The Martin Scorsese film GoodFellas,
based on the account of a turncoat mafiosi, Henry Hill, contains the most
insightful line I’ve ever heard about the nature of organized crime. Much of the film features voiceover narration
by Ray Liotta, who plays Hill. Early on
in the film, Hill speaks about his boss Paulie (based on the New York mafia
kingpin Paul Vario, and played in the film by Paul Sorvino):
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| Your majesty. www.yelp.com |
“Hundreds of guys depended on
Paulie and he got a piece of everything they made. It was tribute, just like the old country,
except they were doing it in America.
All they got from Paulie was protection from other guys looking to rip
them off. That's what it's all
about. That's what the FBI can never
understand — that what Paulie and the organization does is offer protection for
people who can't go to the cops. They're
like the police department for wiseguys.” (text taken from the
shooting draft screenplay for GoodFellas, by Nicholas Pileggi and Martin
Scorcese, January 3, 1989).
Organized crime deals in illicit
commodities such as booze (in Prohibition times) and cocaine in the present day.
But the “organized” part of all this crime
is the “family”, or the syndicate, that grants protection, in return for “a
piece of the action,” to other freelance thieves and contraband peddlers
operating within a particular territory.
In the context of mid-twentieth century America, or in Sicily during the
last few hundred years, a good part of this tribute was used in turn to subvert
the legitimate authorities, through bribery or outright purchase of offices,
such that (as in Sicily) the organized crime syndicate becomes the defacto
government. Organized crime exists
precisely because certain activities and substances are illicit, and thereby,
those involved in their production and distribution cannot turn to legitimate
authority to resolve their disputes. The
syndicate becomes the guarantor of order, if necessary through the violent
retribution against transgressors of the given.
The early part of settled existence, must have been accompanied by constant strife between those who
aimed to affix territory for farming and herding, and the remainder thereby
alienated by settler’s enclosures from traditional gathering and hunting. Some of those not bound to the soil, must
have resorted to the earliest labour-saving device — theft — to survive. Nomadic bands not willing to take up the hard
work of farming, instead used their spears to prey upon fellow-human settlers,
provoking retaliation in turn. A spiral
of violence was curtailed only when one or another group became too mighty to
be defeated. Or more realistically
perhaps, the initial period of anarchy ended when two or several armed groups
appreciated that none could best the others.
These proto-syndicates decided
amongst themselves the territorial spoils.
But each power was left with the difficulty of ensuring the loyalty of
those over whom they had been granted sovereignty. The resolution was the taking of tribute by
the overlords, in return for the “protection” of settled populations.
The exact circumstances under
which the earliest Stone-Age polities came to be, will probably never be known
for certain. Yet, we can gauge roughly
how political life originated, by observing the formation of states during the
historical era. In particular, the
period before the emergence of any nation as sovereign entity is characterized
by clannish strife that comes to an end when a single chieftain
is powerful enough to declare himself king.
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| GoodFellas. imgarcade.com |
This is, in essence, the history
of Europe from the fifth to the tenth centuries AD – from the collapse of Rome through
the so-called “dark ages”, onto the “Viking” or Norse invasions which began
around thirteen hundred years ago. This period
of instability concluded when the various provinces and principalities of Europe
coalesced into the countries and empires whose names are well known to history –
England, France, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Austria, Spain, and so
on. The men who formed these vast
polities – like Charlemagne, or William the Conqueror – were in effect the
heads of well-organized syndicates — consisting of families almost
always — that kept the peace (ideally), in return for a piece of the
action.
Organized crime thrives, too,
where there is a vacuum in authority, either because of the prohibition of
vice, or the actual collapse of governmental administration. The mafia was able gain such status in
Sicilian society, for example, because no authority was able to assert
sovereignty in place of the former Muslim civilization that existed before the
island was re-conquered by Crusaders. A
paper published by the Istituto per la Dottrina e l'Informazione Sociale in
Italy, quotes historian Paolo Pezzino, who writes: “The mafia is a kind of
organized crime being active not only in several illegal fields, but also
tending to exercise sovereignty functions – normally belonging to public
authorities – over a specific territory.”
By no means was legitimate authority
compromised by organized crime only in the Old World. As historian Stephen Fox writes in Blood and Power: Organized Crime in Twentieth Century America, the “organization” or “syndicate”
was closely tied to the political machines that ran the large- and even medium-sized
cities of the U.S. during the last century (this reality conveyed, to a greatly
exaggerated extent, in the now-completed HBO drama Boardwalk Empire). Involvement in organized crime was by no
means restricted to the so-called mafia, the euphemism for the Sicilian cosa
nostra, which means literally “our house”).
Nevertheless, the Italian-American
mob became the overlords of post-World War II organized crime at least, because
they had kinship and ethnic solidarity that other groups (primarily Ashkenazim
and Irish) did not.
Fox observes (1989
edition published by William Morrow and Company, p. 62) that la cosa nostra “arose
from medieval conditions in Sicily, and in America it succeeded precisely as a
medieval anachronism in counterpoint to modern culture, each provoking and
irritating the other. Modernity broke
society down into atoms of mobile, free-floating, unaffiliated individuals with
ultimate loyalties only to the state and its laws. The Mafia insisted on the enduring primacy of
family, geography, ethnicity and ultimate loyalties to persons and the Mafia
itself - the group over the individual.
Instead of contractual, legalistic, or economic ties, the Mafia bounds
its men with personalized relations of reciprocal obligations, often paid in
services instead of money. While
modernity presented endless choices and the option of periodically reinventing
oneself, the Mafia required affective ties, birthrights that could not be
chosen or altered. The essence of
modernity was change, or `progress’; the Mafia offered a rock of stability,
continuity, and protection from swirling modern tendencies.”
I’ve long been intrigued by the opening scene of the original Godfather.
The first minutes of the film are taken up by a monologue of a
completely minor character: Bonasera, an undertaker, who has come to see Don
Vito Corleone on the day of his daughter’s wedding. Supposedly, no Sicilian father can renounce a
favour asked of him on such an occasion, and so Bonasera asks the Don to do
away with the two men who raped and mutilated his own daughter. The pair had faced legitimate prosecution, but
apparently on account of their privileged background, they were given suspended
sentences.
Famously, Don Corleone is not
impressed with the undertaker’s pitiable story.
Given how Bonasera spurned the Godfather in the past, why should he extend
his hand now?
“You found paradise in America”,
Don Vito says. “The police protected
you. There were courts of law. And you didn’t need a friend in me. But now you come to me and say “Don Corleone
give me justice.” But you don’t come
with respect. You don’t offer
friendship. You don’t even think to call
me Godfather.”
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| "I promise on my faith that I will in the future be faithful to the lord..." Getty Images, 2006 |
The Godfather is disgusted by
this little man’s attempt to contract him as a murderer for hire. Throughout the Godfather films, the
characters excuse murderous scheming and betrayal by saying, “It’s just business,
it’s nothing personal.” Yet it is clear
that the organization portrayed in the Godfather and Goodfellas, subsists on
something more than shabby business concerns only. La cosa nostra and other crime syndicates are
structured on personal fealty, the sort of bonds of obligation familiar under
feudalism, and in most societies throughout history.
Thus, Don Vito is saying in
effect, “I am your sovereign. You were mistaken
for believing that legitimate authority could protect you. My protection cannot be purchased in
cash. It comes only through respect, and
the obligation you will incur from me doing you this favour.”
Bonasera is the embodiment of all
the little people over whom the Godfather controls – the hand holding the string, in the film title was realized as an advertising logo.
Once the undertaker gives fealty, his brief moment in the spotlight
is completed, the undertaker fades into the background, along with all the
other puppets, seen briefly but not heard from again.
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