Mafia behavior adapts and mutates yet never transforms at its core.

Evidence

The type of behaviour of which the mafia represents the most radical, aggressive, and perfected expression has been subject to a wide range of mutations and instability, but at a certain level of abstraction it has never been transformed into something radically different; if anything, its essential peculiarities have been strengthened. — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2109

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels the reader’s theme that dysfunctional order (distrust equilibrium) strengthens under pressure rather than dissolving — echoes how Hobbesian predation persists in Blindness.