Successful protection-industry names blend ethnic specificity with professional vagueness.

Evidence

All names are imperfectly protected. Yet the names mafia and Cosa Nostra, owing to their peculiar combination of precision and vagueness, are relatively difficult to pirate. They denote a specific ethnic type which is not easy to counterfeit: if a tall blond with freckles and a Norwegian accent announces that he is a mafioso, we are not likely to be impressed. In Italy the same announcement made in a Piedmontese accent would not strike fear. In Sicily itself, where everybody has the “right” combination of ethnic features, mafiosi when making threatening phone calls accentuate their Palermo accent (Falcone and Padovani 1991: 56). The Black Hand, by contrast, could refer to a group of Spanish, Italian, Latin American, or even eastern European origin. Unlike mafia, the term translates into any language. Yet the name mafia or Cosa Nostra is also vague; it does not denote any narrowly defined activity or feature, but simply alludes to illegal dealings in general. There is no symbol or activity which would permit “the” mafia or “the” Cosa Nostra to be reproduced as easily as the “mustache gang.” Lucky Luciano knew what he was doing when he christened his new organization the Union Siciliana, a name with exactly the same blend of ethnic specificity and professional generality. The first duty of the protection industry is to protect its own name. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 367

Categorization

• XREF: The reader’s stated frame: brand name as a signal that substitutes for direct observation — precisely the signaling problem Milgrom/Gambetta model, plus echoes of Akerlof-style screening.
• SEED: Article angle: ‘brand authenticity as a deterrent’ — how ethnic/genetic markers function as unforgeable identity credentials in black markets, parallel to luxury counterfeiting economics.