An absence of internecine violence signals unified organizational control

Evidence

Judge Giovanni Falcone, commenting on the fact that nothing of the sore had happened in Sicily, said: “Have you ever asked yourself why it is that in Sicily everything is quiet? This is the most eloquent proof, in its silence, in its uniqueness, of [the mafia] organization. Whereas the camorra and the ‘ndrangheta, which do not have a common organization, fight against each other, the Cosa Nostra is a unified, organic structure, in which it is possible to find a standard of conduct adhered to by everyone” (Repubblica, May 11, 1990). — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 1034

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to Gambetta’s private-protection model: the unifying cartel that suppresses violent competition within its territory, paralleling Milgrom et al.’s cooperative equilibrium.
• DEEPTHINKING: Falcone inverts the usual inference—quiet is not the absence of mafia but proof of its organization—a genuinely counterintuitive epistemic move about how to read silence as data.