Mafia-client cooperation is voluntary exchange of expected advantage, not raw coercion

Evidence

I wish to point out that around the mafia families and the men of honor there is an incredible number of people who, even though they are not themselves mafiosi, cooperate, sometimes even unconsciously, with the mafia… With regard to the nature of these relationships, I must stress that they cannot be explained as the result of coercion. Those who cooperate expect certain advantages. True, one cannot expect these relationships to be on an equal footing, as it is always clear that one of the parties is a man of honor; yet the other party makes himself available. It is like courting a woman: if a relationship gets started, it is because the woman has cooperated in being chosen; she has agreed to be courted. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 52

Categorization

• XREF: Directly parallels Gambetta’s broader private-protection theory that clients buy protection as a good; also connects to Milgrom’s model where private judges are voluntarily used by traders rather than imposed.