Counterfeiting in particular was, Genovesi pointed out, punished with the utmost severity even among ‘barbarous nations’ such as the Incas, since it threatened the social bonds which held together the entire community (1803: 102-9). In Naples, however, a man might be executed for theft, a crime whose consequences were hardly to be compared with the loss of life, but let off with a fine for an act which, in Doria’s view, ‘offends against public trust [fede pubblica] and thus against the entire republic’

XREF: Connects to modern debates about white-collar crime versus street crime sentencing disparities.

Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking…, loc. 1851