Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Italy's 'coexistence' with the mafia | Roberto Mancini | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Italy's coexistence with the mafia
From this brief explanation, you can see that the 'white mafia' – through the use of unlimited funds of fraudulent origin and the application of 'pressure' – can considerably alter the rules of free competition in a market economy. An entrepreneur who is also a member of the mafia never has cashflow problems. All he has to do is sell a shipment of cocaine, whereas an honest businessman is obliged to get into debt with banks and pay interest on loans. And once established in legal activities, the mafioso builds up privileged links with political and financial institutions, influencing them by lawful and illicit means, corrupting or threatening.

1 comment:

  1. Could we build a legalization framework to benefit small-capital homeowner-entrepreneurs instead of these clandestine transportation and production networks?

    I understand that much black market power derives from drugs and Western nations spend an inordinate amount of money to bring users and end-chain distributors to heel. Why is it impossible (or at least so far outside mainstream rhetoric) to neuter one source of global crime networks' power, turn a budgetary expense into a profit and begin rebuilding individual savers all around the world in one fell swoop?

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