A classic explanation—once again offered by Franchetti—is that in eastern Sicily "the upper class has managed to preserve the monopoly over force and has so far prevented villains rising from the lower classes from sharing it" ( 1974: 55). The ruling classes on the peaceful side of the island were a more cohesive and less absentee group, and thus were able to lead the transition to a postfeudal society smoothly and without the social tension that prevailed in the west. Apparently unaware of his illustrious predecessor, Pino Arlacchi (1983b) invokes virtually the same reasoning to explain the absence of the mafia in the latifundia, or great landed estates, of the Crotonese area in Calabria: "Where the violent and rebellious elsewhere became bandits and mafiosi, in the Crotonese a significant number became paid hirelings of the barons.... The private police of the latifundia remained fundamentally different from the mafia. They were, and always remained, dependent employees, mere executors of orders from above, without their own authority or even delegation of power" (p. 155).

XREF: Connects to the broader literature on state capacity, elite control of violence, and why organized crime emerges where states/elites fail to monopolize force.

Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Busi…, loc. 206