Businessman-mafia involvement is driven by both intimidation and mutual profit

Evidence

The involvement of so many businessmen in judicial inquiries is the clearest indication that, on the one hand, the climate of mafioso intimidation is so oppressive that people are convinced of the state’s inability to ensure the conditions for peaceful coexistence; on the other hand, it also shows that the “protection” of the Cosa Nostra allows one to conduct profitable economic activities in the best possible way. In such a situation it is very difficult to establish, in each particular case, where the passive action imposed by the mafia ends and where active involvement in mafioso activities begins (OSPA: V, 927). — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 488

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the crucial ambiguity of ‘protection’ — that it can be simultaneously extortive and commercially useful in the same transaction — the core conceptual problem of the whole book.