Term Paper on "Effects of the Mafia"

Term Paper 12 pages (4043 words) Sources: 10 Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Mafia

Within the history and present of the United States there is no more interesting a topic than the rise and fall of Organized Crime. The imagination of the nation still pines for a greater knowledge of the impact organized crime had on the country, both then an now. We see this evidenced in the hundreds of popular media representations of organized crime families and the fallout and progress of their lives. Some of these stories are simply a fast car trick with catchy phrase work and bright pictures, and some are based on historical evidence. (Paoli, 2003, p. 3)

The truth about organized crime in America is that it has a strong history and it greatly affected this nation, at different times during its life. "During the Prohibition era, ethnic crime became grist for the mill of Hollywood and of politics, and the ethnic press reacted strongly to the stereotyping of immigrants as criminals." (Bernstein, 2002, p. 162)

Furthermore the real story of organized crime has yet to be completely sorted out and likely never will be completely but the impact that organized crime has had, in a business sense is relatively well documented and worth a serious look. This work will address the question of how organized crime affected business in America, more specifically how the Irish and Italian Mafias affected business in the U.S. through the years.

The American Mafia emerged during Prohibition as the wealthier and more violent successor to local city gangs involved in prostitution and gambling...Initially, the American Mafia was a prominent supplier of bootlegged liquor. That required good connections with the local police department and political machines. Paying off the local beat cop provided a speakeasy, with its conspicuous and regular flow of traffic, little effective protection. Instead, it was necessary to guard against any cop who might be on that beat; the efficient solution was buying the whole department, if it was for sale. In many cities it was. Frequently, that also meant connections with urban political machines. While Al Capone's control of Chicago (though some scholars question Capone's Mafia membership) in the 1920s is the most notorious instance, almost 50 years later the Mayor of Newark, New Jersey, Hugh Addonizio, retained strong connections to the local Mafia family. Elliot Ness and the federal revenuers, frequently less honest than legend, were a nuisance but not a major one. (Reuter, 1995, 89)

The Mafia supplied the desired product, to a nation that was reeling from prohibition. Prohibition challenged the right of the people to seek something that had been readily available to them before, and was not as morally corrupt in the minds of all the people. Prohibition, proved to be a monumental mistake for the nation, and it cemented the influence of the Mafia in the history books and the book books of the nation, as it grew rich through supply and demand and then diversified into other area of business, more or less legitimate. The Irish and Italian Mafia families had grown so wealthy bootlegging that their ability to respond to a changing business climate, when alcohol was no longer illegal was assured.

The part of the story which is the most underreported is the fact that even though many dealings of organized crime were illegal they were also legitimate businessmen, who demonstrated all the skills of any adept organization in written and unwritten policies that furthered their goals of making money. Not to say that they did not have dark dealings, as they all did, but they were a diverse group, consisting of many nationalities, sometimes in integrated gangs and they were seeking to achieve in a manner that was available to them.

Several studies have found that organized crime can be interethnic in nature and also less violent than is commonly believed. Historian Alan Block saw that, although Jews dominated the cocaine trade in New York City during the early 1900s, there was also notable "evidence of interethnic cooperation" involving Italians, Greeks, Irish, and black participants. 30 a contemporary account of the Irish mob the Westies on Manhattan's West Side saw that they cooperate occasionally with Cosa Nostra groups to further mutual interests. 31 Annelise Anderson's analysis of a single organized crime "family" indicated that there was "no strong evidence" of violence in its legitimate businesses, and the use of force to encourage payments from loan shark customers was "almost nonexistent." 32 an investigation of organized crime infiltration of the New York City construction industry showed that "actual violence is only rarely necessary." 33 Reuter, Jonathan Rubinstein, and Simon Wynn noted that vending machine and waste collection industries in the New York City area had "outgrown the racketeers," inasmuch as "there is no point in a racketeer using force to control machine placement in a bar or restaurant unless he is also able to provide the patrons with the games they desire. If he cannot, the patrons will just move to another bar." 34 Each study demonstrates that organized crime activity operates according to economic factors faced by any business enterprise (i.e., the pressures of suppliers, customers, regulators, and competitors). The enterprise model clearly places these business-related concerns as more significant than hierarchical obligations or ethnic links in the genesis and continuation of organized crime. www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=15687214"(Chin, Kelly & Schatzburg,1994, p. 86) most important fact, is that organized crime influenced and even drove businesses in legitimate ways to great success and industry. Things got done because the organization of the mafias was in place and strong, and ordinary people often benefited from this industry, even if it was slightly illegitimate to largely illegal.

Mafia influence, though did not end with the police, as early on the crime bosses figured out that prohibition was not forever and that real influence must come from the people, in a democratic society, the people made the decisions about who would be next in power and what laws and programs they were willing to forward. For this reason at the same time that the mafia entered the illegal alcohol trade they also began to influence the rising stars of industry, the unions.

At the same time, the Mafia acquired control of many unions, largely through direct intimidation of members. By 1929, when John Landesco did his classic study of organized crime in Chicago, he could already list a dozen local industries that the Mafia dominated through the unions. Prices were fixed and/or territories were allocated, with the threat of union strikes or picketing of customers as the enforcement mechanism. (Reuter, 1995, 89)

The union was a surrogate family for many people, during the early years of the industrial era, when immigration was at its height and everyone you knew was back home, the union provided fellowship, employment and a voice among the crowd, not that they were always the most honest of organizations, as they were not. This already shady sense of power and progress probably lent well to the infiltration of the unions by the mafia, as they better than most groups clearly understood the power play, necessary to make money off the industry of others.

The Depression, which created a demand for cartel-organizing services later met by various New Deal agencies, such as the Reconstruction Financing Administration, added a few more industries (e.g., fur manufacturing) to the Mafia list, particularly in New York. (Reuter, 1995, 89)

The mafia met the demands of business, through legitimate and illegitimate ways but was clearly capable of maneuvering to the best money making trend when the time came to do so, in this manner they stayed in influence to the 1970s and 80s and made and broke many individuals in the process.

By the 1960s, the Mafia had mostly shifted from direct provision of illegal services, like bookmaking and loansharking, to selling services to bookmakers, loansharks, and other criminal entrepreneurs. The organization's reputation for being able to deliver on threats was good enough that it could, in effect, sell these entrepreneurs contract insurance and dispute-settlement services. A bookmaker could insure himself against extortion by other gangsters or customer welching by making regular payments to some Mafioso. The organizational reputation, painstakingly and bloodily acquired earlier, was now the principal asset. (Reuter, 1995, 89)

In earlier times the foothold of organized crime can be seen as an interesting statement on the fallout that can be associated with legislating morality of any brand, as the groups most likely to be targeted prejudicially for excesses like drinking were those who were the most likely to vent the system by creating alternative forms of business, and early on this was associated with the illegal sale and distribution of the very thing the prohibitionist teetotalers were trying to eradicate, alcohol. "... The negative stereotype of the brutal Irish drunk and its mirror image, the positive stereotype of the happy Irish drunk, are unjust stereotypes -- which have been imposed on American Irish by the native culture -- for which there has not only been no reparation, but not even an apology."… READ MORE

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