Mafia protection signals that distrusting others is rational

Evidence

As Gambetta (1988, 172–73) notes, the Mafia might help someone sell fraudulently. This implicitly would make clear that without Mafia protection distrust of one’s fellows is rational and would therefore undercut competition that would benefit almost everyone. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 972

Categorization

• XREF: Concrete instance of the surveillance-government/social-capital literature the reader already curates — a trust-destroying institution that makes its own pessimism self-fulfilling.
• QUESTION: Could chase whether Mafia-backed fraud is a documented practice or Gambetta’s hypothetical.