The Mafia As A Corporation Essay, Research Paper

Stephen Van Tighem

History 104 12:00-12:50

Kurt Dunbar

Due: 11/19/2001

Term Paper

Violence, blackmail and corruptness as concern footings, one would dubiously see them platitude, but in the Mafia, nil is. Looking at the history environing the Mafia, and the motives apparent for its unconventional patterns will take one to recognize that it is much more a brotherhood aimed at entrepreneurial success than the more common impression that it is merely a malicious group of amoral scoundrels, dying to bring mayhem. For decennaries the Italian-American Mafia has employed violent to accomplish success in a capitalistic sense. ? The Mafia has changed a great trade since the yearss of the peasant rebellions in sun-baked Sicily. It has found a topographic point within its ranks for business-school alumnuss, and it has adopted modern banking methods and invested in legitimate corporate ventures. ? The Mafia, besides known as La Cosa Nostra, is by and large composed of Italians or Italian-Americans that work together as entrepreneurial felons. La Cosa Nostra literally means? The thing ours? but is slackly translated as? our thing. ? The Mafia traces its roots back to Sicily, Italy in the ninth century AD when its intent was to guard the feudal estates of affluent landlords. When members of the Sicilian Mafia immigrated to the United States they ab initio excelled in extortion, but shortly adopted gaming and harlotry as concern ventures. In order to understand the function the Mafia has played in the United States, it is first necessary to analyze the formation and function of the Mafia in Italy.

The Sicilian Mafia is said to hold formed around the 9th century when Arabic tribes invaded Sicily. Native Italians were forced into concealment, taking to the hills and mountains in order to remain safe. The Sicilian Mafia formed to protect Italians from the encroachers, and finally free the part of its unwelcome foreign enemies. At this point, Mafiosi ( single members of the Mafia ) basically became jobbers for concern minutess in their peculiar metropolis or town. In his book The Sicilian Mafia, Diego Gambetta describes the procedure? When the meatman comes to me to purchase an animate being, he knows that I want to rip off him. But I know that he wants to rip off me. Thus we need, say, Peppe [ that is, a 3rd party ] to do us hold. And we both pay Peppe a per centum of the deal. ? This method has many deductions. ? Peppe? is trusted by both the consumer and manufacturer and his place as a Mafiosi entitles him to demand equity and regard. In concern footings, a Mafiosi is an enterpriser, and the service he provides is protection. He protects both participants in the dealing he oversees. Gambetta touches upon this by stating: ? An enterpriser who trades in secondhand Equus caballuss or smuggled coffin nails may buy the protection of a Mafiosi. Alternatively, the Mafiosi may cover in drugs or used autos, but this is non what makes him a Mafioso. What does do him a Mafioso is the fact that he is capable of protecting himself every bit good as others against darnels and competitors. ? Opportunities were limited in Sicily for the Mafia ; they needed to happen ways to spread out their concern without losing the company of Italians, who understood best the functional benefits of the Mafia? s presence. With in-migration rise, America provided the ideal environment for members of the Mafia to spread out their arguably bastard concern ventures.

The coming of the twentieth century witnessed a important inflow of Italian immigrants into America, a motion mostly caused by a common dream among these people? one of detecting wealth and prosperity in the United States. Members of the Sicilian Mafia had the same dream. A member of the Mafia in Sicily can merely accomplish so much. Sicily is an Island located off the Southwest of Italy, and it was really hard for Mafioso to widen their domain of concern into the mainland of Italy. They saw the Unites States as an unfastened door with eternal possibilities. In America, still under the pretense of supplying? protection, ? Sicilian Mafiosi extorted and blackmailed their fellow Italians, but it was non organized in any sense of the word. ? These activities [ extortion ] were non organized, and were non the workss of? idle work forces who spend their dirty gold in exuberant life, ? but instead those of? thrifty, hardworking people who work hard but grumble at destiny because some of their countrymen are more affluent than they. ? Normally the blackmailers were common labourers who needed money for one ground or another, ? describes Humbert S. Nelli in his book The Business of Crime: Italians and Crime in the United States. The earliest organized signifiers of Mafioso in the United States were a group called the Black Hand. This group employed similar tactics as the Sicilian Mafia. The undermentioned narrative presented in Thomas Monroe Pitkin and Francesco Cordasco? s The Black Hand illustrates this group? s domain of influence in America. For illustration, in 1903, an Italian contractor from Brooklyn named Nicolo Cappielo received a missive stating him to be at a designated street corner the following afternoon or? your house will be dynamited and you and your household killed. ? The missive was signed? Mano Nera, ? ? Black Hand. ? After declining to demo up, friends urged him to pay the monetary value on his caput. He paid $ 1000 of the 10 1000 requested. Cappielo shortly became defeated and scared by the letters and menaces, and took his difference to the constabulary. While in tribunal, testimony revealed that Cappielo had asked the suspects ( members of the black Hand ) to penalize his son-in-law for get marrieding his girl against his wants. Business in the Mafia is based on common regard. Cappielo came to the Black Hand to bespeak a service, albeit a condemnable one, and when he refused to return the favour, his life was threatened. This depicts how the American Mafia used extortion as their primary concern venture. Soon their influence extended into assorted other kingdoms.

As seco

nd coevals Italians came of age, the glamor of stuff ownerships and success glorified by American civilization became a draw for all people, including felons. Former Black Handers began to diverge from the way of extortion. Alternatively of merely victimising Italians, they spread their influence towards all of the American populace. The name Mafia became more prevailing as Italian-American felon concern ventures spread into harlotry, gaming, labour racketeering and the freshly established narcotics market. The largest land was gained for Italian organized offense with the debut of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, Prohibition of intoxicant. Many of the work forces that excelled in the distribution of illegal intoxicant, chiefly a younger coevals of Italians were speedy witted, each possessing a acute street sense gained from turning up in America. Work force like Charles? Lucky? Luciano, Al Capone and Hyman Abrams took up a life of offense at a really immature age. ? Lucky? Luciano left school at the age of 14 and? took a occupation as a transportation male child in a chapeau mill, but one hebdomad of work and a $ 7 payroll check convinced him that he wanted something more from life? [ he wanted ] money to pass, beautiful adult females to bask, silk underwears and topographic points to travel in style. ? Young Italians began to fall in street packs and wanted nil to make with the common on the job category. ? It appears that all the Prohibition-era racketeers, whether born in the United States or brought here as babies or kids, started their callings in one or another gang. ? By affecting themselves in illegal gaming and labour racketeering, many outstanding mobsters made cardinal connexions with powerful politicians, constabulary and legal professionals that would turn out really helpful during Prohibition. In order for entrepreneurial mobsters to acquire intoxicant to the populace they frequently struck trades with pre-Prohibition intoxicant warehouse proprietors. Mafioso lived extravagantly, and the populace admired them. ? Much of the public by and large accepted and condoned crime when it involved the industry and distribution of spirits and beer, ? provinces Nelli. He continues, ? A thrill-seeking public enjoyed vicariously the sensational, epicurean, and unsafe lives of the? liquor Barons? as a reprieve from ordinary lives as dish washers, bookkeepers, tooth doctors, teachers. ? Business-wise, Prohibition brought great wealth to members of the Mafia ; it besides brought them celebrity in the eyes of the populace. The public frequently ignored the force that occurred between rival packs, but when the force involved members of the common populace, an highly rare happening, action was demanded against the mobsters. It was with these anomalous occasions that the seeds of misinformation were sown, unluckily lodging as the American public’s perceptual experience of “The Mob” despite a more honest actuality. With the obliteration of Prohibition, Mafia groups began to run casinos in Las Vegas, houses of harlotry, and were really involved in labour racketeering. Their condemnable activities became more of a concern than of all time before.

As Mafia groups grew and matured, leaders such as Capone, Luciano and John Torrio became really interested in maximising net income and cut downing hazards. As their involvements began to take on the visual aspect of legitimate concern, they had more of an involvement in specifically with whom they did? concern? and with whom they? employed? . Maffia leaders were inexorable about maintaining their traffics? in the family. ? With all the wealth gained during prohibition, many Mafioso wished to give their kids instructions so that they could come in into legitimate concerns such as jurisprudence or medical specialty, go forthing their illegal personal businesss to be handled by other biological household members ( nephews, sons-in-law, cousins ) should their ain kids go on to win in the legitimate universe of concern. It is due to this that Mafia groups are frequently referred to as? families. ? Gambling, the largest beginning of income for? households? after Prohibition, ? brought in an estimated $ 20 million a twelvemonth, with one-year net net incomes of about $ 7 million. ? Towards the latter half of the twentieth century, Mafia households made progressively larger paces to come in the legitimate concern universe.

The American Mafia as a concern endeavor has done exceptionally good for itself in the United States. Prohibition provided the perfect scenario for the Mafia to do money, all the piece playing the function of the? good cat? in the eyes of the populace. Though public sentiment has surely turned against the Mafia since the 1920 & # 8217 ; s, unluckily this has occurred through misinformation on a expansive graduated table. The common American perceptual experience of the Mafia is every bit substantiated as a fairy-tale, the truth being something wholly different. They originally came to America as blackmailers, but really rapidly knew they would hold to widen their expertness into other Fieldss. With this enlargement came the celebrity and luck that has made the American Mafia celebrated in the United States. In clip, the Mafia honed their accomplishments, and aligned them with common legitimate concerns patterns, which has separated them from common felons, and allowed themselves to stand out.

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1. ) Firoentin, Gianluca and Peltzman, Sam. 1995. The Economics of Organised Crime. The Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge

2. ) Pot, Nicholas. 1971. The Mafia is non an Equal Opportunity Employer. Nicholas Pot

3. ) Gambetta, Diego. 1993. The Sicilian Mafia. The president and Fellows of Harvard College.

4. ) Mangione, Jerre and Morreale, Ben. 1992. ? Who? s afraid of La Mano Nera, ? The Black Hand? ? ? New York, Harper Collins. hypertext transfer protocol: //organizedcrime.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm? site=http % 3A % 2F % 2Fwww.mindspring.com % 2F % 7Ehistoric-ny % 2Fblackhand.htm

5. ) Nelli, Humbert S. 1976. The Business of Crime: Italians and Syndicate Crime in the United States. Oxford University Press, Inc.

6. ) Pitkin, Thomas M. and Cordasco, Francesco. 1977. The Black Hand: A Chapter in Ethnic Crime. Littlefield, Adams & A ; Co.

7. )