Early mafia flourished in wealthy areas, not backward ones

Evidence

Historians have recently begun to search for the origins of the mafia in the smaller estates of the rich agricultural areas and their related markers, on the general assumption that, even originally, the mafia was more of an urban than a rural phenomenon (Arlacchi 1983b; Lupo 1984; Piselli and Arrighi 1985; Pezzino 1985, 1987; Catanzaro 1988). The evidence is incomplete but intriguing. Salvatore Lupo (1984: 101ff.) points out that nineteenth-century writers on the mafia—Franchetti, Sonnino, Cutrera, Alongi—refer to it as a phenomenon which, while widespread in western Sicily as a whole, was particularly virulent in the more affluent areas, notably Palermo and its agriculturally prosperous surroundings. Pasquale Villari, in his Lettere meridionali, written in 1875, observed: “In the Conca d’Oro agriculture is thriving; large estates do not exist; peasants arc both wealthy and mafiosi, and commit a great many crimes. I did not want to believe this evidence, which seems to subvert just about every principle of political economy and social science; but I ran into it in a thousand ways, and in a thousand ways it was confirmed for me” (quoted in Lupo 1984: 61). This passage implies that the conventional view of an intellectual educated in the classics of liberalism and political economy was that the mafia was a remnant of the past, a perverse outgrowth of backwardness. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 213

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Puzo’s Godfather economics — protection thrives where there’s wealth to protect; wealthier districts need private protection more, per Gambetta’s thesis this chapter establishes.
• QUESTION: Why does wealth generate demand for mafia protection rather than reduce it? This is the central puzzle Gambetta is building toward across the chapter.