The Mafia

1. The Mafia The Economic Structure of History’s Most Notorious Gang

2. Introduction • The Mafia is viewed by many people as a bunch of gangsters like those that they might see on movies such as Goodfellas, The Godfather, or Donnie Brasco. • In all actuality the Mafia represents much more than that, it is an entity within itself. • The original Sicilian Mafia was just a group of families controlling certain territories in which they each laid claim to. • These families were headed by a dominant male and were usually in competition with other families. • The members of these families would engage into various "illegal and legal businesses with each other and outsiders”.

3. Elimination attempts • Many have tried to eliminate the Mafia from its "control" of the underworld and its stranglehold on politicians and government. • Under the fascist movement in the late of Cesare Mori, Mori tried to eliminate the Mafia in any way in which he could. • This attempt at elimination was quite unsuccessful since the Mafia’s base was so far ranging. • Arlachhi concluded in 1983 "there does not exist a centralized criminal organized called the Mafia, The coscamafiosa is a simple organism but a solid one, without formalism or bureaucracy. • Within it are neither statutory ordinances, initiation rites nor courts of judgment. • This is in contrast as to what others recognize as organized crime.

4. Differentiations of the organization • The United States Mafia definitely was different than the Sicilian Mafia when trying to generalize them. • The American Mafia consisted of only around 24 families whereas the Sicilian Mafia consisted of hundreds of families. • These families were much larger than their Sicilian counterparts and that the families were most definitely organized and formal. • The European Mafia was founded on a sense of loyalty and respect for culture, family and the Sicilian heritage. • The Mafia was in existence in order to protect its member interests and grant them freedom in business in exchange for absolute loyalty and submission to the family as a whole. • The Sicilian Mafia based their existence upon their strong beliefs that justice and honor are for oneself to take care of not for the government to control.

5. Status and Competition • When beginning to analyze the Mafia from and economic standpoint one can see that the Mafia came into existent as almost a capitalistic counterpart to what the government and society were providing. • The Mafia members see themselves as alternative providers of public services. • The Mafia’s determination to establish itself as a state within the state is what makes it unique says Roberto Scapinato, one of 13 prosecutors committed full-time to Mafia enquiries. • And the would be state not only imposes its own laws-at gunpoint-but levies its own taxes. • The Mafia’s competition with the state keeps prices good, because as long as the states resources are a viable commodity for a consumer, • The Mafia’s competition with the state increases the provision of public services that are available and increases the income of whoever the consumer chooses to be his "representative producer”.

6. The hierarchy • Some scholars of The Mafia consider it to not only be an underworld government so-to-say, but a business enterprise. • Ralph Salermo, a former police officer ho published a study of organized crime in the late stated that the Mafia was "highly organized" and he also went on to say that the Mafia modeled a "criminal confederation whose structure parallels that of a major corporation" • The boss presides over and organization characterized by staff and line positions devoted to a rational search for profit. • The Boss, then, was roughly like the CEO of a business corporation. This is what makes up modern corporations. • The decisions that are made by certain companies come from the hierarchy of the company. • Decision making in the Mafia is concentrated at the top of the hierarchy; a low-status member is expected to surrender his own will and authority to the authority of his superiors and place himself almost completely at the disposal of the rulers to be used as the latter see fit