Organized crime predated and outlived Prohibition, which did not create it

Evidence

Prohibition has been blamed, perhaps wrongly, for the rise of organized crime; to be sure, gangsters like Al Capone grew rich and fat partly because of the “noble experiment.” But organized crime had organized itself earlier than Prohibition, and it survived the end of Prohibition as well. — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 4267

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: what caused organized crime’s rise if not Prohibition? Friedman gestures that it pre-organized itself but doesn’t elaborate the earlier roots.
• XREF: connects to: US Prohibition failed due to resistance from marginal backward forces — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1032

Broader Connections

• US Prohibition failed due to resistance from marginal backward forces #complicates (0.85) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1032