Democratization freed violence from aristocratic service and made it self-employed industry

Evidence

Actual conditions [relating to the remnants of feudalism] were transformed by the modification of the law [in 1860], and society took on a more democratic character inasmuch as everyone who had the ability could now make use of the forces present within it. But insofar as the force upon which society was founded continued to be the exercise of private power, in those instances in which such power took on a violent character the reform only had the effect of enabling a greater number of people to make use of it… Freed from bonds and privileges, the industry of violence found an existence and an organization of its own. As a result, the ends to which violence was put multiplied and became infinitely more varied… Crimes are no longer committed to serve the purpose of the powerful few. The villains, still ready to serve the purposes of others, have become self-employed, and their industry represents a new source of crimes which are far more numerous than those committed by the bravi of the barons or by the bandits of the previous era. Thus becoming more democratic, the organization of violence is now accessible to many and can support even small interests which formerly could count only on the muscle and energy of their bearers… In Sicily, the class of villains is in a special position—which has nothing in common with that of villains in other countries, irrespective of how numerous, well-organized or ingenious they may be—and it could almost be said that it is nothing less than a social institution… class with an industry and interests of its own, a social force in its own right. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 202

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A paradigm-shifting inversion: the democratization that broke feudal privilege simultaneously democratized access to violence, converting a class of hired thugs into self-employed entrepreneurs — a dense, genuinely counterintuitive causal claim worth sitting with.
• XREF: Directly parallels the reader’s Gambetta/Milgrom framework: private judges emerge where the state fails to monopolize enforcement, and here violence itself liberalizes into a market when legal reform removes aristocratic monopoly on force.