[danans]

I've heard the opposite - that the Mafia formed to take advantage of a period when there was a vacuum of central authority in Italy and therefore little security for common folks.

The mafia served as the protectors - and if not paid, harassers - of the people in this situation.

[coliveira]

A similar thing is happening right now in Brazil. Ex-policemen are forming militias that supposedly "protect" the population in cities like Rio. If you don't pay them, you may very well be the target of "bad people".

[vbezhenar]

If you don't pay money to your government, you'll be punished. It's not really different.

[coliveira]

Everything the government does has to go through the justice system. Thugs will kill you without warning. This is very different.

[philwelch]

Some governments will kill you without warning, either. I think the point to be making isn't that mafias are fundamentally different from government, they're just worse in almost every conceivable way.

[golergka]

There's plenty of mafia-like organizations with their own equivalent of justice system, and plenty of warnings before they decide to go with the ultimate option.

[coliveira]

It was exactly this ill-conceived mentality that "mafia and government are the same" that brought mafia-style militias to Rio. I can almost imagine criminals laughing of this kind of idea.

[reading-at-work]

Yup. When the State wouldn't help communities who needed protection, the Mafia families stepped in to serve that purpose. Of course, that's not to lionize them, but it explains why and how they came to power.

[beerandt]

Pretty much any government does the same- try not paying your taxes. Harassment will follow.

[danans]

Just because governments and mafias share that one characteristic doesn't mean they are the same. There is a whole lot more that governments provide to a society than collecting taxes.

Businesses also collect revenue, and if you don't pay them, harassment will also ensue, which you'd know if you've ever forgotten a payment and had a file sent to a collection agency, and ultimately to a civil court which is paid for by ... government. But that doesn't mean businesses are like mafias.

What distinguishes organized crime syndicates from governments and businesses is everything about them apart from "pay or be harassed" part, including but not limited to: the family-based structure and power inheritance model, the use of localized violence as coercion to payment (vs in exchange for services provided), and the lack of any transparent system of justice. Some governments (i.e. Saudi, North Korea) undoubtedly have more of those characteristics, but that doesn't mean that most governments are equivalent to organized crime syndicates.

[beerandt]

I'm not saying they're the same, but they hardly share just the one characteristic with government. It's just a different combination of characteristics than what most are used to.

Monarchies and nobility have the family based power structures and inheritance.

And locals go to the family for justice, similar to going to elders for dispute resolution in some cultures.

And almost all government power over locals ultimately relies on the threat of violence, we just call it police power.

I'm not advocating for it as an ideal system of government (or any form of government that I want to live under), but to discount it entirely is to not truly understand the dynamics at play. Or the circumstances of how such groups come to power.

[mwfunk]

If you think that's crazy, try stealing a car or assaulting someone! Those darned government oppressors, always keeping us down with their taxes and laws and stuff. Who do they think they are anyway, the government?!?

[beerandt]

It's payment for justice. We just call it taxes and police. They call it tribute and protection, or something else. The same basic functions are being fulfilled in different ways.

[danans]

I agree that they share many characteristics and objectives, derived ultimately from certain realities of the ways humans operate.

But I do contend that the better forms of government that are less mafia-like. Obviously absolute monarchies and dictatorships aren't among them.

[paulddraper]

It's like they're the mafia or something.

[int_19h]

This is pretty common in general. Taliban started in a very similar way - their first public act as an organized movement was trial and execution a local warlord who raped children from a nearby village.