[toyg]

The Mafia always enjoyed some support among people who benefit from it, which is why they make this sort of populist move in the first place. That doesn't mean they are as legitimate as a proper democratic government.

It's like saying "oh, the local feudal Lord helps us fight bandits!" - yeah, but he can also cut you down in the street without due process, doesn't care about your opinion, and might enforce ius primae noctis, without any recourse.

[mamonster]

>It's like saying "oh, the local feudal Lord helps us fight bandits!"

Well, the whole point of the Mafia is that it's a sort of reactionary movement to defeudalisation/uniformisation in places that are far away from where the power centralizes (the exact same reason why Yakuza started after the unification and why a lot of gangsters are from Kyushu).

It also pisses me off that people use the word mafia inappropriately, for example "Russian Mafia" or "Moroccan Mafia" have no meaning, these are not feudal organization like Mafia or Yakuza

[infecto]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_mafia

Should we update wikipedia?

[mistrial9]

[deleted]

[sparrowInHand]

He also might be a upstart bandit in the first place. Such nobleness of mind and character. Gods chosen!

[lelanthran]

> It's like saying "oh, the local feudal Lord helps us fight bandits!"

It's not exactly the same, because

> - yeah, but he can also cut you down in the street without due process, doesn't care about your opinion, and might enforce ius primae noctis, without any recourse.

If the mafioso goes too far they lose the support of the locals.

I mean, sure, the population has no recourse when some henchman rapes some bride, but the organisation's management usually enforce their rules on their own members rigourously and violently, too.

In the case of losing what little support they have with no profit involved, it's not hard to see why these organisations don't actually allow Droit De Signeur.

They're a business, first and foremost. Allow, even encourage, violence to increase profits? Sure! Use violence just for kicks? Probably not.

[toyg]

> If the mafioso goes too far they lose the support of the locals

That's not really the case. The only way people can express a loss of support is by telling authorities where to find this or that boss in hiding, which happens extremely rarely (because a lot of bosses are not actually in hiding at any given time). In some cases, towns are effectively led from afar - footsoldiers just roll in whenever they need to, like before local elections - so there is very little anyone can do.

> the organisation's management usually enforce their rules on their own members rigourously and violently, too.

This is a romanticised view. There are no rules, what matters is only who can project the most violence and/or control the most money.

I agree that they're a business first and foremost, but a lot of mafiosi do actually enjoy expressing violence. Most of them come from poor backgrounds and lived through traumatizing experiences pretty early in life.

[skrebbel]

This is the first pro-mafia comment I read on HN, and of course it’s in “Well Actually,” Normal Form, and I love it

[lelanthran]

> This is the first pro-mafia comment I read on HN, and of course it’s in “Well Actually,” Normal Form, and I love it

Which part of this appeared to be pro-mafia to you?

>> It's not exactly the same, because

>> If the mafioso goes too far they lose the support of the locals.

>> I mean, sure, the population has no recourse when some henchman rapes some bride, but the organisation's management usually enforce their rules on their own members rigourously and violently, too.

>> In the case of losing what little support they have with no profit involved, it's not hard to see why these organisations don't actually allow Droit De Signeur.

>> They're a business, first and foremost. Allow, even encourage, violence to increase profits? Sure! Use violence just for kicks? Probably not.

I mean, to me, exactly none of that is pro-mafia.

[jajko]

> Which part of this appeared to be pro-mafia to you?

Well, all of it. You put mafia folks into realm of rationality, when we know from numerous accounts (as in thousands and more) that they are extremely emotional, do stupid things and fuck up almost everything they touch, even their own future. Smart criminals behave very differently, its more about negligence and lack of efficient state counter-measures that allowed them to exist and thrive.

Now when we talk about mafia I grant 1 exception - current calabrian mafia (one and only Ndrangheta) is so good at money laundering that other crime syndicates globally pay it a fee to launder their money, this outsourcing is more effective and cheaper than homemade solutions. I think last time I checked it was maybe 100 billion USD business yearly.

Ndrangheta is so good they are spread like cancer through most Europe, even ie Switzerland ain't immune to them. In eastern part of EU they corrupt poorer places like Slovakia directly via governments and prime minister and don't even hide it very much, and steal and wash most of money via massive EU development funds. There is absolutely nobody there who doesn't know about this scheme running for at least 15 years and various other schemes ie endless highways building which cost 3x as much as in Germany with terrible resulting quality, and so on... tells you something about society and why capable folks often just leave and never come back, but getting off topic here.

[CRConrad]

>> Which part of this appeared to be pro-mafia to you?

> Well, all of it. You put mafia folks into realm of rationality

Historians may debate to which extent Hitler, Stalin (and Vlad Tepes and Caligula and...) were rational. That doesn't make those historians who argue that they were in fact (more or less) rational "pro-Hitler" or "pro-Stalin".

In short, I don't think the word "pro" means what you think it means.

[lelanthran]

> Well, all of it. You put mafia folks into realm of rationality,

That's not what "pro-mafia" means.

[afthonos]

Welcome, visitor from the past! In our enlightened times, we understand that one truly opposed to something would not intimate that something is anything less than a baby-eating sect of demons who revel at suffering despite reason and self-interest. Only inveterate supporters, probably in the payroll, would do that.

(Reading on GP, of course, but I did greatly enjoy “Well, Actually, Normal Form.)

[sdwr]

We need an "Anatomy of an HN comment section" starter pack

I know of 5 kinds of posts:

- interesting (uncontroversial)

- news (controversial by default)

- I made something for fun (yay)

- I made something for profit (boo!)

- philosophical

[xandrius]

Are you actually trying to argue in support of the mafia?

[lelanthran]

> Are you actually trying to argue in support of the mafia?

No, I'm saying that it's not exactly the same as fuedal overloads are.

Organised crime are a business, first and foremost, and like all businesses (whether legal or not) focuses on profit.

[actionfromafar]

Feudal overlords operated under similar constraints as the mafia today. They couldn't be too bothersome, or the peasantry could support a rival.

[doggacula]

In a Hollywood movie, sure, with obligatory leading warrior woman role. In real history, not so much. With very rare exceptions (like England [1], and some Eastern European lands were at least some of peasants were militarized) peasantry had little military value [2], and therefore little factor in any rivalry. Also feudalism had more strict rules in regard to competition for resources compared to modern criminals. A rival had to appear first, and in most cases needed to have rights at least somehow proven by genealogical tree, and old agreements. While it did happen, it couldn't just because of peasants.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assize_of_Arms_of_1181

[2] https://academic.oup.com/book/39423/chapter-abstract/3391457...

[Maken]

There was no need for a rival. Peasant revolts were actually quite common and in some cases they succeed in forcing their feudal lords' hands, to some degree [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Remences

[HPsquared]

There are so many small ways the common people can express support or disapproval. It's not as simple as "are they currently revolting with pitchforks".

[imperfect_light]

This is the libertarian argument that since businesses try to maximize profits, they would not do things like discriminate, pollute or defraud because in the long-term it would hurt profits.

The reality is businesses (including organized crime) are made up of individuals, who do illogical and short-sighted things all the time.

[_3u10]

Who takes more of your money to provide protection from not paying your tax? Mafia or government?

[xandrius]

Is that the vital distinction between mafia and government for you?

For me, if taxes are used for the society as a whole and not pocketed by a small elite, I'm totally ok to pay them.

But the higher the taxes, the better the quality of the services/infrastructures I expect.

[psunavy03]

> ius primae noctis

This wasn't actually a thing.

[lynx23]

So, like every goverment, then. "The government always enjoyed some support among people who benefit from it, which is why they make this sort of populist move in the first place." Yes, checks out.

[sparrowInHand]

Well, if its all equal, why not move to mogadishu?

[lynx23]

No, thanks. I've seen Black Hawk Down... Too many cowboys in that area.

[paganel]

At this point I'd take the feudal Lord a hundred times over any democracy, at least the feudal lord had the obligation to provide housing and a piece of land for his people/peasants, unlike democracy, which by this point is just an empty concept used to keep the current hegemonic system in place (and I could understand how come what they call democracy is still popular in places like this one here, places where people don't have to worry all that much about mortgages/paying rent)

[tgv]

That's the edgy opinion of someone with no knowledge of the past.

[paganel]

Nothing edgy about it, I think about this subject quite often, as a matter of fact. And I'll ignore the "no knowledge of the past" thing, even though a discussion around Marc Bloch's La Société féodale could be interesting (I've read it in Italian [1], what other edition/translation would have you recommended?)

[1] https://www.lafeltrinelli.it/societa-feudale-libro-marc-bloc...

[toyg]

Lol, this hyperbole is laughable. Feudal lords were obliged to provide shit for peasants; if such peasants rebelled, 9 times out of 10 they would be massacred on the spot. The degree of arbitrary rule they expressed is something we just lost knowledge of, in the first world; but go ask Africans or South Asians from regions infested by warlords, to get a taste.

What about one day you send your daughters to school, but it's the day Mr Lord decides he needs some new sex slaves, and your daughters just disappear? What about Mr Lord needs some cannon fodder for some hopeless adventure, so he just raids your village, rapes a few women, chains you and your kids, and leads you to inevitable death? That's just Another Day in Feudalism for you.

[mamonster]

>The degree of arbitrary rule they expressed is something we just lost knowledge of, in the first world

Actually, there are multiple areas in Europe that are now little different from feudal fiefdoms run by drag traffickers(13ème/15ème in Marseille comes to mind) and instead of doing anything about it politicians just pretend they don't exist.

[paganel]

> That's just Another Day in Feudalism for you.

I usually tend to forget that most of the people here have not read their history, comments like this one remind me of that. I recommend La société féodale [1] by Bloch, or the relevant volume from Histoire de la France rurale [2]

[1] https://www.amazon.com/La-soci%C3%A9t%C3%A9-f%C3%A9odale/dp/...

[2] https://www.editionspoints.com/ouvrage/histoire-de-la-france...