Origins of the Sicilian Mafia: The Market for Lemons | Hacker News Reader

Origins of the Sicilian Mafia: The Market for Lemons

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141 pointstosh60 comments

I really don't like the authors shoehorning a linear model into this work. I perceive it as an attempt to give the article an undeserved veneer of statistical/mathematical rigor.[1]

I think their hypothesis would be much better supported by typical social science approaches, such as citation and quotation of primary sources and comparative study.

For example, how does the Sicilian Mafia compare with the Camorra (Naples) and 'Ndrangheta (Calabria)? Did these organizations undergo a similar expansion during the same time period? Were their origins and expansions rooted in similar phenomena?

[1] https://aeon.co/essays/how-economists-rode-maths-to-become-o...

It’s less a way to come off as “sciencey” and more a way to get your ideas accepted at this point. The people I know in the list of thanks would wholeheartedly agree with your the regression is forced but it gets neo-classic economists (when I was studying the vast majority and presumably still holding the reins of key publications) to not dismiss you as “psychologists”.

I’m not sure if the right approach is to use basic maths to illustrate the idea makes sense but doesn’t need that formalism to make it acceptable or to refuse the charade. I genuinely think the smarter people I know are also uncertain about it.

> it gets neo-classic economists [...] to not dismiss you as “psychologists”

Lol, that's funny - I'm pretty much at the point of dismissing "fundamentalist neoclassic economists"... As much as they try to deny it, economic studies are just social studies with a couple of simplistic graphs on top to look "mathy".

As far as I'm concerned, economics is just supply and demand, and the efficient market hypothesis. Anything beyond that is some combination of politics, psychology, and social studies.

> be much better supported by typical social science approaches

This implies that linear regression is not a typical social science method. If you review articles in sociology or political science journals, you will find that many articles use quantitative methods, and nearly all of those quantitative articles use regression.

They also attempt to get at the causality implied in their hypothesis. It's hard to do that purely with qualitative methods. Not everybody might find their IV regression convincing (they rarely are), but it's good to see that they tested their hypothesis with data.

I haven't read the paper, so although this response applies to your criticism, it may not apply to the paper in question.

A linear model has only two parameters, which cuts down a lot on the overfitting problem, and since it's the default thing to try, you can be reasonably sure that it isn't the product of a "garden of forking paths". More sophisticated models, such as exponential, logistic, or quadratic — which may in fact be more appropriate on theoretical grounds — can easily be the product of researchers choosing among a large number of possible models based on what the data looks like.

I do not think that your suggested approach of removing science from social sciences, reducing them to a sort of literary criticism or scholasticism, would be an improvement.

Where I grew up (Crete), I kept on listening to stories by elders about how their grandfathers and family members left the place due to vendettas between families and all went over to Sicily.

Judging by the mentality of people around me, even those days I'd say they pay too much into respect, and disrespecting someones honour by any means could lead into the start of a vendetta. Bear in mind we are now in 2018 and those things are still happening.

My sort explanation is that obviously people that resided in Sicily, Southern Crete etc were not afraid to use force to defend their honour, and make a living. Later on people that left Sicily and went to e.g New York were a bit toughed up by living in a place that vendetta was a very common phenomenon and while they saw an opportunity where they could force fear into the other racial groups in new york, they took it.

maybe you do not feel the incredible burden of honor but it is there for some about principle that are noble and dire today

how can you not fight for archimedes ?

Social scientists seem to dislike it (possibly because it's a singular answer and thus cuts off future PhD papers), but Frontier Thesis and similar frameworks of people-as-reflection-of-environment seem one of the more solid results from those fields.

As you noted, how can the entire culture and environment around someone not shape their person and way they go about living?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier_Thesis

Non-mobile link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier_Thesis

I can reflect to that. As a person that lived over 10 years abroad, coming back to Greece and Crete has been difficult. I can see myself and some foreigners that resided here after their pension came in, doing things that we wouldn't do e.g in the UK. (I can see changing in the way I drive, interact etc and that has been paved by the surroundings, given the fact that I got my licence in the UK and have been driving for 10 years there, without any prior driving in Greece. Now that I am back I can see how I've changed the way I drive and its mainly cause of the other drivers, you have to adapt. Driving is just an example to show that even people that ain't willing to change their mentality based on their surroundings, do change in order to accomodate.)

Related question, as 10 years seems a good time: do you think it changed you as a person?

I.e. If you imagined yourself never having moved away, do you think you'd react / think differently now than you do? (in a broader sense than driving)

Definitely.

Been away for 10 years and lived a bit in New York and the rest of the time in London, changed me a lot.

Now that I am back, I am having trouble communicating with people around me, as they can't believe nor understand some experience am sharing with them.

My funniest moment so far is an Expo I went to in Athens which is supposed to be the top Expo for balkans, and they had a smart room for the hotels of the future. The narrator that was running the whole story went and picked up an alexa echo, putting it right infront of his mouth, giving a command like 'alexa night mode'. I couldn't believe in my eyes. I do happen to use alexa and have it all around my house, so that came out as a shock to me as to what they believe as groundbreaking tech here.

On other fields I'd say workplaces, while I work remotely, I can definitely see my wife and close circle on how unprofessional they are with their jobs. Also discrimination is another thing here, people advertise for jobs only for women or jobs only for men and specific ages which is definitely discriminatory.

As an example, if I ever start my own company here, I am going to run it by the book and I'll definitely use a model closer to London or even Scandi countries, I'd never discriminate against anyone etc.

So yes if I imagine myself never having moved away, I'd definitely be a completely different person right now. (Don't get me wrong, there are still nice people here, and some parts of the lifestyle are way better compared to big cities)

Something else I want to add is that I think the biggest pro I got from living in big cities, is that I have the mentality and hunger to make the best out of myself. Having a house, family, being able to travel etc. Obviously working remotely and getting a proper salary contributes to all that.

People here, especially 20-30 have the mentality that there is no future and there is nothing to fight for in life. Due to this atrocious crisis and all that comes with it, they have it as a fact that they won't be able to buy a house, they won't be able to travel and generally they let themselvs without trying to improve their situation. My wife tends to have those questions from time to time, like what am I doing here, am I progressing career wise, are there things to do, and after talking to her for a bit showing her a brighter side to what life has to offer she comes back to normal.

That's the argument Solzhenitsin used in his Archipelag Goulag to explain the strand between the Tchetchens and Russians in the labor camps. Vendetta among Thecthens gave them super powers when confronted with Russians knowing they would go unpunished for inflicting fear

I wonder if it is the same phenomena though? Perhaps it is closer to how the Sephardic Jews operated in the Nazi concentration camps as detailed by Primo Levi.

So, if men in an island- thus, a relatively small geographic area- had οικογένειακα, it was a smart move after committing the deed required to redeem one's hono(u)r (i.e. by murder) to flee to another small and confined geographic area? They weren't afraid of running into someone of an opposing family that had previously fled to Sicily? Is that really an optimal strategy? Asking for a friend. Thanks.

Also, I believe your inference is flawed: Just because the Kritikaaachi to this day are capable with knives and guns, it is quite the mental leap to say they would then be capable of imposing a flourishing organized crime syndicate in a foreign country. Organized crime of people whose last names happen to end in a vowel in NYC, Chicago, and to a lesser extent the West Coast was due to a much more involved history and circumstances than 'men of honor' looking for a predatory opportunity on "other racial groups".

My only explanation to this would be that they would choose whatever was close and easier to get to. Don't forget that travelling was way different back then.

I've heard stories of fleeing to Mani, Sicily and Egypt.

I guess each family, or person was choosing the easiest place to get to by his own means.

Now why they stayed there and didn't e.g move up to Genova, I have no idea. Maybe some people did, some others didn't.

On your second point, I feel like organised crime in the US is and I'd say in the world to an extend is made up by groups that tend to be foreign to that Country. If you take it by todays standards and leave out the Italians in Organised crime that have the means both political and economical to do what they do, you have other groups like the Albenians that tend to influence things using pure muscle even nowadays. Here in Europe the Albenian mafia seems to have a very powerful crew, most of its power doesn't come by political factors nor economical, but by manpower and muscle (e.g members of the albenian mafia won't care if they will be jailed, they are just going to act). Same applies to some other groups e.g form Afghanistan that run drugs etc. My opinion on that is that they tend to be tougher due to having participated in wars. Imagine an Afghan boy that lived through his whole family teared apart and seen death in a war, smuggling his way in London and instead of Europe helping him get on his feet, there is a group of his own people that offer him a few bucks in order to go do something illegal. Btw this has nothing to do with Afghans, its just an example, I have nothing against them.

For anyone else interested in the subject, here is another paper you might like:

Economic Origins of the Mafia and Patronage System in Sicily (2009)

https://web.wpi.edu/Pubs/E-project/Available/E-project-03160...

This sounds very reasonable to my personal observations. It's basically a type of government, that is not officially recognized as such. And yes, people are worse off under it than under most official governments. However even without mafia like governments, due to the chaos of whatever change is happening, they are already worse off even without any mafia.

A similar development underway in avocado-producing area of Mexico ... https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/cities/2017... ... likely not to the extent of the Mafia but shows the same environment and incentives.

Well maybe that's one of the first "application", but it's a well know fact that Mafia's rise was fostered by the Italian unification.

Southern Italy was for the most part a feudal system controlled by a traditional aristocracy.

The unification prompted by one of the Northern Italian states meant the wiping out of the existing Southern Italian aristocracy.

Northern Italian bourgeoisie and aristocracy became the new ruling classes of the new unified Italy.

Although they tried to replace the Southern Italian aristocracy with a new class of bureaucracy, the traditional feudal structure of the South and the sudden void of power made it easier for an organization like Mafia to arise.

This is related to what you are speaking about:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Making_Democracy_Work

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_conquest_of_southern_It...

Crazy how something that happened 8 centuries ago can still have an effect.

The "unified Italy" only happened in 1860/1861, and the Northern Italian state was the "Kingdom of Sardinia", which comprised mostly Sardinia, Liguria and Piedmont. Only 1.5 centuries ago.

What you are referring to is the Norman conquest, which is different.

Mafia existed long before that though. The Camorra for example had a defined structure and was known as a phenomenon even in the Kingdom of two Sicilies.

This book [1] goes into great detail on the history and origins of the mafia - including the lemons. It's a great read.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Cosa-Nostra-History-Sicilian-Mafia/dp...

I am confused. Wasn't this part of the statement in the Godfather with what happens at a fruit stand on the street?

There is a well-known association between the Godfather movies and oranges. For example, Don Vito has an orange slice in his mouth when he dies in the garden. And yes, the fruit stand scene. There are many more examples.

I'm not too familiar with Mario Puzo's novel and use of oranges but it would be fascinating if there was somehow an innate link between the use of oranges in the movies and the origins of the mafia (what this paper is claiming).

It isn't about the mafia, but it is about Italy, Lemons, and life...

The Lemon Gardens by D.H. Lawrence from Twilight in Italy (which in it's entirety is an extremely beautiful and meditative book):

https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/l/lawrence/dh/l41tw/chapter2....

I strongly recommend this podcast to learn more about citrus and the history of Italy: https://www.eatthispodcast.com/citrus-in-italy/

I saw an historic video in Italy that said Mafia arises around the control of water.

This work is really outrageous.

> According to the detailed description of lemon production in Harold G. Powell (1908), the production of lemons in nineteenth century Sicily started with the sowing of bitter orange seeds in spring in small seed beds under the bearing lemon trees. After one year from the seeding, the small trees were transplanted in small clumps at a distance of about 60 cm from each other. When the plant reached a height of almost a meter, the tree was transplanted to the groves at 3–4 meters of distance from each other.

Curious. Wouldn't those still have been bitter orange trees? Perhaps the authors left out a step where the bitter orange trees were cut down and their rootstocks used for grafting on shoots from the lemon trees? If so, I wonder why they were planted near a lemon tree to begin with — to acclimate them to lemon wood or something?

Something odd going on indeed... Either the bitter oranges were later grafted with lemon plants, or the reason to plant near the lemon tree was in order to produce, by hybridation, other seeds that had mixed attributes, some of which would be very similar to lemons. The former makes more sense however.

I was kind of expecting something to do with the classic economics paper "The Market for Lemons", but in this case it seems to be actual literal lemons, for what it's worth!

An academic clickbait, amazing! I was also expecting to read about information asymmetries as per Akerlof.

During my PhD on Institutional economics, the confusion was common -- even more so when we had a conference in Corsica. With this article, I’m assuming it’s going to become a joke and a shorthand.

interesting

"hampered economic development in Italy for more than a century"

Hamper compared to what? A magical utopia without crime, or a realistic counterfactual with another set of criminals?

Speaking of which: is organized crime worse or better than disorganized crime?

I would use northern Italy as a conterfactual. True, it was more industrialised at the moment of unification, and political power was much closer to Turin than to Palermo, but billions of economic aid were sent to the South over the past 70 years to try to reverse that imbalance with little effect.

While it's true that Mafia is somewhat present in the north too, it is much less pervasive in penetration.

There are some history studies that claim south was richer than north just before unity.

Honestly curious, do you have links?

I've basically lived in Sicily my entire life and I can't think of a single business (company or family-owned) earning more than 250.000€ per year that didn't have to face some members of the organized crime in some way, from having some supplier forced to them to paying "protection money" or having to hire someone as "internal observer". It's not even considered something unusual, it's basically part of doing business here.

Objectively worse, as organized crime tends to eventually infiltrate all legitimate economic activity on its turf, radically undermining long term productivity. Unorganized crime may take some of the fruits of the economy, but organized crime can infect the roots.

"Self-employed" thiefs (to pick the most straight-forward form of crime for as an example) will likely change their ways after somehow landing a regular job, people who stole for an organization might continue to report to their old bosses, willing or not.

That's one way of looking at it -- another way is to look at something like the Mafia as being analogous to an early form of law and order (albeit arguably a tiny bit more openly violent, ruthless than your average developing world police force). Something still lacking today in most countries.

Why are the best discussion points these days always downvoted? One doesn't have to agree with someone, but one should appreciate reading something one hasn't thought to be correct oneself.

Also some people really, and reasonably, argue that government is nothing else but a kind of Mafia that simply one the competition for being called "government". You also know the discussions of "freedom fighter" versus "terrorist" declaration, right?

Since we are venturing into anecdotal territory anyway, let me report that I have yet to meet anyone who can reasonably show that government is nothing else but another form of mafia. "Freedom fighter" vs "terrorist" is however another discussion.

There are people on HN who earnestly believe that "taxation is theft" - note that I am not one of them.

I'd actually be interested to hear how the "taxation is theft" people consider protection money. The mafia is a voluntary association, one can choose to pay protection money or not. From the anarcho-libertarian standpoint there should not be objections.

Well, I guess that if you don't pay up to the mafia then Bad Things(TM) happen and if you don't pay your taxes then Bad Things(TM) happen - except that by definition the latter are "legal".

Note that I don't believe this myself - I'm on the "Taxes are the price we pay for civilization" side of the argument but I can see that those on the other side have a stateable case. My main objection is that I've never seen any plausible description of an advanced civil society that doesn't rely on compulsion to pay for things.

An anarcho-capitalist would probably say that one could pay a competing crew or start one oneself, as the landowners in this article did. At any rate, access to power is limited and requires deep pockets or reckless disregard for life. Not a society I'd like to live in.

Eric Hobsbawm wrote Bandits, a nice little volume on organized crime. It's written from a different political angle.

"Herschel I. Grossman (1995) and Stergios Skaperdas (2001) both consider mafia as an alternative enforcer of property rights. Using a model with two actors (a self-governing community and mafia) and potential robbers, Skaperdas (2001) shows that in the absence of an enforcer of property rights, mafia can represent a sort of second best solution"

I do agree, that mafia act as a government. But there is still quite a difference to a democratic government. It is more a olygarchy/despotism.

But I believe our roots of government back in the middle ages, when feudals conquered new peasants to profit from them, were very alike. And there might be still characteristics in our institutions from that legacy. People definitely view it that way, when they pay taxes ...

Absolutely agree. Mafia is not a democratic type of government. And even most despotic governments are probably better than the average mafia, for the people they rule. Reason being that you can't rule a big, stable country if you are too tyrannic. Other government-types will compete with you, and even foreign governments will try to take your land and people.

Democratic != good.

Also agreed. However: democratic >= mafia

In the town where I live here near Catania, in order to open and run a shop in the main street, you have yet to pay money to ugly people in 2018... Just as a data point.

Another funny anecdote on the relationship between organized crime and "ground control" near this very same town: Two days ago they burned to the ground a freaking kids library, Italy's president was supposed to speak near there tomorrow.

The most probable explanation for this right now being that the event would've adversely impacted the local drug smuggling business.

OMG I missed this (http://www.cataniatoday.it/cronaca/incendio-sede-briganti-li...), that's terrible. Thanks for sharing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Mafia

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