Violence, values, interests, and personal bonds substitute for one another in enforcing cooperation.

Evidence

The relationship between violence and the other mechanisms suitable for inducing cooperation is threefold. First of all there is the relationship of substitution: violence substitutes for and can be substituted by (1) values — larger doses of omertd ensure lesser ones of violence; (2) interests, which can encourage cooperation and dispense with the need for violence; (3) personal bonds -— relatives and friends are by definition more likely to cooperate, and hence there is a lower demand on violence to keep them under control. Next, there is the relationship of mutual reinforcement: greater quantities of omertd diminish the risks attached to the use of violence; at the same time, the higher the expectation that violence will be used, the higher the likelihood that silence will be scrupulously observed, to the point that it becomes impossible to say whether omertd is maintained out of faith or fear (Franchetti 1974: 31). — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2213

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines a formal typology of cooperation-enforcement mechanisms (violence, omerta values, economic interest, kinship) and the substitution/reinforcement relations among them.
• XREF: The ‘faith or fear’ ambiguity undercuts clean trust distinctions — relevant to whether observable constraint or internalized norm is doing the work, mirroring the reader’s Hardin-vs-value-internalization question. For the novel: after sight loss removes observability, would omerta-style values survive? — connects to: Regimes with capital substitute purchase for direct coercion of subjects — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 129