Rapid membership growth destabilized Bontade’s consensual authority within the family

Evidence

In 1975 Stefano Bontade was unanimously appointed capo by eleven men of honor. By 1979, however, his family, possibly as a result of internalizing customers dealing in drugs, had grown rapidly to over one hundred members and new elections had to be held to reaffirm Bontade’s supremacy. He was reappointed, but not unanimously. He forgave the dissidents, and this perceived sign of weakness probably played a part in his subsequent death, as that splinter group apparently betrayed him and joined forces with a hostile faction in the coalition. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 895

Categorization

• XREF: Directly tests the governance question: as the private-protection firm scales up, consensus mechanisms break down — parallels Milgrom’s point that growing trade communities outgrow informal monitoring.
• SEED: Angle: growth of any private governance body — cartel, cult, startup, mafia family — erodes the consensus legitimacy that founded it; the failure mode of scaling trust.