Arbitration positions serve as training grounds where mafiosi forge reputations

Evidence

According to a commissionario interviewed in 1987, great prestige was attached in the past to the scarista’s position as guarantor: he cultivated widespread connections with people from both city and country; he was respected by everybody and intervened to settle disputes. This is why mafiosi were attracted to the job and why some scaristi became mafiosi. Some men of honor who died in the mafia war of the early 1960s, such as Michele Cavaraio and Angelo La Barbera, were involved in the market either as scaristi or as friends of scaristi. The market was a training ground, a smithy in which to forge a reputation, because there everybody had to be tough. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 542

Categorization

• XREF: Directly parallels Milgrom et al.’s private judges: the scarista as dispute-settler accumulates ‘reputation capital’ that converts into mafia standing — same mechanism as the law-merchant judges.