Protection, by contrast, can only be good or bad. Reputation among mafiosi is a variable best represented as dichotomous rather than continuous. Its reliance on violence is such that one either comes out on top or is worthless, a common mortal as untrustworthy and powerless as anyone else. The loss of reputation, therefore, is correspondingly catastrophic and impossible to remedy. It causes not just the loss of a fraction of one's business but its disappearance altogether: the very ownership of the firm evaporates with it.

DEFINE: Contrasts reputation (dichotomous, zero-sum) with continuous variables like protection, explaining why loss is catastrophic and unrecoverable. Builds on: "Mafia violence functions as competition for clientele among protectors."

Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Busi…, loc. 119