Coercion and material interests force rational adaptation even without shared values or kinship

Evidence

Their combination, within a world of deep distrust, is itself a robust pillar of mafia business for, irrespective of values and cultural codes, the force of constraints and opportunities can bring about rational adaptation on the part of people living in proximity with mafioso networks, even if they are not related by kin or do not entertain strong beliefs about the social importance of adhering to the code of honour or that of silence. — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2203

Categorization

• XREF: Core support for the reader’s Hardin/Luhmann synthesis: when values fail, observable constraints and opportunity structures alone sustain acquiescence — familiarity becomes unnecessary, observable constraint suffices. — connects to: Rational self-preservation conquers nature only by imitating nature’s own rigidity — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 63; Social reproduction sustains individuals through group identity, not just purposive-rational adaptation — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2428
• DEEPTHINKING: A dense theoretical claim: that cooperative order can rest entirely on constraint-and-opportunity adaptation, decoupled from values, kin, or belief — the mafia as a pure incentive structure, which reframes what ‘social order’ minimally requires.