glarthir asked:

Hey, this might sound like a stupid or facetious question, but is there really any difference between crime syndicates and "legitimate" capitalist governments? Both have been/are involved in violence, extortion, drug trafficking, etc. and neither of them are immune to corruption, or even resistant to it. Neither of these provide justice for everyone in their sphere of influence, only certain people. Am I completely off? I can't be the first to wonder about this.

quoms answered:

obviously yes there are differences, but if what you’re asking is are those differences categorical then basically no, states and mafias are (or can be) more or less divergent versions of the same type of system

i would point to scale as a significant factor here. when something is the size of most states it doesn’t make sense to run it like a mafia anymore; states that operate on the same basis of personal relationships, patronage, and rent extraction as mafias do (lacking, in effect, the professional bureaucracy and rule of law characteristic of modern states) tend not to be regarded as especially well-functioning

conversely, however, mafias tend to be very good at providing passable ‘state’ services on the local level, either in communities that have slipped through the cracks of the state or where the state has ceased to exist altogether (as in a civil war context)

[kontextmaschine]

I’d endorse this, my feeling is generally that a mafia is just a government that hasn’t achieved hegemony, there’s been some decent theorizing of this under Olson’s notion of governments as “stationary bandits” if you’re interested

I think debating “is this ‘government’” as a noun can get into all sorts of weird edge cases - is a “government in exile” with an intact structure that doesn’t particularly govern anything at the moment still a “government”? In a feudal situation where lords, guilds, merchant families, and a church are all understood to have the ability to extract resources and dictate social terms backed by violence by men bearing their symbols, which of these are governments?

Is a tribal council less “government” than a Westphalian state? Does the answer depend on formal mechanisms of power and succession? Does it depend on continuity across generations? Does it depend on the ability to project power beyond its boundaries? Does “government” have to correspond to “boundaries” in the first place?

But as a verb, yeah, states and mafias govern with the same tools and dynamics

[mitigatedchaos]

I tend to object to the question, as generally the purpose is not to achieve a clearer understanding, but as a form of objection from Anarchists who cannot adequately defend territory, hoping to undermine state power.

As such, it tends to make things less rather than more clear, in my opinion.

All holding of territory depends on the ability to wield force, as does, effectively, all property.  Anarchists tend to start arguing “the state are just glorified bandits!” in an attempt to legitimize their proposed alternatives, but their proposed alternatives either will not function (due to lack of force), or have most of the same “issues” they complain about.

The Libertarians and AnCaps have it backwards.  Property is something you implement on top of a framework of force and security, it does not precede that framework.  (I’ve seen one try to get around this by arguing absolute causal ownership of the self, but anyone with human experience should be able to tell you that’s bullshit.)

And the Anarcho-Communists are willing to use all the tools of state-like violence they claim to be against, ignore the side-effects of their policies, and so on, so long as it’s informal.  Give the power to the mob, and you haven’t eliminated the state.  You’ve just made a mob-state.