Protection is bought as potential, regardless of whether it is ever used

Evidence

Protection is a peculiar commodity even when it is sold by the most legitimate authority. When we pay taxes or insurance premiums, we pay without receiving anything in return other than the right to use a certain commodity when and if we need it and wane to use it. We pay for it, in other words, even if the service is only a potential one. For instance, we pay for homeowner’s insurance in exchange for a kind of financial protection which we may never need. Protection requires an apparatus which must be sustained even when the protection itself is not used. Worse still, by paying taxes, we pay for some commodities we may never use and for others we may believe to be useless or harmful, such as military weapons. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 73

Categorization

• DEFINE: Frames protection as a potential-use commodity shared by mafiosi and legitimate states — key to collapsing the state/mafia distinction.