The Mafia institutionalized distrust itself as a mechanism of control

Evidence

Unfortunately for Sicilians, members of the Italian Mafia themselves engaged in the promotion and selective exploitation of distrust. In this, they mirrored the devices of the Spanish overlords of southern Italy in the seventeenth century (Gambetta 1988, 159). Whereas the Spanish merely suppressed Sicily, the Mafia were parasites who exploited Sicilians. The Mafia system survived changing governments into the twentieth century for at least two reasons. First, out-migration of those hostile to the Mafia left less opposition to it. Second, in the early, weak days of democracy, participants in the political system dragged the Mafia into politics as an ally. This move strengthened the Mafia by helping to block legal suppression and, to bring the history full circle, by reinforcing Sicilian hostility to corrupt and unjust central government (Gambetta 1988, 166–67). — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 497

Categorization

• XREF: The Mafia exploiting distrust rather than building trust is a sharp counterpoint to the reader’s Hardin/Luhmann integration: institutions can deliberately destroy trust to extract value. — connects to: the MOC “The Viral Refinery: How Preexisting Fringe Fears Get Smelted Into Mainstream Reality”