Ongoing protection resists pricing because its threats are vague and constant

Evidence

By contrast, if Mr. X is a merchant whom Don Peppe protects against robbers, against competitors, and even against the possibility of his partners’ defection, it becomes more difficult for him to define the value of that protection. In this case Mr. X is exposed to less predictable dangers, and he is exposed all the time, not simply during the course of one specific transaction. Here protection works better through prevention rather than repression; in other words, the simple knowledge that Mr. X is under Don Peppe’s wing is in itself a sufficient deterrent. Thus, protection is a potentially infinite sequence of acts which cannot be identified or distinguished from one another. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 146

Categorization

• XREF: Directly maps to Milgrom et al. on private judges and why reputation-based enforcement services resist spot contracting; and to the reader’s stated goal of tracing state-failure to long-term arbitration bonds.
• QUESTION: The prevention-vs-repression distinction is stated but underexplored — worth chasing how deterrent reputation does the work at zero marginal cost.