Mafiosi as such deal with no good other than protection. Joining the mafia amounts to receiving a license to supply protection rather than simply consume it. Before undertaking this work I thought that the distinction was analytically useful but blurred in reality; in fact it turns out to be clear-cut in the evidence (see Chapters 7 and 9).

DEFINE: Defines the mafia's core function as protection-supplying rather than producing conventional goods, a conceptual framework the author uses throughout.

Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Busi…, loc. 31