This limited route to autonomy is very different from that which depends on a number and variety of customers. In the former case the protector can rise swiftly owing to his increased blackmailing power. But in doing so he meets with a constraint: he can rise only as far as the position originally occupied by his employer. Provided the landowner cannot count on other protectors (such as the state), the mafioso can eventually usurp his place. But he then becomes less a mafioso than a self-made landowner or gabelloto. Only if the power and reputation he acquires in the process serve a wider purpose can his position evolve into that of a mafioso.

DEFINE: Distinguishes limited-route autonomy from customer-dependent autonomy and clarifies when protection leadership becomes genuine mafioso status.

Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Busi…, loc. 236