| > 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. |
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.