Mafia membership rules forbid harming members and outsiders while mandating secrecy

Evidence

These rules are not to touch the women of other men of honor; nor to steal from other men of honor or, in general, from anyone; not to exploit prostitution; not to kill other men of honor unless strictly necessary; to avoid passing information to the police; not to quarrel with other men of honor; to maintain proper behavior; to keep silent about the Cosa Nostra around outsiders; to avoid under all circumstances introducing oneself to other men of honor (the introduction requires the presence of a third man of honor who knows both parties and who confirms membership in the Cosa Nostra by saying, “This is our friend” or “This is the same thing”). — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 381

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• XREF: The mutual-recognition ritual and ‘la stessa cosa’ phrase are the observable tokens that let Mafia distinguish genuine suppliers of protection — the sorting/signaling problem Gambetta frames the whole book around. This is direct evidence for the chapter’s thesis on trademarks as guarantees.

Related

• Mafia rules prohibit predation on members and require carefully mediated introductions (similarity 0.91)
• Mafia reputation functions as a shared trademark yielding collective benefits (similarity 0.79)
• Mafia reputation requires mutual recognition, not merely self-adoption of identity marks. (similarity 0.79)
• Mafiosi sell protection rather than illegally produced goods. (similarity 0.79)
• The mafia banned kidnapping on utilitarian not moral grounds. (similarity 0.79)
• Sicilian and American mafias are separate entities with weak informal links. (similarity 0.79)
• Mafia reputation operates as a shared trademark guaranteeing protection quality. (similarity 0.79)
• Mafia membership rights were strictly territorial and non-portable across borders. (similarity 0.79)
• Mafia membership is a trading license allowing both purchase and sale of protection (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Mafia families punish members who poach fellow members’ clients. #exemplifies (0.85) — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 451
• Mafia protection tracks opportunity, not moral principle or universal rules #complicates (0.80) — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 61