Ritual serves as evidence-free commitment for contracts illegality prevents ratifying

Evidence

To communicate a threat, one has to communicate the commitment that goes with it, and similarly with a promise; and to communicate a commitment requires more than communication of words. One has to communicate evidence that the commitment exists; this may mean that one can communicate a threat only if he can make the other person see something with his own eyes or if he can find a device to authenticate certain allegations. — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 342 (#contradicts, via linked claim)

What makes the threat or ordinary commitment a difficult tactic to employ and an interesting one to study is the problem of finding a means to commitment, the available “penalty” to invoke against one’s own nonperformance. There is consequently a related set of tactics that consists of maneuvering one’s self into a position in which one no longer has any effective choice over how he shall behave or respond. The purpose of these tactics is to get rid of an embarrassing initiative, making the outcome depend solely on the other party’s choice. — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 317 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Yakuza patron-client bonds are framed as protection-for-obedience contracts; Selective initiation into the Mafia serves as an efficient behavioral guarantee; Religious conviction subordinates empirical evidence for committed punitive practitioners — , The Rod and the Child: A Global History…, 10938 (+6 more)

Related

• Commitments must be communicated through evidence, not just words. (similarity 0.84)
• Credible commitment requires finding a penalty against one’s own nonperformance (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Commitments must be communicated through evidence, not just words. #contradicts (0.82) — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 342
• Selective initiation into the Mafia serves as an efficient behavioral guarantee #corroborates (0.80)
• Credible commitment requires finding a penalty against one’s own nonperformance #expands (0.80) — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 317
• Mafia secrecy is functional information control, not just cultural code #expands (0.78)
• Religious conviction subordinates empirical evidence for committed punitive practitioners #exemplifies (0.75) — , The Rod and the Child, 10938
• Mafia protection tracks opportunity, not moral principle or universal rules #corroborates (0.72)