Large rural estates provide scarce protection-demand, undercutting the latifundia-origin theory

Evidence

Since at least the 1950s (Lupo 1984: 59) it has become almost a commonplace to locate the origins of the mafia in the latifundia of western Sicily, where the main resources were wheat, livestock, and cheap labor, and to identify the prototypical mafioso with the gabelloti—rural entrepreneurs who leased the land from aristocrats more attracted to the comforts of the city—and the campieri, armed guards on the land (see, among others, Sereni 1971: esp. 159ff.; Hess 1973: esp. 33ff.; Blok 1974). This theory, at first glance, seems to contradict the model constructed in this book, according to which the mafia emerges where there are abundant opportunities for supplying protection and where economic activity is most intense. A rural economy based on large estates with a limited variety of produce and linked to the outside world by a limited number of elementary transactions is an improbable context for the development of a protection industry. In addition, if mafiosi are primarily concerned with protection, any close identification with a profession not related to protection must be avoided. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 207

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the gabelloti (leaseholding rural entrepreneurs) and campieri (armed land guards) that anchor the traditional origin story.
• XREF: The identification-avoidance point resonates with the Godfather’s own disavowal that he is ‘in the protection business’ — mafiosi denying their profession is itself evidence of its nature.