The mafia may actively cause cooperation’s breakdown rather than supply trust

Evidence

This section concerns a failure of cooperation: the collapse of a radio dispatching service among taxi drivers in Palermo. While there is no direct evidence linking this sector with the mafia, the example raises a number of related issues. First, the problem seems to have arisen from lack of trust, the very point at which my analysis in this book began. It is an archetypal example of the type of behavior which has kept part of an otherwise prosperous country in a state of perpetually simmering social and economic disaster. Second, if it is true that the specific nature of the mafia consists of supplying private protection as a substitute for trust, it is reasonable to ask why the mafia has not intervened to organize cooperation among taxi drivers lacking in this commodity. In fact there are grounds for arguing that the mafia, far from promoting cooperation, may in this case be responsible for its breakdown. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 586

Categorization

• QUESTION: Why does the mafia fail to supply protection-enabling cooperation to worthy clients like taxi drivers? Gambetta gestures at the mafia possibly causing the breakdown — worth chasing what mechanism he offers.
• SEED: A piece on how protection rackets can destroy otherwise-beneficial coordination rather than merely taxing it — the taxi case as a counterexample to naive ‘private protection market’ efficiency stories.