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Comment by bell-cot | Hacker News Reader

> I pay the US government protection money at a higher rate than the mob demanded (~35% vs ~15%)

Does your mob allow a bunch of deductions, tax dodges, "carried interest" rates, IRA's, and other tricks to cut what the well-to-do actually pay them down to half (or less) of their headline "rate"?

EDIT: Examples so far seem to be limited, one-off "if you're patting the right guy's back" situations. Vs. the US gov't allows an unlimited number of sleazy Wall Street types to launder unlimited amounts of money through various tax dodges. This might be good evidence that the mob is smarter about collecting "taxes" than the US gov't...but it sounds like the answer to my question is "basically, no".

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My wife's family paid almost nothing to the Italian mafia a hundred years ago because they gave the right people free shoes. I would say "yes."

Edit: To be clear, this was not a unique situation. A lot of businesses generally got sweetheart rates from street gangs and mobs because they helped the mob and mob bosses in other ways. The same way Wall Street financiers get a sweetheart deal because they manage the politicians' money and employ their children.

If you have a problem with the Italian Mafia can you take them to court or have your elected representatives do something about it?

What a ridiculous comparison

The average person can do more to influence a local mafia boss than they can to influence the federal government. Hell if you have a few dozen friends with guns you can actually stop the mafia from fucking with you for as long as they stick around.

* Edit since I'm spent on replies : Sure you can name that one favela somewhere where a few dozen were beheaded by the mob. The idea isn't that you'll win 100% of the time, the idea is you have some chance. I raise your one unnamed favela with several unnamed Mexican pueblos where cartel was run out by campesinos w/ break-action shotguns and rifles. And the mere fact you actually have a chance at winning is often enough to get a counterparty to back off.

> Hell if you have a few dozen friends with guns you can actually stop the mafia from fucking with you for as long as they stick around.

Go try this in the favela near me and report back. The last group of locals that tried that were beheaded.

I'm beginning to think there's a time limit on relatively fair and effective states, as citizens slowly begin to become almost unbelievably blind to what actual criminal states are like and start dismantling their own institutions.

The institution of the federal government has grown ever more powerful and consuming of peace-time GDP compared to non-war times of ~100+ years ago. Far from dismantling, the consolidation and growth of power of the 'effective state' has created criminals of the common populace in an ever growing compendium of laws.

In no way has the federal government been 'dismantled' as time goes on. Although arguably the constitution has been dismantled, in no small part through ever expanding interpretation of the commerce clause.

So instead of lobbying with a group of citizens to get someone elected it's easier to start an armed attack on the mob leadership?

If you lose your dead, that's not the case in a democracy

A pure democracy is if you lose you can be voted dead. In a constitutional democracy it may not be so direct: i.e. if the majority elect officials that favor say large automotive companies that are permitted to introduce externalities to the water supply that make you dead (see flint water crisis) -- or say your county elects a sheriff who is known to shoot people in 'bad shoots' and then the democratically elected officials prevent effective prosecution of these murders.

That's an indirect death. In the mafia analogy the mafia is the government and challenging them requires force which can result in death.

Yet in areas where the mob is in control does that happen. Look at Mexican drug lords

As an individual citizen, that comparison isn't quite that ridiculous.

How often do “elected officials” do anything against law enforcement? Every politician in any city knows not to go against the local police department.

Someone didn't watch Godfather.

I would think so. Ex. bar owner gives some free drinks and use of the bar to the mob probably doesn't have to pay the same protection fee.

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