trust, as the vaccarohimself pointed out, isJess acute, for the weight, health, and quality ofthe animal are formally controlled and easily verified. Nonetheless,there is an incentive to bypass the legal procedure: the opportunity toavoid tax. 4t a cost which must be lower than the tax, the presence of"Peppe" as informer and guarantor makes this attract ive but illegaltransaction feasible.

A m 1suggesting that, in essence, "Peppe" and hi s colleagues aremafiosi? The answer is, broadly, yes. My claim isthat the main marketfor mafia services isto be found i!ii:iiistabJe transactions in which trusti~~ a?d fragile. ~~ch is the case, for instance, with illegal transac-nons m\VfiTchno legltlmate enforcement agency-in other words, thestate-is avai lable. There are many variants on the model . "Peppe"may be a single person or a network of more or less organized agents.He may supervise every transaction in a given market, or I]e may beasked ex post facto to resolve a transaction in which cooperation and"l~eement have failed. He may protect either buyers or sellers or botha~e .. 1?e situation is further complicated by the varieryoftransactIons requmng protection, for each poses different technical andorganizational demands. These possibilities are all explored in thisbook. Yet, although "Peppe" may appear under many guises, it is nev-ertheless a peculiar evolution of hi s activity which isat the origin of themafia.It may be objected that "Peppe" issimply an intermediary, common

to many fields, times, and places, while the mafia is a circumscribedphenomenon. Intermediaries playa role in all sorts of business from. ,agnculture to marriage, from international arms traffic to the housingmarket, and there is nothing intrinsically mafioso about their activi-ties. 1At the heart of this objection lies a conceptual confusion between


12/170

18 - THE INDUSTRY OF PROTECTIONtwo very different commodities: whether or not "Peppe" displays rna-fioso characteristics de ends primarily on whether he prod~ces andsells information 0 uarantees. sI show inthe next chapter, Ifhe sellsguarantees, he is like, r certain conditi?ns~ to develop m~fiosotendencies, whereas if he limits himself to selling mformat,lOn WI~guarante~ i'eliab~.i ,t~ill not. It is trust ather than information. t~'T ', distinction also clarifies the distinction between mafiosi and

~ ~~:~o roles which are often compared (and at ti~es ~erforme,d:i r ~~~ person). Itmight be thought th~t the essential ~Ifference IS~ one of method-that is, patrons do not use VIOlence.Analytically, ho:w-_.;; a. ever it is more fundamental: patrons are concerned not so much with~l~gua;antees as with supplying pri~~leged information in order to con~~ nectiliciia.lenttl .Q..h.ighJ~r authorities. They prOVidemtroj!_uctions, rec~"" S ommendations, advice--abouLcompetilion for p_ublic c~_I1_!!_ilc:ts,h,e. . . , ? - names


13/170

20 - THE INDUSTRY OF PROTECTIONto sharply differing constraints and opportunities, any successful a~~l-ysis must preserve a dear distinction between protected commoditiesand protection as a commodity. . ..A second and equally important point ansmg from t~e anecdot~ ofthe equine lemon is that, contrary to widespread belief, prorecnonmoney may be willingly paid. Here, the coachman compensates an a~-tual defensive act performed bythe mafioso, so much sothat the latt~r sforced absence is bitterly regretted. The mafioso iscapable of d~ternngthe seller from handing over a lemon. Without that protection thecoachman is truly at risk, for he issaddled, as it were, with a bad horse.Thus, although the optimal outcome for the coachman. would beto buya good horse without paying protection money, he stili prefers to paysome protection money rather than avoid the transaction altogether orpay for a bad horse. . .The fact that the seller also gives the mafioso a cut IS more dlffi~ultto interpret. The vaccaro's words-"he knows that Iwant to cheat him.But I know that he wants to cheat me"-suggest that the seller needsprotection too for the buyer may pay late, not pay at all, pay less thanagreed, write ~ bad check, a~_.so o~_.Thus, wh~let.h~:~~yeE __,lee2~_.protection against being sold goods ?f poor qu.a~l% die sen~r.E:e_~_9sprotection tor eciuivalentre


14/170

22 _ THE INDUSTRY OF PROTECTIONadvantage of everyone else just to show he is a "wise ~uy,", the, mafiaputs things in order and keeps people in t,heirplace. The Im,phcatlOns ofsuch premises, however, are not so straightforward; nor 15 the rol~ ofthe mafioso precisely that of benefactor. There are,three ways, detailed

't in the following three sections, in which protection ca~ fall short, oft being either fair or universal: the mafioso may sell g~nume prote~tlon.~11) only to some sellers (or buyers) at other sellers ~or buyers) ex-~ pense; (2) only to sellers at the expense of buyers (or vice versa); (3~+:7~ neith;r that is he may practice extortion.;.__~~ ,~ -,{ PROTECTION AGAINST COMPETITION- - & - 1+ d f i hr nt .

V1 1l So far we have assumed that the market is rna ,eup 0 just t ee age ,5." ; ; ' S ~ customer, salesman, and mafioso. But if,t?ere 15mo~e than one selle!mJ!he market, the introduction of competltlon comphcate~ the ga~e. In~ ~ this case the seller may pay the mafioso for a further s~rvlce not directly. .L ~ t ~connected with trust: for ,4irecting t~,?~rather than to:::; ~-lfisc1jjIlpetltors.l~pear equally untrustworthy and the rna-~ . : - : S fioso can enforce nonest behavior from anyone ofthem, hemust there-

~


15/170

24 _ THE INDUSTRY OF PROTECTIONI

I 1 Z and Y win customers from X or move into X'sto set a ower one; , 'area, they are not violating any pact, nor are they consldere,d traitors.Betrayal, loyalty, and friendship-key ter~~ in,the mafia leXicon-are,it ere killed by inflation: everyone IS invited to betray everyoneas 1 w , '1 ' Wh relse, and friendship never stands in the way of commer~la gam. . ,e echoice is governed by price, a "miracle" occurs w~lch, n? ~ohtlcalagreement can easily achieve: the demand for ~ru~t ISminimized. Bycontrast, since cartels rely on agreements, defect1o~ IS a permanent haz-ard, and the demand for protection,_fir~stof aUagamst other members,isintense," A Palermo building contractor comm~nt~~ that ~e~o~ld notrecall how many times he had heard the complal~t But ~hlsISdishon-

t!" voiced by one or another cartel member while argumg over someillicit restrictive deal (1-3). Each partner must feel confident that allother partners will comply with the pact; otherwi~~ the,cartel c,ollapses,and com eJitipQ_~f~~J_:rhus, eompennon I~ held m check,first --a~oremost, by orchestrating successful collusive a ~s.The greater the internal cohesion of the carte, t e ess the need to dis-courage external intruders.It is appropriate, therefore , to interpret the enfo~cement of agree-ments within the same analytical framework as dispute settlem~nt.Agreements are transactions in which participants exchang~ pr?mlSeSinstead of ordinary goods. Promises are a peculiar commodity involv-ing a high degree of asymmetry of informa~io~: the par~ wh? makesthe promise knows much more about the likelihood of ItS~emg hon-ored than the party who receives it. The actual outc~me IS the onlyavailable test of the quality of a promise. Broken promises can thus beseen as the "lemons" of their kind.ENDOGENOUS DISTRUSTPrivate protection is not supplied on the basis of principle~, let a~oneuniversal principles. Like any other marke~ ~ood it is supphed stnctl~on the basis of opportunity, and opportumtles are not always conduciveto protecting all sides in a transaction. Whom they protec~ and h?wis a matter not of course but of choice-a complex economiC choice.(The consequent shifts in the types of protected ~eople ~ave been thecause of much confusion. Mafiosi have been identified Withwhomeverthey were protecting at a given moment, and changes of customer havebeen mistaken for changes in the nature of the mafia.)

From the coachman we learn that the mafioso once helped him sella blind horse as a sound one. This indicates that the mafioso does notreally offer protection to al l buyers on the horse market, so he is notdispensing a public good to the buyers, either. We are not told, how-ever, why the mafioso on one occasion satisfies the interests of bothbuyer and seller while on the other he protects those of the latter at theexpense of the former. The victim may be a


16/170

26 - THE INDUSTRY OF PROTECTIONto continue trading. DistrusD!Jay be an unaffordable luxury for thosewith no alternative course of action (Gambetta 1988b). .But are there "internal" reasons-that is, reasons peculiar to the

mechanisms of the protection market itself-which make people ~ul-nerable to buying a lemon? The foolishness or ignorance of first-timebuyers makes for explanations relying on external causes. So to~ doesthe sudden cessation of protection owing, for instance, to the action ofthe police. Intuitively, however, it is tempting to ~eekmore f~ndamen-tal reasons for the instability of the mafia firmwhich co~ld ~rmg aboutits bankruptcy and put its clients at risk. Such reas_onsmight mclud~ ~hepersonal nature of the relationship with customers; the competlt l~namong mafiosi themselves; and the number of tran,sactions an agent ma complex world must engage in even when trust ,I~ a scarce resource.The first two factors affect the long-term durabil ity of mafia protec-tion: ifprotection depends heavily on a single in~ivi~ual, it i~inevitablethat a random accident may suddenly deprive his chen~s of Its bene~ts.At the same time, if internal competition is such that It creates a highrate of bankruptcy, the accident, fatal at times, may not be that, ran-dom. In both cases, from the client's point of view reconstructl?g aprotection contract with another firm may be arduous and time-consuming, leaving one tempora~ily at the mercY,of predators (f~rmore on these points, see Chapters 3 and 7). The third fa,ctormakes Itdifficult for anyone agent to be protected in aUt:ansact,lOns, ~r, con-versely, for anyone mafia firm to protect a client m all his dea~mgs. Ina village or district with few inhabitants, an all-a~ound ~rotectlOn con-tract may sti ll be viable, but it becomes increasingly d~ffi~ult to offeruniversal protection as the number of exchanges multiplies and pro-tection itsel(Q~.~Q_m~_mQ!~"!p-eQalized., .The key point is to establish the effects of pr~vate protection on th,e

total number of lemons sold in a marke_!: It might be thought that.if.,mafi.osiprotect Tnaivi4,~~Iseffect1vely--;-the overall _~u~~~E.of lemo!ls~IcLl~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ . t i - w I r r " b e r e d l i C e a.Despite the appare~t parado~,._~


17/170

28 - THE INDUSTRY OF PROTECTIONSugden 1986) that norms of good behavior in business evolve f~om an _eco omic interest in keepi romises and acqumng a reputation ~orhonest dealing: erwards a sentiment of morals concurs Withinterest, and becomes a new obligation upon mankind" (~17,40]1969: 574). There being no such interest in Sicily, or on,Iyt? a limitedextent on account of the protection of the mafia, the hkeh~ood thatthese 'norms will become dominant, anticipating experience a~dgiving rise to virtuous circles, is diminish~? This ma~ also, explainwhy the opposite norm obtains and the abil ity to cheat ISpraised andencouraged."EXTORTIONThe reader may wonder how the foregoing tallies with the co~mon-place view of the mafia as offering protection from danger and distrust,which the mafia itself creates. The mafia does nO\lU o~he~words, sup-ply a real service but merely practices extort~on.1 ThISVIew ISm p,artthe result of an informational bias exaggeratmg the effect of extort~onas opposed to those transactions in which the likelihood of beingcheated (or being caught cheating) is truly reduced as a resul t of pro-tection. We hear more about the former simply because dealers aremore likely to talk to the police in this case than in,the latter. ,In the lastthree chapters of this book Ipresent a body of eVidence which pro~esbeyond any reasonable doubt that mafia protection can be genumeindeed. But here the argument must still be developed in theory.Protection isa peculiar commodity even w?en it issold by.the most

legi timate authority. When we pay taxes or msurance pr~mlUms, wepay without receiving anything in return other than the ng~t to use acertain commodity when and if we need it and want to us~ It. We payfor it, in other words, even if the service is only a potential on~. Forinstance, we pay for homeowner's insurance in exchan~e for a ~md offinancial protection which we may never need. Protection ~equ,lres a,napparatus which must be sustained even when the protection ~t~elfISnot used. Worse still, by paying taxes, we pay for some commoditIes wemay never use and for others we may believe to be usele~~or harmful,such as military weapons. Sometimes legitimate authon~les ,may evenforget we have paid for certain rights ,and may need reminding, muchlike the two mafiosi in this story, which was told by Pete Salerno, anAmerican mafioso turned state's evidence:

THE MARKET - 29A phone call comes inan' Figgy gets on:"Okay. we'll be there in a few minutes." He turns to me:"Pete, wehave got a problem at the fruit place. The fruit guywantswhat he has been payin' for-protect ion." Up 'ti l now we hadn'tgiven that much thought, that a guy would actually want us to pro-vide protection for his money. Figgy had told the fruit guy:"If there's a problem, we'll take care ofit." Itwas a freak thing, butnow we had to do something or they would revolt-stop paying.(quoted in Abadinski 1983: 150-151)

Pete and Figgy had set out with the intention of extorting money on thepretext of providing protection, but then, to avoid losing face, theywere forced to honor their promises and were ob1iged to supply realprotection.

Itmust also bestressed that forms of behavior comparable to extor-tion are rife in the world of ordinary commodities. Imagine that blow-ing up a shop window was an act of intimidat ion to extort money froman innocent merchant. In abstract economic terms one might say thatthose responsible were trying to increase demand for :heir product byunfair means. Consider now a company producing cars which putscovert pressure on the government or on individual politicians to spendmore money on highways and less on railways, irrespective of whetherthis is in the public interest. The latter example is, in economic terms,precisely analogous to the former: the car company is also trying toincrease demand for its product by unfair means. The fact that oneperson commits a crime does not excuse another's doing so. Neverthe-less, this parallel serves to demonstrate that whatever the commodity,the temptation to manipulate demand exists, and the extortion perpe-trated by "organized crime" isnot necessarily more common than thatperpetrated by big business. These unorthodox comparisons are notintended to suggest that private protection isin any way desirable. Onthe contrary, they simply set it in a broader context in which manyother undesirable transactions of an analyt ically similar nature areforced on us and encourage us to search in greater depth the reasonswhy mafia protection is specifically ruinous. Common sense is notenough.The ambiguous distinction between extortion and genuine protec-

tion goes deeper and derives in part from the fact that protection as acommodity has both positive and negative externalities. Let us considerf irst the latter. Imagine that in a given area there isa small but constant

~ ..w:r~...J (JI''")'\- ~ , ~ .v{(c~. . .


18/170

30 _ THE INDUSTRY OF PROTECTIONroportion of unidentified cheats (or thieves) who are independent of~hemafia and that the probability of being cheated (or robbed) byth~mis on average low enough for local merchants not to bot~er buymgrotection. Assume, however, that some do begin to buy It. Perhaps~heysimply worry more than others (jewelers, for example, who st~ndto lose more}"; or perhaps in an area densely populated b~ prote.ctlonfirms they enjoy protection as the open credit of kin or fnendshlp; or

~ haps they yield more readily than others to the threats of t~e p~o~~ ~::tion firms. Only in the last case would we be justified in consldermg1 the first dealers to yield victims of extortion. But even so,.as more a;d.... more dealers buy protection, the r isk to those who do not l~creases, or"" if the protection iseffective, predators will concentr.ate their efforts .on

..... .. .~ the unprotected. As a result, there will be a progressIvely more gen~l~e1 incentive to buy protection, which would act as a ~atal~st for a c am. ~ reaction in which everyone ends up buying protection slmplr b~ca~se'"'O~ everyone else is doing so. The greater the number of ~eop e uymgt lr""' rivate protection, the greater t~e need.for others to buy Ittoo: I~o~he~tI\-) ~ords, even ifthe process isinitially tnggered ~y ~hreats and m~lmlda........~ tion and can thus be seen as extortion, once It ISunder way It s~on.{""'ecomes very difficult to claim that the remaining dealers are buymg.J E 1 bogus protection.11 .'}. Ifwe call this practice extortion, we must also mrerpret as extortI~~" 'J (,.II our paying for a number of other goods which.we buy simply to avo!:f. ..- r the consequences others impose on us by buymg them first. Cars and

- . . : ! $ j advertising are two good examples. In a city where most peo~le travel1- $ by car, the efficiency of public transport is reduced, an? thl~ further... ~ encourages more people to buy cars. Similarly, if all firms m an ~ndustry~ ~1 pay for advertising, then every new firm planning to enter ~hat.mdustry

-J" w i must take advertising costs into account whethe~ they like It or not.~ ~ Protection isnot dissimilar from other supposedly mno~uous comrnod-

~ ities based on collective equilibria which are far from Ideal.These examples demonstrate the case in w~ich, if some people buy-i protection this constitutes a negative externahty for th?se who ~o not...:; ~ Consider now the positive externality in which protection functl.ons as~ a public (or indivisible) good. If, for instance, the ~ocal ga~age ISpro-

tected, then other merchants enjoy derived prote~tl?n by ~Irtue of thefact that thieves are afraid to enter the street. Slmllarl~, in a marke~reputed to be protected by a mafioso, outsiders are less h~ely to cheat.even ifonly a few pay for protection, all benefit , for outSIders may notbe able todistinguish those who are protected from those who are not.

_ .............. ~ ~v.V.J~~~~ ........-~: ~.- \


19/170

32 THE INDUSTRY OF PROTECTIONentrant, this may look like extortion. But from the P?int of view ofthose dealers already buying protection, the extra cost Imposed on thenew entrant isprecisely one of the reasons they pay for protection in thefirst place: to deter new competitors. The matt.er is theref?re one ofperspective. W:lether we are dealing with extortion or genume protec-tion depends on whether we are the new ~n~r~nt or ~he protecteddealer. 14 In essence the two are equivalent, as It ISImpossible to protectsomeone against competition without damaging competitors at thesame time. The same applies to lobbies, governments, and the mafia. Inshort there is no economic reason to prevent oligopolies from paying, ..'organized crime for protection against competitors. .A further reason for the simplistic view that the mafiosi would them-selves commit the crimes against which they claim to offer protection isthat evidence suggests crime is if anything more widespread where themafia ispresent. In 1990, for instance, Sicily, with only 9 perce~t of ~hetotal Italian population, accounted for 24 percent of the nationwidenumber of robberies. IS Although crime may be related to other causessuch as unemployment, it is natural to infer that mafia protection isuseless at best and possibly bogus. But even without the benefit of anyconspiratorial logic, there is a sound theoretical reason why the pres-ence of the mafia encourages crime. This does not imply that mafiaprotection is not effective; on the contrary, it is effective-but in pro-tecting the wrong people. .Ordinary citizens dislike being cheated or robbed. But something wetend to forget isthat so do thieves: there isnothing like a di.shon~st ~enceto spoil their sleep. They cannot resort to the law, and, being criminals,they have an excellent reason not to trust one another. Thus, thievesneed protection badly and, as a result, become particularly eager cus-tomers. Correspondingly, if protection is readily available, the te~p-tation to embark on a criminal career increases, since it becomes easierto dispose of stolen goods or to avoid retaliation. So why sho~ld ma-fiosi discriminate and systematically protect only the property rights ofthe robbed against those of the robbers?In an ordinary legal society everybody, like it or not, effectively signsa contract by law and receives protection accordingly. But imagine i~-stead a society in which property rights are not defined and no one ISautomatically protected. Here, property rights are acquired only byactively signing a protection contract the terms o~w~ich are open tonegotiation. What is understood elsewhere as a c~lffie IS here regar~edas a particular kind of dispute between two parties, Legal convention

THE MARKET 33

"," ' : .

neatly distinguishes victims from perpetrators, but in mafia terms theright not to be robbed (or kidnaped or cheated) is greater than the rightto rob or kidnap or cheat only if the victim's value to the protector islikewise greater. In fact, there is no such thing as rights. If a thief payswell enough, he qualifies for protection just like anybody else. Mafiosihave no prejudices in this regard. Prerogatives are allocated to the high-est bidder, who need not be the richest. The features which distinguisha good customer are not ordinary ones; his wealth and potential abilityto pay-and consequentl ythe quality of the protection he receives-areassessed in ways not immediately apparent to conventional economicunderstanding. The customer may simply be a party to a long-termprotection contract. He may be short of cash but capable of returningvaluable favors. Services not for sale elsewhere gain common currencyhere: votes, marriage, murder, bureaucratic dispensations, credit facil-ities, selective privileges of all sorts. Only so long as mafiosi serveequally attractive customers will their intervention be fair.An old argument contends that mafia have good reasons not to push

their demands too far because, as Franchetti ([1876] 1974) claims, "Ifthe villains made use of their destructive abilities to an extreme degree,they would soon lack the very matter from which to steal" (p. 126).This is less a theoretical than an empirical observation, for it does nothold under aU circumstances." The extent to which it does hold de-pends on the mafioso's time horizon: as it shortens, the temptation toprey grows." As with all dealers, ifthe future looks uncertain, protec-tors will maximize present over future income. They will bemore likelyeither to sell bogus protection or to charge extortionate prices for it, orboth. Moreover, they will have an incentive to arbitrate betweencrirn-inals and victims rather than systematically protect the latter or, worse,protect only delinquents. Finally, if customers know that the mafioso's"life expectancy" is short, they wiH be reluctant to buy protection.Consequently, mafiosi need to employ energetic forms of promotion. Inbrief, as the time horizon shrinks, protection approaches extortion.Conversely, mafiosi who see a long future in business ahead of them, orahead of their descendants, are less likely to harass customers for fearofrisking future income. They will also bemore likely to protect victimsrather than robbers or cheaters, and, correspondingly, dealers will alsofeel more relaxed about purchasing protection. The overall degree ofstability of the protection industry-an issue which concerns us in thenext two chapters-is , therefore, a crucial variable in predicting mafi-oso behavior.


20/170

2 ,..;The Re sou rce sA s in other markets, in the protection market too there are ~hea~sselling bogus protection. A local entreprene~ tol~ me,t~e (to him hi-larious) story of a northern firm doing business 10 Sicily on a largecontract. The firmwas approached by a man making the vague sorts ofthreats for which mafiosi are renowned. So sure had they been thatsomeone would at some point demand protection money in pre~iselythis way that they took it for granted this was the person. They paid upfor about two years before realizing they had been conned; their "ma-fioso" was a phony (1-3). .Still, not everyone has what ittakes to sell guarantees and protectionsuccessfully. According to Antonino Calderone (AC: 1,181), a memberof the Catania mafia family murdered an employee of a northern firmwhich was building a canal in the area. Unaware that both his fut~reexecutioner and Calderone were employed by the fum for somethingother than the delivery of bricks, this hapless laborer, posing as a realmafioso, made extortion calls to the engineer in charge of the project.Unlike its more gullible counterpart, this firm had learned the rules andhad taken out "local insurance" against any such trouble.As for the production and sale of commodities, performing"Peppe's" role requires certain resources. Let us conduct a tho~ght ex-periment and ask ourselves how we would go about producing andselling guarantees and protection. Assume, therefore, that among ouroptions for a career, if not necessarily a brilliant on_e,is that of becom-ing a "Peppe." Ifwe live in a country where there IS already an estab-lished class of "Peppes," our imagination is less severely taxed by en-visioning this possibility; also the costs of apprenticeship are reducedrelative to those for someone who must start from scratch.According to Leopoldo Franchetti, the acceptance of violence in Pa-

THE RESOURCES - 35lermo isdue, among other things, to the "large number of brav i [thugs]in the service of the lords residing in Palermo and whose descendantshave preserved the family tradition" ([1876] 1974: 94, 98). The abilityto accept bloodshed, in other words, is not a subcultural characteristicbut a specific skill which, like more pacific skills, can be transmittedfrom one generation to the next. In earliest childhood, then, we wouldhave learned that trust is a scarce resource in our world, and that whilethis lack makes life difficult, i tcan also turn out to be profitable. Whenstill a schoolboy the American gangster Charles ("Lucky") Lucianonoticed that some of the older Irish and Italian kids were waylayingthe younger and smaller Jewish kids on their way home from school,beating and robbing them. [Lucky] turned this to his profit . For apenny or two a day, hesold his protection to the potential victims. Ifthey paid they could be sure that their daily trips to and from schoolwould bemade insafety, for though young [Lucky]was never a giant,he was tough enough and old enough to make his promise of pro-tection stick. (Gosch and Hammer 1975: 6)Mafioso education has its costs, too. A retired boss recounted that

when he was a young boy, hismafioso father made him climb a wall andthen invited him to jump, promising to catch him. He at first refused,but his father insisted until finally he jumped-and promptly landedflat on his face. The wisdom his father sought to convey was summedup by these words: "You must learn to distrust even your parents."! Ifwe can imagine how the boy must have felt then, we are ready to beginour experiment.'INTELLIGENCE AND SECRECYGmerta, although etymologically related to manliness. and strength,has come to signify specifically the capacity for maintaining silenceunder adverse conditions, presumably because this quality is held bythose who value itto be one of the manly virtues. In particular, the termtraditionally refers to the silence a large sector of the Sicilian populationis capable of maintaining in the face of public inquiries into crime, andtheir general reluctance to talk to strangers. The mafia represents thequintessence of this capacity for secrecy, which, along with the capacityfor violence, usually heads the list of mafioso attributes. Against thisview I argue that secrecy vis-a-vis the authorities is but one of several


21/170

36 - THE INDUSTRY OF PROTECTIONforms of secrecy, and perhaps not the most important one. Hand i~hand with secrecy goes information, a fundamental aspect of the busi-ness which has hitherto been virtually ignored.' Furthermore, s:crecyand intelligence are not mythic cultural codes but necessary attnbutesifone isto trade in protection.Ifwe want tooffer our services convincingly to both the butcher andthe vaccaro, the horse trader and the coachman, the first and foremost

resource we need is information. We must make sure that we k?owenough about them-their businesses, t,heir child~en" their Wives,whether they are carrying any debt or credit, who their friends are, andso on-and that we keep such information updated. The reaso,ns ~orthis need are straightforward: we must have som: ide~ of,t,heobjectiveconstraints they are facing to be able to assess their reliability. ~e ~eedto know about their private affairs not only because they may impmg~directly on their economic ones but also for the purpose of blac~mallshould either party consider cheating the other and thereby u~ m theprocess. Even ifwe protect just one party to ~transac~lon, we st1l~need .to know whether the other isharmless, that IS, not himself (or himselfprotected by) someone equally tough or even tougher.Our clients, too, need to know that we know something about them;otherwise they would not take usas credible guarantors. Our capacityfor gathering information is part of our reput~tion. ~hey may evenhave an interest in deliberately disclosing certain details about them-selves, for each party understands that the other will be encouraged ~oenter into the transaction if he knows that we, as guarantor, are mpossession of privileged information. They need not necessarily kno~what we know about the other; indeed, it is better if they do not, for Ifour position as monopolist over information is weake~ed, they m~ylearn to exchange without our guarantees or even step Inas potentialguarantors themselves. But they must at least ~e~i~vethat w.e ~no~enough to keep the other party in line. The posslblli~ of retahatio~ ISitself grounded in information. Even if we could easily res?rt. to VIO-lence as a deterrent and discounted milder forms of retaliation, wewould still need information about the parties' property and where-abouts to know where to direct our violence.Building and managing an intelligence network may be difficult,t ime-consuming, and treacherous, but it would be one of our first tasksas an aspiring "Peppe." Information gathering relies, fi~st of a1,l"on anumber of personal qualities such as a good memory, an ability to

THE RESOURCES - 37formulate productive questions quickly and pose them tactfully, anunassuming and attentive sociability, and a predisposition toward pur-poseless, unobtrusive loitering.Spying becomes more complicated as the number of people we need

to spy on increases, for we then have to "subcontract" part of the work.The task is also affected by the type of market in which we operate: wemay protect large estates in the countryside or stores in an urban shop-ping district; we may oversee international drug deals or oligopolies ofpublic works subcontractors; wemay behired to punish defectors fromcorrupt political coalitions, or wemay choose to monopolize the sale ofguarantees in a specific market such as the trade in horses, cattle, ororanges. In each case our information-gathering needs will vary widelyand will affect the way we go about creating and running an intelligencenetwork.In general, we can expect to be better at protecting al l transactionsover a small territory rather than some over a variety of territories. Thearea where we were born or have lived longest is the best in which tobegin operations, for there we know every resident and every streetcorner. Simply frequenting the right places-bars, shops, the bank, thechurch-is sufficient to bring useful information to our attention. Wecan monitor directly the reliability of the information we collect. Weare likely to have a higher concentration of friends and relatives herethan elsewhere, and they represent cheap and trustworthy sources ofinformation. Women talk to other women, children to other children,and report back to us. In small territories new faces stand out; oftenunder the traditional guise of hospitality strangers are questioned, andtheir business, role, accent, and common acquaintances are deter-mined. Mafiosi can run real investigative inquiries through their net-work of family and friends by pretending a generic curiosity: Who wasat work that day? Who was not seen at the usual spot? The grapevineof active intelligence can beso dense that even the most anonymous ofthieves is easily traced, and the reported cases of stolen property recov-ered owing to the good offices of the local "Peppe" are countless (forexamples from the sixteenth century, see Cancila 1984).Stefano Calzetta, a small-time recruit associated with a Palermo fam-

ily in his testimony in 1983 eloquently describes his life as a spy in aneastern district of Palermo. His "job description," as he himself put it(SC: I), was to cruise around, often by car and without a precise pur-pose, simply to observe, to run into people asif bychance, and torecord


22/170


23/170

40 - THE INDUSTRY OF PROTECTION

VIOLENCEIn order to reassure our clients that we can supply ~redible protec,tion,we also need strength, both physical and psychologIcal. The c~paclty tocommand respect, to inspire awe, has frequently been attributed tomafiosi of stature." But above all, mafiosi mus~ be able to resort toviolence; the ability to inflict punishment is crucial to the role of ~uar-antor. "Peppe" must be stronger than the parti~s hepr?te:~s cOl.nbmed,and both parties must know that incase of "mlsbeh~vlOr, p~mshmentis a feasible and, for the mafioso, not too costly option. If thi~were notso, they could simply fight back, protecting t~emselves effectIvely fromthe consequences of whatever action they wlshed to take.But violence is not employed for enforcement purposes alone; co~-petition among guarantors is perhaps the most common reason for Itsuse. Protectors compete in terms of toughness: he who fights, har~estnot only eliminates his vanquished competitors but also advertlse~ him-self to customers as a reliably tough character. Several acc~unts m theliterature describe how honor-better defined asthe reputat,lon for s~p-plying credible protection-among mafiosi isa variabl~ attnbute whi,chhas nothing to do with birth (see Hess 1973; Arlacchl 1983). By wm-ning violent contests, a mafioso increases his honor at the expense ofpotential or established competitors in what amounts to a zero-s~~game (see Bonanno 1983: 127). Most accounts of,int~:mafioso conflictdepict its descriptive and phenomenological peculiarities bu~s~opshortof explaining exactly why it happens. In fact, the cha~~ctenstlcs of th,ecommodity mafiosi sell mean that whenever compennon emerges, VI-olence must follow almost automatically. Ifone of the structural,fea-tures of protection is the ruthlessness of the supplier, then the lOgICofthe commodity itself invites comparisons in terms of ruthl,essness. Themafioso who hits hardest will be perceived as the most r~hable pr~tec-tor. Toughness is a quality lacking in subtlety, for on~ el,ther has I~ ordoes not, There is no coming in second best, only wmnmg or ~osmg.While the quality ofmost commodities isdistributed over a connnuousscale with products at every level, the ability to re~ort ~u~cessfull! toviolence functions as a dichotomous variable: t~at IS,WIthin ~ny grvencontext one and only one supplier has what It takes, and If buyerscannot count on his services, they can never f~el safe. Th~s ,we see anadditional reason why the protection market ISmonopolIstic. .Exactly why "Peppe" resorts so frequently to violence, however, IS

THE RESOURCES - 41not easy to establish. Not all punishments are violent, and often forceis used as nothing more than an implicit threat in the bargaining pro-cess. Nonetheless, conflict escalates into violence in Sicily with notori-ous frequency, a fact that isremarkable not on empirical grounds, givenwhat we know of mafia practices, but in terms of theoretical expecta-tions. The range of possible sanctions which fall short of violencewould seem sufficient to relegate the use of force to the background andstill allow the supply of effective protection. If any evolution can bedetected in legal economic affairs it is toward subtle contractual formswhich exclude the threat of violence to deter defectors. Commercialdefeat and physical defeat are increasingly divergent. If the mafia couldoffer protection without undue recourse to violence, it would seem ra-tional to do so, as the corresponding risks and costs should befewer. Sowhy is it, then, that violence features so prominently in the career andreputation of a mafioso? Why are mafia groups traditionally so mili-tarized?One way of answering these questions isto invoke an abstract model

of the evolution of the protection market. Assume that the business ofprotection emerged in a brutish world where violence was the routineform of punishment and subjects either lacked the imagination to de-vise, or proved impervious to, subtler sanctions. Hence, the first "firms"to become established had to prove their efficiency inviolence and beproperly prepared for it. In the absence of a stable and comprehensivemonopoly-including the state-to soften the rules of the game, anynew competitor in the market has to select itself on the basis of itspredisposition toward toughness before even contemplating enteringt~e fray, for anything less would be suicidal. In this respect, even ifVIOlencewere no longer strictly required by the business of the guar-antor, it would still be overproduced as a consequence of the inertialeffects of the competition to which the protection market had beensubject since its inception. Additional abstract models can be devisedshowing how peaceful equilibria among protectors are either unlikelyto emerge or are intrinsically fragile." But there are other ways of ap-proaching the question,The real reasons for the extensive use of violence by the mafia may

depend not so much on the structural features of the market as oncontingent factors. One such factor involves the various relationshipsamong mafia families. The more sta ble and organized these are, the lessthe likelihood of violence. For instance, evidence suggests that Ameri-


24/170

42 - THE INDUSTRY OF PROTECTIONcan mafiosi resort considerably less often to violence than their Siciliancounterparts, both within their world and without. In the United Statesthere has not been an all-out mafia war since the 1930s-the so-calledCastellamarese war-while inthe same period two such conflicts haveoccurred in Sicily, with hundreds of killings. The greater restraint of theAmerican cartel may well depend on its relative stability. Mafia familiesin the United States are also fewer in number and larger-five in NewYork asopposed to eighteen in Palermo alone-presumably decreasingthe tension between firms and making succession within firms less con-tentious.But there isanother reason why violence isrequired, and it has to do

neither with intermafioso competition nor with protection from lawenforcement. It isconditional on state action, however, for that iswhatdefines certain goods or transact ions as illegal, with crucial conse-quences. First, this creates a new market for guarantees and protection.Illegality means that state protection becomes unavailable by defini-tion. Therefore, like any rational economic agent, suppliers of protec-tion have an incentive to enter that market. Second, bydeclaring a goodillegal the state effectively declares that those who deal in it regardlesswill be pursued and punished. If "Peppe" aims to protect such daringsouls, he has to prepare himself accordingly. Given both that inorderto becredible he must bestronger than his hypothetical clients, and thatil legal dealers-who are chal lenging the state prohibit ion in the firstplace-s-are less easily deterred than the average legal businessmen, hehas a very strong incent ive to show his ruthlessness and invest in hismilitary skills.Had "Peppe" l imited his sphere of action to the secondhand horse

market , as in the good old days, he might have become redundant bynow. Dealers might have learned not to cheat one another or to haverecourse to legitimate courts for settling their disputes. Alternatively,were he still active, "Peppe" might well be a gentleman by comparisonwith actual mafiosi, for the need to show his muscle would be weaker:coachman and seller, butcher and vaccaro might be inclined to cheateach other , but they would be unlikely to risk their skin once "Peppe"raised his voice. But could things really have turned out this way? Ifyounger and more ruthless men undertake to sell protection to crimi-nals, they would soon become a powerful threat to "Peppe" and hisdealings, even in as remote a market as the horse trade. Suppose that acustomer, dissatisfied with the services he is get ting from "Peppe,"

THE RESOURCES - 43Switches supp1i~rs and requests the protection of the new generation oftougher mafiosi, then "Peppe" isin danger oflosing his credibility at thevery least. The ol d semilegal markets and the new, more violent onesare not ~eparated b~ a watertight barrier, and the equilibrium of theformer n,sks unraveling at the first sign of conflict between" Peppe" andany of his customers. Thus, if "Peppe" wants to keep up, he is com-pelled to upgrade his arsenal and be prepared for more violence. 10REPUTATION

"Who steals my purse steals trash," says Iago in Shakespeare's Othello:'tis something, nothing;'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands.But he that filches from me my good name 'Robs meof that which not enriches himAnd makes me poor indeed. '

(3.3.156-162)Reputation, a "good name," isan asset ofgreat value which in businesscommonly refers to the expected quality and reliability of a commodityor ~ealer and acts as a guide for buyers. Firms enjoying a good repu-ranon are exempt from shouldering the burden of proof in every newtransaction and are relatively sheltered from the competitive threatsposed by new entrants. As their reputation spreads from Customer to~ustomer-for reputation may travel fast and grow of i ts own accordlike slander in Rossini's Barber of Seville-they benefit from a "naru-ral" for~ of advert isi ,ng. B~t some trades are more susceptible thanothers, sI~ce t~e relat ive weight of reputat ion over the total value ofassets vanes wld~ly an.d is positively correlated with the degree of trustcust?~ers place In their suppliers. Doctors, for instance, are extremelysensrnve t? reputation, Soare bankers (themselves a form of protectionfirm, specla,hzl,ng In protecting money and small valuables), for if peo-pl~stop believing that a bank isreliable, that bank collapses as a result(~,Indleberger 1,978). International middlemen are likewise more sen-Slt!V~ toreputation than to morality, a fact which demonstrates that there1atlOnshl? between these two attributes is at times the exact oppositeof ~onventJOnal expectations: "Loyalty and integrity are my currencywhich ~oney can't buy," proclaimed jet-set wheeler-dealer AdnanKashoggi (Independent. March 19, 1990) before going on trial,


25/170

44 - THE INDUSTRY OF PROTECTION

charged with assisting Imelda and Ferdinand Marcos intheir attempt toextract $400 million from the Philippine treasury. He added shrewdly,"If I show that Iwill stand by Imelda Marcos over this affair then I willhave shown that I do not desert people, whatever the world thinks ofthem."!' Less ambitious delinquents are equally proud of their reputa-tion. "Kill the hunchback?t What the devil do you mean?" snapsSparafucile, opera's prototype of the honorable hit man, at the sugg~s-tion that he might kill his client Rigoletto. "Am I a thief? Am I a bandit?What client of mine has ever been cheated? This man pays me and hebuys my loyalty." ,Dealers in protection are no exception. As in all other businesses, agood reputation attracts customers and keeps competi~o~s at bay. Butit does significantly more than that. Byfar the most striking feature ofa mafioso's reputation isthat i t saves directly on production costs. Carmanufacturers benefit from a good reputation, but they still have toproduce cars. B y contrast, a reputation for credible protection and pro~tection itself tend to be one and the same thing. The more robust thereputation of a protection firm, the lessthe need to have recourse to theresources which support that reputation.There isevidence that reputation persists even when it is unfounded,maintaining in business those who ifchallenged would retire. Since theProhibit ion wars mafia families in the United States have lived largelyoff their names while in fact becoming weaker and meeker than boththe press and the underworld itself assume (Reuter 1983: chap. 6).12"The director of New York's Organized Crime Task Force, RonaldGoldstock, reports that a high-ranking mafia defector bit~er~yt?ld himthat his gang could no longer find reliable assassins wuhan its ownranks and had tohire outside contractors" (New York Times. October22,1990). Tommaso Buscetta candidly reveals the degree to which hisown reputation was a fluke: "Unfortunately, my strong and proud per~sonality created the myth of ... a violent and merciless ,mafia ,bos~,which does not correspond to reality. What is even more incredible ISthat that myth was influencing not only the press and the police but theunderworld itself . ... In jail they looked at me with awe and respect,increased bymy reserve, which was mistaken, in my strange world, formafioso power" (TB: II, 96)Y ,The world they describe isone where false pretenses are not difficultto maintain where counterfeit ing the abili ty to provide protection isaviable opti;n. Even if someone is uncertain as to whether a mafioso isgenuine or a fake, he will often choose to comply, for as a rule human

THE RESOURCES - 45

beings are unlikely to call someone's bluff when their lives may be atstake." Thus, the high value ofreputation inthis trade relative to othertrades, together with the small amount of disinformation required toconvince victims, represents an incentive for fraud. It requires lit tleingenuity to pose as an authentic mafioso and reap the benefits. Itfol-lows that both the client and the real mafioso have an interest in pro-moting unambiguous identification. The false mafioso, by contrast, hasan interest in blurring the distinction. While the genuine article tries togenerate signals which cannot bepirated, the fake tries to imitate thosesignals. In this market protectors have to fight hard to prove their au-thenticity, and the problems of identification and counterfeiting reachobsessive proportions. How should the protection of property rightswork? Should it concentrate on symbols, logos, names, and trade-marks? Will dark glasses suffice? Is a Sicilian accent required? (seeChapters 5 and 6).

Itdoes not follow that a lasting reputation can grow out of thin air.On the contrary, the need for a practical test of one's authenticity even-tually becomes pressing. Ultimately, the test consists in the ability to useviolence both at the outset of one's career and later, when an establishedreputation isunder attack from authentic and bogus rivals alike (a rivalwho loses can always besaid to have been bogus). At times a reputationis acquired by accident, as the result of an act of bravery or violencewhich then attracts defenseless customers. This seems, for instance, tohave been the case with Mariano Ardena (Sabett i 1984; see also Chap"ter 4). It probably occurs when no protection firm operates in an areawhere there is a strong latent demand for protection. More often, sue-cess is attained in stages which involve a deliberate effort either to enterthe firm and ascend the hierarchy from within or, less frequently, tochallenge it from without.Reputation--or honor. as it ismore often called in this business-is

protected in the personal sphere, too. The modesty of one's wife has nosignificant connection to the quality of the cars one produces, and carpurchasers are indifferent to the former. But a protector who cannotprotect his wife (or protect himself from his wife) and whatever else isdeemed honorable in a given society would not be credible (Falconeand Padovani 1991: 76).This is due to the fact that, pardy because ofthe risk of fraud and partly for reasons I explore later on, reputationcannot easily disengage itself from a real protector and come to residein abstract trademarks.Dasgupta (1988) recommends measuring reputation on a probabil-


26/170

46 - THE INDUSTRY OF PROTECT] ON

iry scale. This method may work for dealers in most commodities: onecan produce cars, for example, on a broad spectrum of quality. Pro-tection, by contrast, can only be good or bad. Reputation among ma-fiosi is a variable best represented as dichotomous rather thancontinuous. Itsreliance on violence is such that one either comes out ontop or isworthless, a common mortal as untrustworthy and powerlessas anyone else. The loss of reputation, therefore, is correspondinglycatastrophic and impossible to remedy. It causes not just the loss of afraction of one's business but its disappearance altogether: the veryownership of the firm evaporates with it. It is not surprising that pun-ishments for endangering reputation are drastic and executions are ar-ranged with horrific theatrical detail to discourage future opponents(see Chinnici and Santino 1989: esp. 369ff.).The problem of trusting someone in a world where trust is scarce

further underscores the dichotomous character ofreputation. People inan untrustworthy world are under pressure to trust someone. But ifthenorm is to trust no one, why then should one trust mafiosi at all? Thereis a cognitive gap to be bridged between those one trusts and the rest ofthe world, and the most l ikely of human constructs to act asthat bridgeis perhaps myth. As early as 1876 Franchetti was puzzling over "thetendency to turn a mafioso into a legendary type, a feeling naturalenough indeed in a professor of li terature, but much harder to explainin wealthy landowners" (p, 34). The tension between highly desirableactions and highly pessimistic expectations can indeed lead one to thepoint of embracing mythical beliefs (Garnbetta 1988b: 223-224), afact that could explain why mafiosi must pretend they are radicallydifferent from everyone else, why they must induce blind loyalty ratherthan trust (Hart 1988). The superman complex, or an inflated view ofthe self-the personal counterpart of myth-is an often-cited compo-nent of the mafioso's self-image." "You will forgive me if I make thisdistinction between mafia and common criminals," says the mafiosoAntonino Calderone, "but it really matters to me. It matters to all ma-fiosi. It is important: we are mafiosi, the others are ordinary men. Weare men of honor. And not so much because we have taken an oath, butbecause we are the 'elite' of the underworld. We are far superior tocommon criminals. We are the worst" (Arlacchi 1992: 5). The repu-tation of mafiosi constantly aspires to mythical proportions, almost, asit were, for technical reasons. Yet myth isperilously fragile, and mafiosiremain sensitive to the slightest challenge.

THE RESOURCES - 47ADVERTISINGIf repu~ati~n is important, advertising is correspondingly vital to theprotection i~dustry. For ?bvious reasons, however, advertising in ille-gal marke.ts is problematic-but far from impossible.. Mafios_'often offer their protection face to face, as ifi t were an act of~mdne~s mtended to reassure the recipient troubled by the uncertain-ties o~hie. The case of the butcher mentioned in Chapter"l-"Profes-sore) If anyone bothers you, do not hesitate to call me"-is only oneexample amon~ many. More effective stil l is speaking through deeds:acts of gene~osIty are among the preferred means of advertising. An-e~dotes of this n.ature are not just isolated stories, nor, given their quan-tity and t~e vanety of sources, can they be dismissed as myth. Dozensof people InPale~mo.told me of incidents inwhich the local mafioso hadhelped them, their fnends, old ladies, and even tourists to recover stolengoods, redress a wrong, or solve disputes with neighbors. Sometimest~ese tal~s,e,voked a,recent past when the mafioso Wasperceived as ak~ndof,Sic~han Robin Hood; sometimes they constituted a sentimentald~gresslOnIIIa speech otherwise crit ical of the mafia. These minor ser-vices rarely require monetary compensation but are rendered for free,at, most creanng an unspecified debt whose sett lement is postponed.Still, ~heyperform a valuable economic function in the mafioso's strat-egy: l ike a freewine tasting, they offer a sample ofhis abili ties boost hisreput~tion) and il_ldirectlymock the public authorities incap~ble of re-covering the chenshed necklace, a gift from one's dear deceased grand-mother, snatched on the street.Advertising, however, also takes more sophisticated forms. In Pa-lermo I rented a room ina large apartment where there lived an old man

who had been a f~rmer in a village on the outskirts of the city. He toldme the story of his stepbrother-stressing the fact that he Was only astepbrother-who had become a mafioso and of whom he h d" D a a verypo~r opinion. , on Peppe (let this be his name), among his activit ies-which, accordm~ to the old man did not exclude a few murders-cou~t~d ?ne w~ich was particularly odd. Although there was notradition Inthe Villageof worshiping Sant' Antonino {aforgotten saintprotector of the lagnusi, the lazy},Don Peppe had dusted him off othermore reputable saints having already been spoken for and organizedan annual f~as~in his honor. He went around the village collectingmoney and invited the local electrician to install colored street lamps,


27/170

48 - THE INDUSTRY OF PROTECTIONfree of charge of course. Don Peppe became mayor of the village afterthe war. When he died (of natural causes) not many years ago, thecelebration lapsed and Sant' Antonino was soon forgotten once again.The association of mafiosi and saints persists to this day.16 In the

small town ofVicari in the mountains southeast of Palermo, an annualfeast is held in honor of the traditional patron saint, San Giorgio. But,after the Second World War, a new feast was privately inaugurated-asin the case of Sant' Antonino many years earlier-and dedicated to SanMichele Archangelo, a saint commonly represented as brandishing amenacing sword. Since the early 1980s the protettore, or patron, of thefeast has been the man who allegedly replaced Mariano Marsala ashead of the local mafia (SSPA1985, 1986; VM). From 1984 until 1987this man was in prison for the murder of Marsala, who vanished in1983. In his testimony in court Vincenzo Marsala, Mariano's son, de-clared that during that period a friend of the prisoner was heard toadvise against holding the feast in the mafioso's absence (VM: 66-67).In fact nobody volunteered to replace the organizer, and the celebra-t ion, which takes place at the beginning ofMay, was allowed to lapse',17Initially the protettore had been sentenced to twenty-two years IIIprison, but the sentence was overturned by the Corte di Cassazione,which acquitted him in 1987. The event is now being celebrated onceagain.Folklore aside, what these "Don Peppes" are doing amounts essen-

tially to advertising. This peculiar form ofsponsorship-the sponsor isthe mafioso, the saint his innocent beneficiary-relies, like all publicity,on contemporary beliefs and exploits both the general attributes ofsanctity and those specific to each individual saint. In this case itsignalsto the world at large that Don Peppe's "protection firm" is so powerfulas to offer its earthly protection even to a protector par excellence."Thus the language of Catholicism may serve to enhance the reputationof the mafia firm. But advertising must adjust i tself to the people's val-ues. In the more secular United States, John Gotti, the man who, ac-cording to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is the "boss of bosses,"organizes annually at his own expense a celebrated fireworks display.Although he does not concern himself overmuch with saints, like hisSicilian counterparts he revels in charity and good works, clear signs ofa noble and honorable character, regardless of religious beliefs (Re-pubblica, February 13, 1990).When visual or musical material protected by copyright is used in

THE RESOURCES - 49advertising, one must seek permission and often pay for it . How, then,can images and names of saints, which might be considered symbolsunder the copyright of the church, be used by mafiosi? Are they beingblasphemous, pirating the saints against the church's will? Or do theyenjoy at least a tacit blessing? .The history of the relationship between the mafia and the Catholicchurch is mysterious and neglected, and deserves a more sustainedstudy than this brief digression. A likely beginning of the associationbetween the church and informal networks of power in Sicily datesback at least to Italian Unification in 1861. Immediately after Unifica-tion, hostility between church and state became acute, mainly as a re-sult of the expropriation of the church 's property and estates and thegeneral anticlericalism of the early Italian liberals (M

Date post:	08-Apr-2018
Category:	Documents
Upload:	andreea-mitrofan
View:	212 times
Download:	0 times

Gambetta%201993%20The%20sicilian%20mafia

Documents