Organised Crime from a theoretical viewpoint

[JustMovement]

Are there Marxist analyses of organised crime? The structure of sophisticated organisations does seem to replicate modern corporations, with the petty pushers, runners, etc. at the bottom, and the hierarchical top down organisation. They are often international in scope, and both compete (although the competition is far fiercer...) and cooperate with other groups. In Italy especially, unemployment, poverty, lack of education, and the fact that you can get better money in the mafia than working a job push many people into these organisations.
I heard that Saviano, author of Gommora is a communist (although in Italy the word communist has a very broad meaning), and he does seem to say in his book that organised crime is a logical extension of capitalism. In fact when people talk about anarcho-capitalism I often think of Naples.

[MaximMK]

The mafia can't work in communism. All would be equal no need for crime. There is no cash.

[Psy]

Organized crime are just bourgeoisie that produce commodities outside what is legal by the bourgeoisie state.

[graymouser]

In Marxist terms, organized crime is the stratification of the lumpen layers of society - the groups cast aside by the formal economy. It's a symptom of the deterioration of society that people are permanently, structurally excluded from everyday life and wind up outside of society's formal structures. Criminality for instance in southern Italy and Sicily is a symptom of the uneven development of Italian society, with the industrialized North further and further from the South.

Lumpen layers can be dangerous, because - as Marx analyzes in The 18th Brumaire and Trotsky in his writings on fascism - they can be ought off by the wealthy during a period of social upheaval. I would not consider the problems of the social stratification to be too great.

[GPDP]

I think the term "lumpen-bourgeoisie" is quite apt for describing organized crime within the context of capitalist society. Like the ordinary bourgeoisie, they produce commodities for profit, and compete for market share. However, they operate outside the lawful boundaries of what is considered "legitimate" society, and thus their competition is far more fierce and often violent, sometimes coming into conflict with the real ruling class itself.

[CesareBorgia]

"A philosopher produces ideas, a poet poems, a clergyman sermons, a professor compendia and so on. A criminal produces crimes. If we look a little closer at the connection between this latter branch of production and society as a whole, we shall rid ourselves of many prejudices. The criminal produces not only crimes but also criminal law, and with this also the professor who gives lectures on criminal law and in addition to this the inevitable compendium in which this same professor throws his lectures onto the general market as commodities. . .The criminal moreover produces the whole of the police and of criminal justice, constables, judges, hangmen, juries, etc.; and all these different lines of business, which form equally many categories of the social division of labour, develop different capacities of the human spirit, create new needs and new ways of satisfying them."

—Karl Marx, Theories of Surplus-Value

[JustMovement]

thanks this is exactly the type of stuff I was looking for.
What do people think of organised crime and the underground economy shaping the political landscape (instead of the other way around)> for example when groups buy votes to put their people in power, infiltrate the politcal class to ensure building contracts and cover from the magistrature? What is the relationship between the lumpen bourgeois and the bourgeois, specifically recycling dirty money into financial capital? Also can the lumpen-proleteriat constitute a revolutionary class? I mean the people who are really done in, prostitutes, black market labourers who make clothing, the bottom of the pile that do the most miserable jobs and then take the heat when they get busted? I should clarify that these are all meant in relation to the south of Italy, as the problem is not really as widespread anywhere else.

[comrade_cyanide444]

A criminal syndicate is just a corporation that uses illegal or gray market methods as a means of making their money. It's just a capitalist organization.