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Comment by 082349872349872 | Hacker News Reader

It's not obvious to me either, but the patrocinium really reminded me of Don Corleone in The Godfather. Consider how the opening scene between Bonasera and Corleone is basically an infodump on the difference between state (the police) and non-state (the godfather) provision of violence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZHsmb4ezEk

(in particular, note how it calls attention to the importance of —asymmetric!— ritual gift exchange for vertical ties)

(and Barzini's presence —depicted due to the photographer, a little later— demonstrates horizontal ties among the Big Men)

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Yeah, this is how institutions like the Sicilian mafia work. It’s framed as “organized crime” because we live in a state-oriented society where the state is actively trying to supplant the non-state system and assert its monopoly on the legitimate use of force.

Of course, these institutions also change and adapt to competition with the state—for instance, when the state tries to break up the mafia using the literal prisoners dilemma, the mafia needs to invent and enforce the institution of “snitches get stitches”. More troubling is when pre-state mechanisms of dispute resolution can be end-run by disputants trying to enlist the state on their side. For instance, the notorious Hatfield/McCoy feud was exacerbated by various prominent members of one clan or the other getting themselves elected sheriff and abusing their power against the rival clan.

>using the literal prisoners dilemma

they're using game theoretic payouts, but it's not the literal "prisoner's dilemma" which has it in each prisoner's interest to rat no matter what the other prisoner does, and yet it's still net advantageous for neither to rat.

I think there are some situations where you can achieve that payout in real life, but admittedly by “literal prisoners dilemma” I was referring more to the fact that the mafiosi are literally held prisoner and induced to snitch on each other. And that introducing an extra negative payout for snitching is both the literal and the game-theoretic solution to the dilemma.

> More troubling is when pre-state mechanisms of dispute resolution can be end-run by disputants trying to enlist the state on their side.

compare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_of_Survival#Descriptio...

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