The state and the capitalist economy

The Mafia, the state and the capitalist economy


Despite the struggle against the Mafia and organized crime has been for decades on the agenda of all governments Italian, probably mafia and crime have never been so influential. The series of arrests, processes and maxi-trials, ads decisive blows brought to the arrest of a mafia boss of the first floor, then another, as the waves break on the rocks: the power of the mafia, or best of the mafia is evident from their increasing turnover from the control of the economy and also by the fact that obviously have lots of complicity at all levels of the political system.

If the tentacles of the Mafia, such as the Hydra of Lerna, rise as they are cut, it is because the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and the 'Ndrangheta in Calabria, the Camorra in Naples or the Sacra Corona Unita in Puglia, not only have an old story but derive from society, and more particularly by the economic circuits of capitalism, the foods in which they always find new strength.

Mafia and the Risorgimento

The Mafia and its special relationship with the state authorities, particularly in Sicily, refer to the conditions under which, in the second half of the nineteenth century, the unitary state was imposed against the resistance of the Kingdom of Naples, called Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, which controlled the island and throughout the south of the peninsula. If the Risorgimento Italy was for a process of the bourgeois revolution was a bourgeois revolution incomplete.

Sicily has been known throughout the history of the existence of secret societies and armed resistance organizations were presented as a foreign occupier, or in defense of the poor against the powerful, while entertaining with these powerful ambiguous relationships. On the other hand, well before the unit, the aristocratic Sicilian kept private militias and armed men to enforce compliance with the peasants of the feudal order, and among other things, the payment of fees and compliance with their obligations in respect of 'aristocracy. The abolition of feudalism in 1812 did nothing but reinforce this need. It was not the end of the property latifondistica; instead paved the way for a slow process of disintegration of the land system. The landlords lived more and more in the city giving the management of their estates to gabellotti, administrators, whose job it was to withdraw the taxes due from the peasants. With the help of private guards, in particular the levying excise, in Sicily term used to indicate the rents payable to the owners.

At the same time the pressure of the peasants to obtain land rights increased, bringing the last period of the regime of the Bourbons of Naples, tremors and even peasant uprisings, in which the gabellotti responded by resorting to traditional methods and organizing their own armed gangs. The new rural bourgeoisie represented by gabellotti you took the law itself, which was nothing more than continue the old habits of the landlords on behalf of the latter but also for its own account, as they themselves gabellotti concentrated in their hands a part of the landed property.

The bourgeoisie of the North wanted to build a State extended to the entire peninsula, which in turn would guarantee the availability of a market of the same size. But the kingdom of Naples was leaning to the propertied classes of the southern regions, that is, first of all the old aristocracy owner of estates, allied to a middle class town still weak, that only in Naples knew the beginning of a trend.

We tend to remember this period of the unification of Italy only the heroic adventure of Garibaldi and his thousand "red shirts" landed in Sicily in May 1860 to liberate the island from Bourbon rule and conquer the new state which was be that of the Italian people. But the king of Sardinia and his minister Cavour, who directed the process of unification, Garibaldi utilized within narrow limits. They understood the value of using the man to give the appearance revolutionary process, and thus secure the support of the petty bourgeoisie patriotic. But behind this facade, the bourgeoisie and the State of North did not want a mobilization of the masses, that would have risked to take a revolutionary character and upset the fragile social balance of the southern regions.

On the contrary, in respect of the propertied classes of these regions the state Piedmontese tried the compromise. He wanted to demonstrate that the new unified state could be a better protector, a more secure guarantor of their social domain than it was the State of the Bourbons of Naples in the process of decomposition. In 1848, Ferdinand II of Bourbon had been reduced to make bomb Messina to maintain its rule over Sicily. You had to prove to the propertied classes of the island that the new power would be at least as hard as this king, who had conquered with the advent of Messina the nickname "king bomb."

The same Garibaldi was soon brought to demonstrate this, shortly after the landing in Sicily, when the peasant masses by interpreting his arrival as a sign of their liberation began to rise up against the landed aristocracy and occupy large domains for its own account . The "revolutionary" and its thousands of "red shirts" sent by Cavour immediately turned against the masses. Garibaldi, who had proclaimed himself dictator on behalf of the king, he organized the repression of the peasant movement, much to the relief of the Sicilian aristocracy. So the transfer of power from the hands of the Bourbons to those of the Kingdom of Piedmont, and the takeover of the latter on Sicily and the South, they could bring in the famous phrase of Prince Salina, hero of the novel "The Leopard" by Giuseppe Tomasi Lampedusa, to "change everything so that everything stays as it is." The domain of the class of large landowners remained, changing only the protector.

At the same time, however, this decision prevented the new State to gain a broad social base among the population of the south. The landing of Garibaldi and the establishment of a unified state in Sicily and throughout the South were not the profound revolution that clearing the entire social field, he could upset the balance of class, and among other consequences take their function bands armies of gabellotti. In contrast, maintaining the old social structure, the compromise between the old propertied classes and the new state, opening a space for the development and consolidation of these bands. Mafia organizations were able to impose their existence as that of a kind of occult power, necessary intermediary between the Sicilian society and a unitary state too far.

An armed force of the bourgeoisie Sicilian

The very origin of the word "mafia" is still the subject of debate among historians, although many today identify the Arabic word "Muhafiz" which means "protector, guardian". The history of the Sicilian Mafia remains little known for the obvious reason that it is a secret organization, and that tries to keep at all costs. In his research on the Mafia at the end of the nineteenth century, the historian Salvatore Lupo shows that the class of rich peasants and nobles, and among other things the gabellotti, was able to benefit from the social context in order to impose its presence to a 'declining aristocracy and the power of a State which remained without strong links with the company.

Do not hesitate to resort to armed violence, intimidation and murder, in a context of weak state and its authority, the mobsters are able then to establish themselves as intermediaries to resolve conflicts. A theft of livestock, a conflict over payment of a debt, they find a solution, not so much thanks to the intervention of the state and of justice, but as part of a "componenda," a transaction in which the local mafia ago by arbitrator, not forgetting to withhold his commission. This sort of court conflict imposes the more easily its arbitration because they all begin to know, at least within the poor population, that those who do not comply would risk a fine day to find himself dead body riddled with bullets in some field, without it being never be possible to find a culprit and not even a witness, because the law of silence, the silence imposed upon all. For their part, the aristocrats and landowners, a little 'more respected by the mafia in general are not likely to suffer such extreme consequences. But if they wanted to do without arbitration mafia, they too might suffer some retaliation, robbery or of poisoning wells. Experience also shows them that it is more reasonable to accept this arbitration, which is not that of a distant state power.

On two occasions, yet, after the unification of Italy, the mafia was led to pursue a violent crackdown against the Sicilian population. This was the case in 1866, when the army crushed the uprising in the blood of Palermo, organized in part by elements of the old regime, but based on a deep popular discontent. Then, in 1891-1894, made in front of the movement far wider and more conscious of the beams Sicilian workers. Although 25 years after Mussolini had stolen their name, these bundles Sicilian late nineteenth obviously had no connection with the fascist movement. Organizations of the poor, farmers, laborers, sharecroppers, laborers, miners, artisans, beams, born in Sicily, were the expression of the claims of the latter and by the way the land hunger of the peasants, but they were also carried on in a spirit of egalitarian and socialist. The army responded to the movement of the beams repressing the land occupations, among other things, with the massacre of Catalvuturo in January 1893, but faced with this mass movement that flared up in Sicily, the Liberal government of Giolitti was forced to make concessions, before being replaced at the end of 1893 by former partisan and man of the old Left Francesco Crispi. The latter, in obedience to the pressure of the propertied classes in Sicily, organized a widespread repression and sent to jail the leaders of the movement. As for the mafia, although locally some of its members joined the movement of the bundles, his first action was to help the crackdown.

"The State is a gang of armed men" Engels summed up in a famous formula, thus indicating, in a society divided into classes, the need for a power based on an armed force that enforce this division for the benefit of the propertied class. But in the conditions of instability of Sicily single post, the only armed force of the Italian State was insufficient to fulfill this task in a sustainable manner, and the Mafia for the propertied classes became an indispensable complement.

The original condition of the bourgeois revolution in Sicily and throughout the South, therefore, have meant that the armed band of the Italian State if they would add another, hidden but no less necessary to the maintenance of the first of the bourgeois order. Expression of a part of the local bourgeoisie, at the same time rival and auxiliary power state official, this band, the mafia, became an inevitable part of society. She herself had need to give themselves an organization, and he did under the name of '"Honoured Society", under the direction of Don Vito Cascio Ferro, who seems to have been, at the end of the nineteenth century, the first true leader of the mafia. It was under his supervision that the mafia is called a central structure, territorial organization, defining the fiefs of any "gang" ... and a systematic funding through the lace, mafia drawing on the income of each. The mafia organization would later took the name of Cosa Nostra, re-importing from the United States the name taken from the Italian mafia in this country.

This "Honored Society" and its members, the "men of honor", they found inevitably complicity and even representatives within the power of the state. Organization born in a society still pre-capitalist, was able to follow the economic trends and take a position in the business world, specializing of course in all those for whom it was necessary to do largely without the bourgeois legality.

Mafia and mafia bourgeoisie

In Sicily at the end of the nineteenth century we can speak of the existence of a genuine mafia bourgeoisie. The assassination of Emanuele Notarbartolo, in February, 1893, raises a national scandal because the victim is a wealthy bourgeois, who was mayor of Palermo from 1873 to 1876, then director general of the Bank of Sicily until 1890, but the instigator of 'murder he is a powerful notable, Raffaele Palizzolo, deputy elected through the system of political patronage that dispenses favors. You know its many conflicts with Notarbartolo, who berates his financial wheeling and dealing, conflicts in which the murder of Notarbartolo by an assassin Palizzolo allows you to terminate. Despite everything, the scandal door Palizzolo in prison before the courts of the North, before finally being released for lack of evidence, and triumphantly return to Sicily with the halo of martyrdom. However, the case shows that the mafia has already changed times and that, by organizing the rural bourgeoisie, it has also become that of a part of the urban bourgeoisie, and has significant complicity within the political system. Impeachment by the national press, to which the scandal gives the opportunity to discover the nature of the Mafia, the Sicilian society responds obviously good that the Mafia does not exist: it is only an invention of the people of the North, a new way to denigrate, once again, the people of the South and its customs.

Afterward, the Fascist period - started in 1922 - it was difficult for the Mafia, or at least for a number of mobsters. Mussolini wanted to prove that his dictatorship would not tolerate that part of the country could escape its control. He sent the Prefect Mori island, with orders to go to war against the Mafia with all the means of the state. He organized real military operations, leading to the arrest and deportation of hundreds of mobsters, some of which were saved only by fleeing to the United States in particular. The repression of the Prefect Mori, who on this occasion earned the nickname of "Iron Prefect", took away a part of the mafia crime, but in reality only touched the level of the performers, minions, families who controlled this or that part of the territory. Not only the highest level of financiers and large landowners was not touched, but they were able to give a representation on the party in power and the fascists. The same "iron prefect" fell out of favor, and in fact, the usual compromise between Mafia and power was maintained, albeit in a less conspicuous.

After that period of half underground, the Mafia was able to rise strongly after the Anglo-American landing in 1943, it facilitated, and the end of fascist power in the island. Quickly resumed control of the territory, with the support of the occupation authorities, stakeholders met to find authoritative and able to control the population. A part of the Mafia put even a fleeting movement for the independence of Sicily, declaring that the island would become the fiftieth state of the USA.

But first, the Mafia said even more power over her campaigns in Sicily, at the moment, with the end of the war, the peasant movement resumed to grow. Trade unionists and peasant activists of the Communist Party organized new occupation of the lands of the landlords, whose influence was rather enhanced in the fascist period. A convergence is then organized, between the forces of repression of the so-called democratic state that he was establishing the Mafia. Already in 1944 in Villalba, Calogero Vizzini fief of Mafia boss, the latter gave the order to fire on a rally of the ruling Communist Li Cause. The most famous incident, however, was the massacre of Portella della Ginestra, 1 May 1947, when the gang of Salvatore Giuliano opened fire on farmers gathered there for a rally, making a dozen deaths. But every day the trade unionists farmers risked their lives threatened by the Mafia, which were covered by numerous accomplices within the State apparatus and to Rome.

The same Salvatore Giuliano, whose band was used by the Mafia, was murdered in 1950 by his lieutenant Pisciotta, which in turn would have died in prison four years later, after drinking a poisoned coffee. In all these cases the complicity dates back to the Minister of the Interior at the time, Mario Scelba, strong man of the Christian Democrats. Due to these homicides next eliminating pesky witnesses, it was possible to avoid to know more about who had them covered.

So restored "order" means the period that begins with the post-war world will be favorable. The years 1950-1960 are as famous as those of the "Sack of Palermo", the period in which a number of construction companies, including those of the mafioso Francesco Vassallo, tills thanks to their relationships with all managers Democrats. Overall though it is a fairly uncertain for Cosa Nostra, because in the years 1950 to 1960 the control of the Mafia on Sicilian society decreases. The economic expansion of the period, the development of industry, services, public loans, but also the massive emigration to the North for the lack of work, allowing it to any part of the company was no longer in his employ . In this society that seems in progress "man of honor" does not inspire more of the same respect. Although Cosa Nostra continues its usual activities, its role decreases, at least in relation to the development of the rest of society. Unfortunately, it is only a parenthesis.

From this point of view the 70 represent a turning point. While the period of economic expansion is coming to an end, the most parasitic activities become more important. The collusion with the municipalities administered by the Christian Democratic allows to take advantage of building permits and public contracts. The Mafia collects protection money on most of the business, whether it's the food markets or the construction of a road. You can then verify that the Mafia and mobsters have made a decisive leap: the mafia bourgeoisie is now a middle class business, deeply rooted in property, construction, public works and finance. At the same time the Mafia is opened to international trade, takes a leading position in the drug trade, the expansion of which becomes world. His clandestine organization, its practice of arms and intimidation, his connections with the families of Cosa Nostra in the USA, are important advantages in this regard.

However, not everything is simple within the Cosa Nostra. The existence of a "Cupola", a kind of supreme direction that brings together the mafia families, intended to arbitrate on the demarcation of territories and fields of expertise, obviously not enough to resolve the conflicts. Mafia wars erupt periodically thereafter between the families, leaving dead on the ground. Every so often, even the cops or courts too curious, or who believe too much of their function, are threatened or eliminated. The State thus challenged is then forced to react, and governments to put on the agenda the fight against Mafia limiting for some time its freedom of action, or at least its manifestations too showy.

Camorra, 'Ndrangheta and other

There is the history of the Camorra, the Neapolitan mafia in the region, a certain parallelism with that of its counterpart in Sicily, even if it is born in an urban environment very different from the rural setting of the island. Even in this case, the same origin of the word "mafia" is still debated by historians, but now seem to prefer an origin from the Spanish word, Guarduña. It seems that at least since the sixteenth century the name was given to the bands of criminals who held sway in the neighborhoods of Naples, and prelevavano their tithing. In 1820, these bands gave themselves a structure, forming the "Beautiful reformed society", during a meeting held in the Church of Santa Caterina in Formiello, in the district of Porta Capuana in Naples. For its part, the royal regime, which struggled to control this city socially explosive, unable to prevent the existence of gangs of thugs who exploited systematically the districts, he preferred to tolerate them and possibly use them. The police of the Bourbons of Naples worked with these bands, even partially integrating its staff and using the Camorra as an instrument of social control.

The Unitary State, after 1860, replacing the old state of the Bourbons, even shooting his methods. With ups and downs of the relationship of complicity, collaboration or at least mutual respect - each other leaving his own land - were maintained. The organization of the Camorra underwent some changes: the Beautiful reformed society was officially dissolved in 1915 Until now, attempts to give a pyramidal organization on the Sicilian model had failed. The "New Organized Camorra", launched by the boss Raffaele Cutolo in the 70s as an attempt to resurrect the Beautiful reformed society of the nineteenth century, he met with the resistance of the competitors, exploding in a bloody clan war. Today, however, the result is a de facto division of the territory between the various families. The Camorra has survived thanks to the tolerance of the state and because it has been able to follow developments in the economy, occupying the spaces offered by the trafficking of all kinds, and that the underground economy to the point of being in the middle of the twenty-first century power, perhaps even more rooted in Campania than it is Cosa Nostra in Sicily.

Even in the history of the 'Ndrangheta in Calabria there is some parallelism with that of its corresponding Sicily. The word comes from the greek andragathìa (virility, courage) and indicated in the nineteenth century secret organizations created by the peasants to resist the power of large landowners. Pursuing extortion in response to the extortion of the rich, these associations became simple criminal associations, whose members, however, always enjoyed a certain respect from the population. The wealthier classes, in turn, agreed with them. Even in this case, the hidden power of the 'Ndrangheta was able to establish itself as a necessity, along with a state power distant or absent. After the difficulties of the fascist period, the local boss of the 'Ndrangheta could reappear at the end of World War II after the Allied landing. As in Sicily, the occupation authorities preferred to entrust the administration of many cities to these men, able to exert their influence and control a territory.

The 'Ndrangheta is also the mafia organization that has experienced the most spectacular development in recent years. Discreet, based on a family structure and rituals of belonging and selection that make it difficult to penetrate, could establish its control on the agricultural economy of the region Calabria. Then, match the south of the peninsula, has managed to control large parts of the economy of the North.

The Sacra Corona Unita, the mafia in the region of Puglia, the Stidda the south of Sicily, mafia organizations are the most recent history, born as emanations of the 'Ndrangheta and Cosa Nostra, on the initiative of some families of these two organizations.

All these mafias inherit their history characteristics. Some folk seem only, such as procedures for membership of the secret society, the initiation rites with which new members must swear allegiance to tradition, swear to obey the leaders, to accept in advance the death sentence, in the event of betrayal or detection secrets of the organization. Yet all of this answer, rather than the folklore and tradition, to a concrete need, being set up secret societies that can act effectively at the edge of the law, and to be respected, both by their own members and by all those with whom they do business.

The so-called "culture" mafia is added to these needs. According to its rules, the "man of honor" Sicilian Cosa Nostra member must obey certain principles: respect for one's word, not to admit the betrayal, punish those who practice it, be right in arbitration to accept the self-sacrifice for the cause of the "friends", ie the organization. This moral, which is claimed specifically Sicilian, not missing even be inspired by the Catholic conformism: "man of honor" should also be a good Christian, have no other ambition than to live a good family, respect women and - example - refuse to exploit the prostitution of young people astray. But of course these "principles" do not hold up long when they come into conflict with the interests of the organization, and, among others, the need to face competition from other organizations, who do not even pretend to have this moral among the risk of leaving a "market" to others and compromise with the principles it's easy to choose.

All this is based on so-called moral necessarily the history of the society in which they evolve mafia gangs, giving each its specificity. Its function is to give some coherence to the band, but also a good conscience to '"man of honor", and above all to his personal and family environment. With the help of this sort of ideology Mafia members in this environment may declare that the mafia, when he acts in a way that most of society considers as criminal, does nothing but defend the family and friends, and adhere to traditional rules. Certainly we could find the rules of the same type in the bands of criminals on the planet. But the fact is that this band can be more than a century to live in harmony with one part of society, and also with an important fraction of the ruling classes.

Mafia and economy

The use of methods of intimidation, murder, and all the resources that may result from an existence on the margins of legality, all this facilitated by tolerance or even the complicity of the authorities, have allowed the mafia organizations to be able to win a growing economic role. It is seen as the old mafia in Sicily rural mafia has managed to become a real business, reigning on public works contracts and construction, real estate, buying a dominant role in the international heroin trade, picking up the lace on most of the economic activities, and of course by establishing links with the world of finance to start the money laundering. According to some studies, the global turnover of Cosa Nostra would be at least € 20 billion, the equivalent of a quarter of the GDP of Sicily, and increase again.

In Campania the partition of the territory between the families of the Camorra enables them to control most of the economic activity. Roberto Saviano, now threatened with death by the clan of Casal di Principe which he denounced with first and last names, described in his book "Gomorrah" the range of activities of the criminal organization.

Thus, starting from the traditional activities of control of the trafficking of narcotics or cigarettes, by the practice of prostitution and usurious loan to real estate, from public works to lace on the activities of the port, the Camorra has gone to wider fields: the control enterprises to tender in the textile sector, employing much of the black workers, and now the great business of waste disposal, to which representatives of business of the Camorra turn the whole of Europe to propose to displace industrial waste in the countryside Neapolitan, at bargain prices but seriously and irreparably polluting the soil. The grip of the Camorra in the territory of the region has not done anything but strengthen. The rise in unemployment and the loss of jobs in the industry, in fact, leaves no other perspective to a part of the youth, but to agree to work for the Camorra, to a level that is often just what aides or minions. Even there, the total turnover of the Camorra would be at least € 20 billion.

Finally, the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta has had more discreet than an extension of his sisters Sicilian and Neapolitan, because more silent and accompanied by less-settling and murder, but certainly not less effective. The facts of Rosario, in January 2010, in which his men have organized a punitive expedition against immigrant workers employed in the citrus groves, have shown the extent to which an anti-working class militia at the service of the owners. But in reality it controls much of the food industry, from harvesting to transport and export. We must add of course the real estate and the racket of Public Works, illustrated by the various investigations on tenders for the award of the work of the Salerno-Reggio Calabria to the various families of the 'Ndrangheta. But most of the organization's turnover now comes from control, out of his home region, was able to establish the cocaine trade in the North, from which it would derive 60% ​​of his income
So, come to amass huge sums in cash, the 'Ndrangheta recycles investing in property and creating businesses in the construction industry, making sure the markets through the threat and racketeering, already widely tested in Calabria motorway to the works cited above. So a part of the rich northern Italy, around Milan, now pays protection money to the clan came from Calabria. Thanks to this, the organization would become the richest of the mafia organizations with a turnover that would be 45 billion euro in Italy. But now the 'Ndrangheta has expanded its scope to other European countries, such as Germany, Spain or France.

Thus the total annual turnover of the whole of the Italian mafia could be close to 100 billion euro. Even Confescercenti, a professional association of small and medium sized enterprises, estimated the total budget of the Italian mafia to 135 billion euro in 2009, of which 78 billion net profit. Such turnover is more than 7% of the Italian GDP. In fact there is more traffic in which they are absent from the trafficking of organs that of weapons, or even of radioactivity, from the health sector to that of the games, from the night to the exploitation of the supply chains of illegal immigration.

Mafia and political power

We have seen how, from the beginning of the Mafia, the relationship between the latter and the political power have been reports of complicity well rather than confrontation. For the bourgeoisie, the Sicilian Mafia was and remains an instrument of its class rule, and it is so even in Calabria and Campania. This implies that, in one way or another, it will penetrate the political power and will face up to a certain point their instrument, or at least that these two parallel powers work together and sometimes get confused.

The collaboration exists first and foremost at the local level, where politicians can be elected only if they have an electoral clientele who make some service. The Mafia or the Camorra, with their local roots, they can provide such customers, or otherwise withdraw support to policy-makers who are not quite understanding, or they can simply make out. The scandals break out every now and then, when the collusion becomes too public, but in the territory Mafia is permanent and inevitable.

It was in the public domain, during the long reign of the Christian Democrats, that the party in Sicily was the party of the Mafia, or at least what it claimed. The recent period, after the end of World War II, was in fact one of the more open collaboration, among other things, in the reign of Democrat mayors of Palermo, Salvo Lima and then Vito Ciancimino, although on the other hand the State central was led to fight the most visible manifestations of the Mafia. Let us add that between mobsters and bourgeois politicians anticommunism and anti-union have always made from cement, among other things, the first being able to carry out the dirty work that others can not afford.

At the level of national political leaders and of course the collusion is not so open, but it is clear that the intertwined relationships between managers and leaders of the state mafia, if only by local politicians closer to these environments. The best known case is that of Giulio Andreotti, who was seven times prime minister and member however almost all governments from 1954 to 1992, and today it ends quietly, his political career as a life senator of the Republic. According to the statements of regret Tommaso Buscetta, this leader of the Christian Democrats, whose longevity has earned him the nickname "stainless", would not hesitate to meet directly with the head of the Mafia Toto Riina in Palermo in September 1987, a meeting that would end with the famous "kiss", a sign of confidence in the fashion mafia between the two men. Allegations of collusion have resulted in processes that Andreotti was acquitted only by overcoming the limitation periods. In fact, the terms of the judgment considered that the "active collaboration" between Andreotti and Cosa Nostra had been established.

Major head of Cosa Nostra in the seventies, Stephanie Bonte was indeed very near Salvo Lima and Vito Ciancimino, the mayors of Palermo more compromises with the Mafia, which is also within the Christian Democrats were the best supporters of Andreotti. Multiple facts documented then the "active collaboration" mentioned in the judgment. Things changed a bit 'only when, within Cosa Nostra, known as the Corleonesi clan began to challenge the power of goodness. After his assassination in 1981, he was replaced at the head of Cosa Nostra, Totò Riina. This new "boss of all bosses" turned out to be less inclined to compromise, and under his direction the collaboration between the Mafia organization and the Christian Democrats became more difficult. Yet, still under the influence of the Christian Democrats, the state made ​​a number of gestures in the direction of the Mafia, such as the annulment of certain judgments or visible abandonment of General Dalla Chiesa, sent on a mission in the island with the title of super prefect , who was assassinated. In this context, the kiss between Andreotti and Riina may have been a gesture of mutual recognition between the two leaders. One may also ask, after all, which of these two was the mafia. Recently I returned to the surface some elements on mafia war of 1992, during which the judges Falcone and Borsellino, engaged in the investigation of the Cosa Nostra, were eliminated in spectacular attacks. The year began with the murder of Salvo Lima, apparently because as quasi-official intermediary between the Mafia and the State had failed to obtain from the latter the measures of clemency which he had promised to the godparents. We know now that did Toto Riina get to the government, again through Vito Ciancimino, its twelve conditions for ending the "war" conditions which involved primarily the softening of the procedures launched against Cosa Nostra. The killings were there to show that Riina was not joking.

Obviously you do not know the details of the negotiations that resulted. You can just see that all this took a few months later, in early 1993, the arrest of Toto Riina, abandoned in turn by his lieutenant Bernardo Provenzano. The arrest certainly was not random, since Provenzano was the successor of Riina and with him settled less conflictual relationships. Meanwhile, the Christian Democrats, undermined by scandals, began to disappear from the political scene, but some documents and testimony that Cosa Nostra had received new guarantees: the new party that would be launched under the direction of a certain Silvio Berlusconi would demonstrate understanding towards the interests of the mafia, and the Cosa Nostra urged to vote for him. One of the Sicilian friends of Berlusconi, Marcello Dell'Utri, who would later be convicted of complicity with the Mafia, he was the guarantor. Thanks to this, the next election in 1994, in Sicily, the vote for the new party Forza Italian replaced without a shot being fired voting Democrat, and Berlusconi could become Prime Minister.

So the Mafia has apparently numerous channels to influence the state, but the state also knows how to find the channels to control the Mafia, at least up to a certain point. It can for example support a head-clan against another, or choose to ignore for years the hideout of a boss, even if that place is not very difficult to find. Until the day when, for one reason or another, this tacit agreement stops and suddenly you will find the hideout of the boss, as happened in the case of Riina and how then should happen to Provenzano. This ambiguous relationship, in which the State and the Mafia fight in public but in reality they tolerate each other, remained for years under Democrat governments and remains today under Berlusconi, perhaps with closer ties.

The capital mafioso

The turnover of mafia activities mentioned above, and even more so the amount of the sums indicate a more troubling reality: there is a real mafia capital, where the rate of profit and the rate of accumulation far exceed those of other capital. And in fact, if it's 80 billion euro per year in Italy alone, only a portion of these gains can be spent in luxury consumption, purchase of villas or luxury cars. And as you can imagine, for Cosa Nostra as the Camorra and the 'Ndrangheta, the problem of money laundering and placement of earnings is a pressing issue. So there is a mafia within the finance department, whose role is primarily to "clean" money, place it and reinvest it in legal activities or not.

It is the activity in which he has worked, inter alia, the banker Michele Sindona, whose meteoric rise in the years 1960-1970 was parallel to the expansion of the business of Cosa Nostra. Tied Salvo Lima, Sindona was also with the Christian Democrats and Andreotti, the Vatican and its bank, the IOR - Institute for Works of Religion, presided by Bishop Marcinkus, and finally the Banco Ambrosiano and its manager Roberto Calvi. Sindona, who on the other hand sported a anticommunism in every trial, seems to have been first and foremost a pioneer in the field of money laundering through tax havens, making profit friends, clients and other reports, the godfathers of Cosa Nostra to the bishops and to other characters met in the influential Masonic lodge P2, den of conspirators reactionaries to which he belonged. All this without forgetting to dedicate himself to financial speculation, for example in 1973, speculation against the lira.

In 1979 Sindona had killed the lawyer Ambrosoli, who was investigating his affairs. This did not prevent Sindona and Calvi, the real bankers of Cosa Nostra at the time, would end even murdered them, the first after drinking a poisoned coffee in the prison where he was serving his sentence for the murder of Ambrosoli, and the latter hanged under a bridge in London. In these two cases, it seems that the mafia is avenged risky for the management of the funds entrusted to them his two bankers.

Nevertheless, what can be called "the accumulation of capital Mafia" then continued. It is, inter alia, on these financial circuits that have sought to investigate the judges Falcone and Borsellino were murdered in 1992 by Cosa Nostra. And the fact is that after the Calvi and Sindona cases, which were in the foreground in the 1980s, revelations about the money of the Mafia have become more rare.

Of course this money some time back to the surface, at least in part. So Berlusconi's government has appealed in 2009 to the return of capital escaped, with the so-called measure of the tax shield: the owners of capital were invited to repatriate them by paying a modest fee of 5%, without you asking them more information on 'source of funds. So 85 billion euro have been regularized, of which 35 billion would be available for investment in Italy, in case their owners want it. Maybe there is a part of the Treasury of the Mafia, although it is evident that most of the money has been processed in the international circuits of finance, in some tax haven or elsewhere on the accounts of major financial institutions worldwide.

In fact, more than twenty years, the globalization of trade flows and the removal of all controls on trade in capital helped the mafia capital to merge into the mass of money that circulates daily in financial institutions in the world, without it is now possible distinguish the dirty money from the clean money, as it really exists. With the help of bank secrecy, financial institutions, whatever it is, they prefer to avoid any kind of inquiry on the funds you use. The money from illegal activities that can be found on their accounts is protected at least as the money that comes from the lawful activities or presumed.

From the Middle Ages to the delinquency of the twenty-first century

Certainly the Italian mafia organizations are not the only "organized crime" exists in the world. However, they have inherited their history a special position in society, which makes it a permanent feature and explains their longevity. Overall probably represent no more than a few tens of thousands of men, but their social position makes them impregnable. In Sicily, but also in Calabria and Campania, the gangs benefit from a territorial organization, combined with their violent retaliation, allows them to have a tight control of the company, that the power of the State does not dispute. Much more easily have gained a dominant position in certain sectors of the economy. It also follows a penetration within the organs of political power, which goes beyond the simple collusion or corruption of this or that leader: it is a genuine partnership, in which the power of the state and the mafia are complementary rather than fighting, adding their means of social control.

We said: These mafias have arisen directly from the medieval and feudal past, they have been able to survive only because the bourgeois revolution in Italian, in particular in the south, was only an incomplete revolution. Economic development could reduce them to a marginal role, if it had been strong enough to eventually cause social upheaval that the revolution of 1860 had not realized. But, on the contrary, evolution has led to the maintenance of the relative underdevelopment of the southern regions, and with this a fertile ground for the gangs.

So it is the latter who were able to make their way to the train of capitalist development. Sicily and the South gave them a basis and a starting point from which they could fit in world trade. Their position of criminal organizations, but well-integrated into society, was a favorable factor to exploit the spaces that trade could leave local and global organizations acting at the margins of legality, using weapons, intimidation and murder with efficiency, in a professional manner and without scruples. Intimidation of the Sicilian peasants reluctant to pay the excise, mafia organizations have been able to spend generalized extortion and racketeering, real estate speculation, before taking a dominant position in drug trafficking, the illegal disposal of industrial waste and in many other trades , not to mention the financial speculation.

So, if there is an interpenetration of the state and the economy, there is also an interpenetration of the state and mafia parallel circuits parallel economy, nationally and internationally, up to the level where parallel economy and economy in general, and illegal profits legitimate profits, you can reach and mingle in the channels of the financial system.

Clearly, if this parallel economy can make the wealth of some, it is as a whole a huge levy on society, which tends to keep underdevelopment and backwardness, brutality and ignorance. We understand that from generation to generation this situation has provoked the revolt of those who were not resigned before a company that does not offer them a different future, if not to support minion or the Mafia. Many militants have paid with their lives the commitment against the Mafia. You may remember the figure of Giuseppe Impastato, militant extreme left assassinated by the Mafia in 1978 for having publicly denounced in his fief. But we must also speak of the judges, policemen and journalists who are convinced, to serve the cause of democracy, we are personally committed to this fight against the mafia and they left their lives, such as Falcone, Borsellino and many others. Unfortunately, they eventually made ​​alibi from a State and a bourgeoisie that, far from really fight the mafia, living in symbiosis with it and allow it to exist. The bourgeois politicians need to maintain the myth of the existence of a democratic state, in which the laws would be the same for everyone and that the illegality would not pay. The "anti-mafia" who claim to lead the sacrifice of those who lead it with sincerity and dedication, allow - if not really fight this criminal organization - at least to maintain the appearance that it is fought.

The "octopus mafia" was a survival of pre-capitalist society, but has thrived well within the modern capitalist society, in fact protected by the state and bourgeois politicians. He's still better today, in an era when decadent capitalism emphasizes all aspects of parasites. Will not be enough to eliminate it nothing less than a genuine social revolution that will put an end to the capitalist system itself. It has been seen on several occasions in the past, the mafia placed in the front ranks of the enemies of the proletariat, as well as providing the shock troops to massacre them. But for this will only be the proletariat's struggle to eliminate this cancer of society.
From "Lutte de Classe", No. 128, May, - June 2010