6. A rigid belief in the mafia as a corporate entity, organized and centralized, carries, as Hess (1973) puts it, "dangerous" connotations. It eases pressure on the police, lightening the task of "identifying" perpetrators and excusing failures of detection. It also drastically redistributes the blame for a socially disagreeable state by dividing the world neatly into mafia members—a dreadful lot—and the rest of us, nice human beings by default. This is a serious misapprehension, for even if the mafia had an organized core, it would still differ from other criminal groups precisely by virtue of its social ramifications (Franchetti 1974: 100), and the number and variety of customers it serves.

DEFINE: Reframes the mafia from a centralized criminal corporation into a diffuse social phenomenon defined by its customer relationships and social ramification.

Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Busi…, loc. 878