Mafias and governments

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Mafias are governments. They provide social services and protection from external threats, and in order to do that and maintain hegemony, they collect taxes and threaten physical harm upon those who don't comply with the plan.

That describes the traditional mafias, both in the Godfather style of old and the more modern Crips & Bloods style. It also describes the kings and feudal lords from centuries ago, who each had their own little army to protect against the neighbor's little army. It describes both Hezbollah--the organization that attacked Israel and then organized the reconstruction effort after the completely inevitable bombing--and the recognized government of Lebanon. For that matter, it even describes the government of the U.S.A., France, China, or any other government represented at the U.N.

Sorry, no citations today; this is just a set of interesting ways to think about things. Feel free to contribute citations. Also, I'll use government and mafia interchangeably herein.

The violence thing

You know you're going to lose any fight against the U.S. government (though the U.S. Court of Claims rules for the claimant as often as for the Federal Govt), so you don't try. Forget what you saw in the movies: there is no way that you are going to overthrow the U.S. government or otherwise force your way into power, so you don't try. That means that although the government has the ability to use force against you, it never really has to. Forget what you saw in the movies: the odds are about nil that the Feds are going to show up at your door one day and cart you off.

The small mafia is a whole `nother story. With limited legitimacy and others who want to claim that they are the ones who should be controlling the taxes/protection money, it is very conceivable that others could take over, so the microgovernment needs to show that it is in control. History has shown that this often means killing people. Hamas members kill Fatah members, and Fatah members kill Hamas members.

Maintaining legitimacy: a case study

Modern churches are not governments (well, outside of Vatican City.) They exert social pressure and make an effort to get government to use its coercive force to advance church goals, but they have shifted to maintaining their power exclusively by trying to be nice. It'd be great if that were enough, but we've never seen a non-militarized church as the sole government in a territory (counterexamples, anyone?). Thanks to the tourists, Vatican city has among the highest crime rates of any country. Membership rates are pretty far down: there are millions of people throughout what used to be the Catholic territories that are no longer affiliated with any church at all.

From which we learn that virtuous behavior and a divine endorsement are not enough to keep people subscribed to the team. For any modern government, it is difficult to ask the counterfactual question of whether people would support the government if there were no threat of force at all. Evidently, most wouldn't.

The model and the moral