Growth from drug customers fractured internal consensus and sealed Bontade’s fate
Evidence
- In 1975 Stefano Bontade was unanimously appointed capo by eleven men of honor. By 1979, however, his family, possibly as a result of internalizing customers dealing in drugs, had grown rapidly to over one hundred members and new elections had to be held to reaffirm Bontade’s supremacy. He was reappointed, but not unanimously. He forgave the dissidents, and this perceived sign of weakness probably played a part in his subsequent death, as that splinter group apparently betrayed him and joined forces with a hostile faction in the coalition. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 895
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- XREF: Internalizing customers maps to Gambetta’s argument that recruiting from one’s customer base of violence collapses the distinction between market and hierarchy; forgiveness as costly signal failure ties to Schelling.
- QUESTION: The claim that forgiving dissidents is a ‘perceived sign of weakness’ — does Gambetta elsewhere treat leniency within mafia families as threatening authority?
Related
- Rapid membership growth destabilized Bontade’s consensual authority within the family (similarity 0.86)
Broader Connections
- Speaking the collective we to defend themselves cost Bontade his life
#responds-to(0.80) — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 266