An Offer You Can’t Refuse
Mosca Explains the Mob

8,678 words

Gaetano Mosca
What Is the Mafia?
Men and Things of Sicily
Translated by Thomas Nicholls; Introduction by Edward Maxwell III
Imperium Press, 2025

“Why did you go to the police? Why didn’t you come to me first?” – Don Corleone, The Godfather

“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 offer is protection for the kinds of guys who can’t go to the cops. They’re like the police department for wiseguys.” – Henry Hill, Goodfellas

***

There have been movies about criminal gangs since at least The Great Train Robbery, an 11-minute silent movie from 1903. Despite lending its name to a later robbery in Britain, that movie involved outlaws in the Old West.[1] By the 1930s, a new genre developed, the “gangster film,” defined by the American Film Institute in 2008 as “centered on organized crime or maverick criminals in a twentieth century setting,” naming 3 films from 1931 & 1932: Scarface, The Public Enemy & Little Caesar. Though they were wildly popular, the Hays Code led to a decline, but as the Code was itself phased out during the so-called “New American Cinema” period of the 70s, the gangster movie came back with a vengeance. After all, what could be more American than crime?

Although “mafia films” actually go back as far as The Black Hand in 1906, Coppola’s The Godfather (1972) not only made the gangster film perhaps the leading Hollywood genre (arguably replaced by the comic book or superhero, or “cape shit” film[2]) but made the mafia film the gold standard for the gangster film. Perhaps for the same reason, in real life, the word “mafia” has become synonymous with any kind of criminal organization with an ethnic cast; one speaks of the Russian mafia, Turkish mafia, etc. More recently, it seems to be applicable to any definable group whose activity smacks of depravity, such as a gay, woke or even “alt-Right” mafia. Lately, we have the purely business-oriented “Paypal Mafia.”

But what then is this thing-in-itself, this cosa nostra, the “mafia”? Unless the reader is a member, or lives in a city with a significant mafia presence, such as New York, one’s knowledge of the mafia is largely derived from TV and movies; like pornography, one knows it when one sees it (with luck, only on screen).

Now, Imperium Press gives us a chance to acquire first-hand knowledge of the mafia: not only its history, but also its essential nature and continuing relevance to our present and future; and this from a uniquely qualified source: Gaetano Mosca, the founder of Elite Theory.[3]

“I had heard you were a serious man, to be treated with respect.” – Don Corleone

Who was Mosca? AI tells us this, based on the usual encyclopaedic sources:

Gaetano Mosca was born on 1 April 1858 in Palermo, which was part of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies before Italian unification in 1861, and he died on 8 November 1941 in Rome, Italy. He earned a degree in law from the University of Palermo in 1881, receiving his education in Sicily. Mosca served the government of unified Italy in various capacities, including as an editor of the proceedings of the Chamber of Deputies in Rome from 1887 and later as a professor of constitutional law at the University of Turin and public law at the University of Rome. He was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1909 and served until 1919, and was subsequently nominated a life senator by King Victor Emmanuel III in 1919, a position he held until 1926, actively opposing Benito Mussolini’s rise to power during the Fascist dictatorship. Thus, Mosca lived through Sicily’s transition from a pre-unification kingdom to a part of the unified Italian state and experienced the political upheavals leading to and during Fascism. A liberal whose work on elite theory led him to propose many reforms, Mosca never joined the fascisti but was not an outspoken critic either.

In his Introduction, editor Maxwell rightly lays emphasis on Mosca’s unique qualifications for the task of analyzing the essence of the mafia.

His embedded position gives What Is the Mafia… distinctive depth. He wrote not as an outsider, but as a participant-analyst – a dual stance that lends his work lasting authority.

Not that Mosca was himself a mafioso, spilling the beans like Joe Valachi, but he was something better:

As a Sicilian raised amid the codes of local life, and as a member of Italy’s administrative class, Mosca possessed both intimacy and detachment.

What Maxwell also calls “his insider-outsider position” allows him to move from lived experience to theory, rather than adopting some supposed stance of “objectivity,” to say nothing of some kind of pearl-clutching “moral clarity”; a similar commitment to deriving theory from historical and lived experience is characteristic of elite theory itself.[4]

Long before he formalized elite theory, Sicilian society appeared before him as a political laboratory, where the absence of effective statehood made the mechanics of power starkly visible.

As a participant/observer, Mosca can draw detailed accounts of lived Sicilian experience, from which he is able to distill insights into the real world of the mafia, and, in turn, formulate what would be expanded into Elite Theory.

These essays [from Men and Things of Sicily] show a thinker drawing from lived reality, where power reveals itself without disguise.

These patterns did not signal backwardness – they revealed alternative systems of hierarchy, consent and control.

Sicily gave him a model of elite power stripped of institutional disguise – authority in its rawest form.

As I’ve argued many times, it is in the piling up of excessive detail that makes for not just verisimilitude but also a kind of delirium of the imagination; whether one is writing serious fiction like Henry James, or a weird tale, like Lovecraft, or like Neville, imagining a wished-for outcome with such intensity as to endow it with life. [5] In Mosca’s case, it led to the creation of Elite Theory.

This grounded observation fed directly into [elite theory]. His theory of permanent elite rule did not emerge from abstraction – it grew from watching liberal institutions coexist with deeply entrenched informal structures.

We can begin to extract some of that information, and appreciate Mosca’s artistry, by looking at his sketch of a typical encounter with the local mafiosi. It deserves, I think, to be quoted at some length (with my own italics):

In one of the rural towns near Palermo, or even in a hamlet on the outskirts of the city, a gentleman purchases or inherits a piece of land planted with citrus trees, vineyards, or orchards. During negotiations or on his initial visits to the property, he notices two or three local figures who, with a deference tinged with a subtle air of self-importance—something immediately recognizable—make deep bows to him and look for opportunities to exchange a few words.

One day, while visiting the property to attend to his affairs, one of these figures—usually the eldest or most authoritative—pays him a visit. The visitor extends a warm welcome and offers his services for any needs that may arise. During their conversation, he takes the opportunity to highlight the advantages and comforts of the area: the air is fresh, the walks are pleasant, and the inhabitants are courteous and hospitable. True, some people speak poorly of the place, but those are merely slanders. There might be a few rowdy youngsters, but they are reasonable and always listen to the advice of respected individuals who know how to keep them in check.

The visitor assures the gentleman that someone of his standing, who understands the ways of the world and respects others, will always be respected in return. He emphasizes that the gentleman can live without fear, come and go at any hour, confident that his property will be secure. His wife and children will be free to move about without the slightest worry, assured that no one will harm them or show them anything but respect in both word and deed.

Eventually, the time comes when the gentleman needs to sell his citrus fruits, rent out his land, or hire a guard to protect his produce. At that point, the familiar figure reappears, offering a deal or recommending the “right” person for the job. Naturally, the offer is presented as a favourable arrangement or the individual as exceptionally trustworthy and competent.

However, if the sale or rental is handled through this unofficial intermediary, the price of the goods or the rental income will inevitably be four or five percent below the true market value. Similarly, if a work contract is finalized, while the newly hired guard will excel at protecting the property from petty rural thieves, he will quietly permit the associate who secured him the job—and his mafia allies—to take a small portion of the produce for themselves.

So far, so good. The man from abroad understands, respect is mutual.[6] But what if….?

If the new owner has remained aloof from the start or, after initially accepting the friendly and honest welcome, chooses not to conduct his affairs according to the suggestions of the unofficial intermediary offering his services, the intermediary and his associates do not completely sever their greetings but noticeably cool their friendship.

As relations cool, a series of minor inconveniences begins to arise. One morning, for example, a dozen trees or vines might be found cut down. At night, the property may be visited by petty vandals or small-time thieves who damage the crops, steal fruit, or carry off entire sacks of lemons. If the relationship deteriorates further and turns into open hostility, more serious incidents can occur: an entire vineyard might be destroyed, an insolent extortion letter—anonymous, of course—could arrive by mail or be left at the doorstep, or a rifle shot might narrowly miss the head of a truly loyal guard who genuinely works to prevent thefts and nighttime destruction.

Things seem to be spinning out of control. But not to fear! These are not animali, but men who can be reasoned with. They too desire a quiet life, without bureaucrats and officials sticking their snouts in where they don’t belong. “This desire for a quiet life is so strong among the leaders of mafia clans that they willingly practice forgiveness and are almost always ready to reconcile with those who, after initially showing disdain or indifference to their unofficial influence, seek to restore their friendship.”

For example, if the property owner who has experienced theft in the garden, had a few dozen vines cut down, or received an extortion letter contacts the associate I mentioned, warmly welcomes him, inquires why he hasn’t been around lately, and then confidentially shares the damage or offense suffered while seeking his authoritative advice, the issue is quickly resolved. Initially, the associate will claim he knows nothing about it, that the situation is new to him, and will even express surprise. However, he will promise to investigate, look into the matter, and report back. In the village, he is respected and has the necessary connections to uncover the truth.

After a few days, he returns with a cheerful demeanour, claiming to have uncovered the source of the offense against the gentleman. It turns out, he says, to have been the work of some rowdy youths—a few troublemakers whom he has already dealt with. They are now deeply remorseful for their actions and humbly apologize. The helpful man assures, with the utmost certainty, that such wrongdoing will not happen again. If the gentleman wishes to show his generosity—after all, necessity or hunger sometimes drives people to err—now that the youths are ready to throw themselves at his feet, he could offer them a small token, perhaps a few hundred lire, as a gesture to lift their spirits. Youth needs its outlet, he explains, and they would bless the gentleman for his magnanimity.

The hundred lire are given, and the gentleman expresses his gratitude for the man’s skill and demonstrated friendship, urging him to visit more often. The man departs, even more pleased and deferential than before, affirming that his friendship for the gentleman has always remained steadfast.

If this is meant to be a sketch of the ur-typical “mob operation” in turn of the last century Sicily, then is it not remarkable that we have indeed seen this film before: is it not the iconic opening scene of The Godfather?

Amerigo Bonasera moves to the United States and starts a new business and a family. The business is successful, and he prospers, but one day his daughter is beaten “like an animal” and disfigured by some rowdy troublemakers; the courts set them free. So now he must come to Don Corleone for justice.

But the Don sees things quite differently. It is Bonasera who is in the wrong, he has ignored Vito’s offer of friendship, and even now treats him disrespectfully, asking him to commit murder to avenge a beating, and to do so for money – the bourgeois “cash nexus” of Weber – rather than as an accommodation among friends.[7]

Don Corleone: We have known each other many years, but this is the first time you’ve come to me for counsel or for help. I can’t remember the last time you invited me to your house for a cup of coffee, even though my wife is godmother to your only child. But let’s be frank here. You never wanted my friendship. And you feared to be in my debt.

Bonasera: I didn’t want to get into trouble.

Don Corleone: I understand. You found paradise in America. You had a good trade, you made a good living. The police protected you and there were courts of law. So, you didn’t need a friend like me. Now you come and say “Don Corleone, give me justice.” But you don’t ask with respect. You don’t offer friendship. You don’t even think to call me “Godfather.” You come into my house on the day my daughter is to be married, and you ask me to do murder – for money.

Bonasera: I ask you for justice.

Don Corleone: That is not justice. Your daughter is alive.[8]

Bonasera: Let them suffer then as she suffers.

[the Don is silent]

Bonasera: How much shall I pay you?

[the Don turns away dismissively, but Bonasera stays on]

Don Corleone: Bonasera, Bonasera, what have I ever done to make you treat me so disrespectfully? If you’d come to me in friendship, this scum who ruined your daughter would be suffering this very day. And if by some chance an honest man like yourself made enemies, they would become my enemies. And then, they would fear you.

Bonasera: Be my friend… Godfather.

[the Don at first shrugs, but upon hearing the title he lifts his hand, and a humbled Bonasera kisses the ring on it]

Don Corleone: Good.

[He places his hand around Bonasera in a paternal gesture]

Don Corleone: Someday, and that day may never come, I will call upon you to do a service for me. But until that day, consider this justice a gift on my daughter’s wedding day.

[a gratified Bonasera offers his thanks and leaves]

Don Corleone: [to Hagen] Give this job to Clemenza. I want reliable people, people who aren’t going to be carried away. I mean, we’re not murderers, in spite of what this undertaker thinks…

Of course, the Don doesn’t ask for an honorarium or “tip” to supposedly smooth things over with the youths, but rather extracts a kind of IOU, which we will see paid off later. Otherwise, this seems like a pretty good match to Mosca’s vignette; we might even think that Puzo had seen or heard of such sequences of events here or in Italy over the years. [9]

There is one anomaly, though: at this point, we have no reason to think the two teenagers were working for Vito all along; [10] and we certainly don’t after the film goes on to paint him as wise and almost saintly.

However, being two dumb punks does fit Mosca’s scenario, and suggests another iconic scene: Tommy and Henry at Sonny’s restaurant. Most viewers are too busy absorbing Tommy’s “How am I funny?” rant to notice what he says to Henry: “Hey, you’re supposed to be doing this stuff too, you know.” As ScreenRant notes, the source material, Nicholas Pileggi’s book Wiseguy, makes it clear that Paulie sent Tommy and Henry to Sonny’s restaurant to run up bills, make scenes, and ultimately break a bottle over Sonny’s head, so as to trick Sonny into taking in Paulie as a partner. The parallel, as Sherlock Holmes would say, is exact.

It also reveals the fallacy, or self-delusion, in Henry’s claim that Paulie provides “protection for the kinds of guys who can’t go to the cops.” Italian immigrants may have originally thought that the police would not help them. As might have been true in the old country, the people Paulie protects are themselves criminals. [11]While Vito is only shown helping innocent civilians (and takes five bullets after refusing to promote the sale of narcotics, “a dirty business”[12]), the real wiseguys mostly provide protection against their own criminal activities: “Nice business you got here, be a shame is something happened to it.”[13]

From such detail, Mosca extracts what he calls “the feeling, or rather, the spirit of mafia,” which “can be described in a few words”: “Viewing the use of official justice, the police, and the judiciary to address wrongs … as a sign of weakness or cowardness.”

Not all “crimes” are given such treatment: “simple theft, fraud, freeloading” and other crimes involving cunning without the use of violence, or without “displaying greater strength and courage than the victim” can be reported. But “this is prohibited when the crime becomes an open and shameless imposition,” where the perpetrator “intends to harm a particular individual to assert their own superiority.”

Offenses against a family’s honour, beatings, personal violence, and murder committed in a brawl or by ambush are all crimes that the mafia considers inappropriate and cowardly to report, viewing such reporting as a form of chivalric disqualification.[14] However, these are not the only offenses treated this way. Acts like cutting vines, killing livestock, cattle rustling, and even robbery and extortion with kidnapping—when they take on the character of personal revenge or an insult directed at a specific individual—are also technically not reportable.[15]

This “characteristic of revenge and offense directed at a specific person” is “the true hallmark of Sicilian criminality,” unlike similar crimes which, when committed elsewhere, are the acts of more or less professional criminals who choose their victims largely at random. Indeed, Mosca notes that travelers from the mainland, or foreigners in general, are largely immune, since no element of the vendetta enters in when dealing with such strangers.

And here Mosca clarifies another concept, in a surprising way. While Hollywood has given us the idea of l’omertà as governing mobsters revealing the workings of the mob, Mosca presents it as “a direct result of the mafia mentality” itself, with a far broader range of application: “it is dishonourable to provide information to the authorities about crimes that the mafia believes should be resolved between the offending and offended parties [as well as] disputes between third parties.”[16]

To return to the opening of The Godfather, we see that it is Bonasera who is, or was, bound by the rule of l’omertà. Don Corleone asks, “Why did you go to the police? Why didn’t you come to me first?” Not only did he ignore the Don’s offer of friendship, his first instinct was to go to the police. He is not a man of honor, but, as it is the Don’s daughter’s wedding day, he is offered a second chance. Of course, perhaps a service will one day be required of him….[17]

“That’s my family, Kay; that’s not me.” – Michael Corleone[18]

Near the beginning, Mosca observes:

Sicilians living in the island’s large cities are rarely victims of premeditated crimes. In large cities, everyone can freely choose the people with whom they want to establish relationships, and personal grievances are less likely to flare up and do not find nourishment in daily contacts and friction as they do in small towns.

Without explicitly invoking it, Mosca seems to be hinting at the Gemeinshaft/Gesellshaft distinction contributed by Tönnies.[19] Here, the Dissident Right knee begins to jerk, yearning for the warm and snuggly world of Sicilian villages and various Little Italy’s of the past, and cocking snoots at the cold, calculating Anglo (if not outright Judaic) world of modernity.

Mosca, who, like Michael Corleone, had lived in both realms, (also like Michael) is not so sure this is entirely an obvious choice (if choice we even have).

I have met educated people from northern Italy who find something proud and appealing, or at least not entirely ignoble, in this mafia sentiment or spirit – where each individual believes it is honourable to rely on their own strength and courage to repel and prevent offenses.[20]

A sentiment not uncommon among fans of The Godfather genre, where street thugs are transformed into modern day samurai. Call Mosca a nattering nabob of nihilism if you like, but he makes some good points here:

The mafia spirit is essentially an antisocial sentiment that prevents true order and genuine justice from being established and becoming effective among populations deeply affected by it.

It also ultimately results in the oppression of the weak by the strong,[21] and the tyranny exercised by small organized minorities at the expense of individuals in the disorganized majority.

“I never thought you were a bad consigliere. I thought Sonny was a bad don.” – Don Corleone [22]

Sam Francis, in “Crime Story: The Godfather as Political Metaphor,” has famously analyzed the Godfather Saga as Michael’s ultimately tragic attempt to move the Corleone family from a Gemeinshaft to a Gesellshaft (“Going legit” as one says). When Roth’s hit fails, Michael turns the family over to his step-brother Tom, the German-Irish representative of rational action, who is now the only one he can trust, since the rest of his crew are only “businessmen,” and Freddo is Fredo is “weak and stupid.” Fredo dramatizes the drawbacks of the Gemeinshaft. Fredo’s betrayal of Michael, however unwitting, is fueled by righteous complaint:

Fredo Corleone: I’m your older brother, Mike, and I was stepped over!

Michael Corleone: That’s the way Pop wanted it.

Fredo Corleone: It ain’t the way I wanted it! I can handle things! I’m smart! Not like everybody says, like dumb. I’m smart and I want respect!

He is of course correct about primogeniture and respect, if not about being smart. We are not animali, and “meritocracy” is for Anglos and Jews. His argument is air-tight. It may just be me, but in this moment, when he demands respect, John Casale looks more like Brando than at any other time, or than any of the other actors ever do (although Michael could perhaps be De Niro’s son).

Of course, what one does in such cases is appoint some wise counselor — a consigliere, like Tom, who already had to keep Sonny from going wild — to keep the idiot king under control, while the office retains respect. [23] One way for a family to deal with a Fredo is to kill him off, as Michael has to do, when Fredo becomes too dangerous a liability. Another is to disown him; in Havana, Fredo tells Michael that their mother told him he “was left on the doorstep by gypsies.” Nice family values.

If I understand the scene in Godfather II, Fredo is the sick baby being treated by some kind of Sicilian voodoo medicine, the failure of which likely left him “learning disabled” as we say today. I suppose the point of the scene is to underline how poor and downtrodden they are, but then, why fool with the Anglo’s scientific medicine when you’ve got snuggly Sicilian voodoo on your side, right, my fellow Hobbits?

“Those were the great old days, you know. And we was like the Roman Empire. The Corleone family was like the Roman Empire.” – Frank Pentangeli[24]

It must be noted that there is at least one area where the American mafia, at least in its prime, deviated from its Sicilian model as presented here: their much-vaunted “organization.”

I have nearly completed my discourse without mentioning any organization that unites and disciplines all the forces of the mafia, or rather, the mafia clans. This omission is intentional, as no such organization exists. Each faction operates independently and typically does not recognize the authority of any leader outside its own ranks.

Among factions in neighbouring areas, there may—and often do—exist relationships of friendship or enmity, as I have already noted. They may respect one another, compete, or even engage in mutual destruction. However, this autonomy stems directly from the absence of any federal structure that might unite them and enforce a common standard.

For instance, members of two clans from distant provinces often do not even know each other by name or face and interact only rarely, if at all.

It goes without saying, then, that there is no general council or supreme leader (Duce) of the mafia in Sicily.

Of course, everyone knows that this is simply not true of the American mafia, as we know from many books and films. The consolidation of the American mafia – the imposing of just such a “federal structure” – was the work usually attributed to Charles “Lucky” Luciano, although he was likely just the “Sicilian messenger boy” for the man known as “the Mob’s accountant,” Meyer Lansky.[25]

Ironically, it was also Lansky who obtained, or at least wielded, the blackmail photos that kept J. Edgar Hoover from acknowledging the very existence of Lansky’s network; for decades — until 1963, oddly enough — Hoover insisted the so-called Syndicate still adhered to the loose confederation that Mosca studied in late 19th century Sicily.[26]

“I don’t have your brain for big deals. But this is a street thing.” – Frank Pentangeli [27]

Mosca notes that the mafia spirit “is not the result of inheritance or race, but of the environment in which one lives.”[28]

Within the same family, or even within the same individual, the mafia spirit can increase, decrease, or disappear depending on whether the person moves to a different environment. A Sicilian who goes to the mainland, to places where mafia behaviour is considered low and vulgar, quickly sheds any trace of the mafia spirit thanks to the remarkable intuition and extraordinary adaptability that distinguish him.

I have witnessed that natives of towns and rural villages deeply and traditionally steeped in the mafia spirit, if they live long enough in the large cities of the island or on the Italian mainland and acquire a solid and broad intellectual culture, undergo a true psychological transformation. As a result of this transformation, they develop an invincible aversion to permanently returning to their ancestral home.

In general, the mafia spirit is “stronger among the poor and unrefined classes, rather than among the wealthy and, above all, the educated.” One immediately thinks of Michael Corleone, known to his family, the one he tries to reject, as “Joe College.” Then, the day after Pearl Harbor, Michael enlists, which Sonny thinks makes him one of the “suckers” who “risk their lives for strangers,” to which Michael replies “That’s Pop talking.” Perhaps if Michael had stayed in college, as his father intended, he would have been able to resist being “pulled back in” to the mafia spirit, and become “Governor Corleone” or “Senator Corleone.” (In the next movie, Hyman Roth, who embodies the spirit and allure of the Gesellshaft, even suggests setting his sights on the presidency, if “enough money” can be found).

In general, mob movies do tend to present mobsters as lower-class dumb-bells, though some have enough “street smarts” to rise to the top of a crew or family; most barely scrape by, as we see with Pacino’s Lefty in Donnie Brasco. Hyman Roth (based on Meyer Lansky) is “that Jew in Miami” who doesn’t just “make money for his partners” but manipulates them with ease – “Roth played this one beautifully.”

De Niro shifts back and forth between ethnicities and IQ: in Godfather II he’s the brainy young Vito; then the foolish “Noodles” in Sergio Leone’s riposte to The Godfather genre, Once Upon a Time in America (where he’s manipulated by fellow Jew, Max, played by James Woods [29]); then the street smart but mostly brutal Jimmy “The Gent” Burke in Scorsese’s own anti-Godfather, Goodfellas; finally (I haven’t seen The Irishman) he’s the brainy Jew, Ace Rothstein (the real life Frank Rosenthal), in Casino. [30] “A[ce] Rothstein” brings us full circle: Hyman Roth chose his alias as a tribute to A[rnold] Rothstein. [31]

Of course, neither class nor education is infallible. “A significant portion of the poorer classes” who practice certain trades, such as sailor or fishermen, are “almost completely immune,” while “some segments of the ruling classes, including certain wealthy and even noble families, are deeply infused with mafia tendencies.” Especially the most ancient nobles, who “often possess a good dose of ignorance and rusticity along with their noble titles, poorly disguised by a peculiar gentility.” Surely this is not unknown among Anglo nobility as well, where a disdain for “edumacation” is often used as a class marker, to distinguish themselves from the “upstarts” and “strivers.”[32]

***

Michael: My father is no different than any powerful man, any man with power, like a president or senator.

Kay Adams: Do you know how naive you sound, Michael? Presidents and senators don’t have men killed.

Michael: Oh. Who’s being naive, Kay?[33]

Of course, Mosca did not intend his study of the mafia to be a guide for Hollywood film makers or their audiences. He was addressing the curious position of his homeland in the new Italian nation-state, where it seemed to be more of a problem child than an upstanding component of a modern, liberal democracy.

In turn of the 20th century Italy, as in 20th century America, Sicily was viewed as a cauldron of crime, corruption and ineptitude; Mosca locates the problem not in genes or poverty but in a long series of colonial or occupational regimes that rendered “justice” a hollow term. But he is not, or not only, interested in causes or excuses; Sicily was not merely what we would call a “failed state” but the empirical basis for theoretical inferences that would become the axioms of Elite Theory.[34]

As Maxwell explains:

Political order rests not on law, but on structure, and where structure fails, informal systems take hold.

There is a kind of Law of Conservation of Power; “where law is weak, structure returns in new forms.” The mafia not a “criminal anomaly” but “an adaptive response to weak sovereignty” and “institutional failure.”[35]

The relevance of all this is not just as a guide to Hollywood gangland or Sicilian history, but for our own time: increasingly a world of warlords, no-go zones, PMC’s (private military companies) in Syria and Ukraine, and TAZ’s (“temporary autonomous zones”) like Seattle’s CHAZ.[36]

Mosca’s Sicily becomes a lens for the future: not a descent into chaos, but into layered systems of parallel authority.

In an age of institutional decay and rising parallel systems of authority, Mosca’s Sicilian writings offer tools for understanding how power persists beyond legality.

“I don’t know no ‘Godfather’… I have my own family, Senator.” – Frank Pentangeli [37]

This talk of ancient nobility put me in mind of everyone on the Right’s favorite Sicilian nobleman, Julius Evola. Since, like most Americans, I associate Sicily with the mafia, I thus have wondered before if there were any connection between the Evola family and the mafia. Inspired by Gaetano, I turned to AI.

The results were inconclusive but interesting, in terms of time and status: one a powerful old-time mafia don, the other a humble but mobbed-up pizzeria owner.

First up, Don Natale “Joe Diamond” Evola:

The name “Evola” is associated with multiple individuals linked to the American Mafia, particularly within the New Jersey faction of the Genovese crime family and the Bonanno family.

Natale Evola, also known as “Joe Diamond,” was a prominent figure in the early development of the Bonanno crime family and a key player in the New York Mafia during the 20th century. He was born in Brooklyn in 1907 to Sicilian immigrants and was a staunch adherent of the Castellammarese-oriented group led by Nicola Schiro. Evola played a significant role in the Castellammarese War of 1929–1931, fighting under Salvatore Maranzano, and later became a “capo di decina” under Joe Bonanno. He was involved in major criminal enterprises, including garment racketeering, heroin trafficking, and labor extortion. In 1958, he was convicted of heroin-narcotics conspiracy and sentenced to ten years in federal prison, serving time at Leavenworth, Kansas. He was later elected as the official Capo of the Bonanno Family in 1971–1972 following the imprisonment of previous leaders, but died of cancer in August 1973 at the age of 66.

This Evola arrived in New York City two years after Vito Corleone, and the Castellammarese War was the basis for the “Olive Oil War” between Don Vito and Evola’s boss Maranzano, which cemented Vito’s rise to power. Maranzano, however, won the real-life war, which resulted in his creation of the famous mob structure, modeled on the Roman Empire, which Tom and Franky reminisce about in Godfather II. The creation of “associate” status allowed the mob to enter into alliances with non-Italians, such as Meyer Lansky, the real-life Hyman Roth.

“Joe Diamond” was “a key figure in the Italian mafia” and deemed worthy of an obit in the New York Times, which makes for interesting reading, as it fills in much of the above, and adds that “Evola, who was not married, lived quietly with his mother, Francesca, at 972 Bayridge Parkway, Brooklyn.”

Years later, and a bit lower on the social scale, we find that “another individual named Vito Evola was involved in a separate heroin ring operation in South Jersey.”

 In 1997, Vito Evola, owner of Sal’s Pizzeria in Palmyra, New Jersey, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and drug charges as part of a two-year FBI undercover investigation into a heroin ring run by the Sicilian Mafia. He was one of the last of 14 defendants to admit involvement in the case.

“Joe Diamond” seems like a suitable doppelganger for our Evola, men of intelligence and action, but is there any reason to think they were related? Again, I turned to AI for a follow-up question:

Despite sharing the same surname and being contemporaries (both died in the early 1970s), there is no known familial, personal, or ideological connection between them. The similarity in names is coincidental, and they operated in entirely different spheres—one in organized crime in the United States, the other in philosophical and political circles in Europe.

So, no smoking gun. Yet the case is not closed; “Evola” is hardly a common name, at least in North America – Google knows only Julius, Natale and Vito – so it’s not like musing on a connection between James Woods and Rosemary Woods. Further research is called for, as the academics like to say.

And the idea is not to besmirch the fine name of Julius Evola by connecting him with the Cosa Nostra,[38] but to find what New Testament critics would call the Sitz in Leben of Evola’s Weltanschauung; for really, is it not “aristocratic” viewpoint redolent with the “mafia spirit”? Perhaps that mysterious title of nobility, “Baron,”[39] is rooted less in historical records and more, like “Don” or “Godfather,” more “one of affection, one of respect.”[40]

***

With any luck I’ve managed to give you some idea of how much useful and interesting stuff is packed into Gaetano’s examination of the mafia. It comes in at a concise 40pp or so, but Imperium has not only added Maxwell’s informative introduction, but also over a hundred pages of essays selected from Men and Things of Sicily, translated here for the first time; these are “rich in observation, anecdote and character,” as Maxwell truly says, “not for colour, but because power is legible in gesture, not law.” Think of it, then as the screenplay for an unproduced gangster classic.

Notes

[1]Although the connection to later mafia films is direct, though esoteric; ScreenRant says: “The reasoning for the gunshots in the final scene of Goodfellas was given by director Martin Scorsese in an on-camera interview for the American Film Institute (AFI)…. According to Scorsese, the plots of Goodfellas and The Great Train Robbery are the same. Scorsese said, “Basically, in Goodfellas, there’s a bunch of outlaws who do this incredible robbery, and they all kill each other. The police get them at the end. It’s exactly the same story.” The Great Train Robbery ends with one man, wearing a hat and neckerchief, firing a gun directly at the camera, and that’s why Goodfellas ends with Tommy shooting in the same way.”

[2] Ironically, or perhaps as a gesture of continuity, Mario Puzo, author of the Godfather novel and screenplay, also wrote the defining superhero movie, Superman: The Movie (1978), which also starred Marlon Brando.

[3] The most influential works on elite theory—Mosca’s The Ruling Class (Elementi di scienza politica, 1896) and Pareto’s Mind and Society (Trattato di Sociologia Generale, 1916)—were developed independently, and there is apparently some controversy among scholars, and the authors themselves, on whether one influenced the other, or neither. For a recent discussion of Mosca’s key work, consider: Laurent Guyénot, “Our Ruling Class: Lessons from Mosca, Machiavelli, and Attila the Hun.”

[4] I recently lamented that Ed Dutton’s biography of Jonathan Bowden was unable to really get to the bottom of what Bowden was all about, due to a rather brash kind of materialism, along the lines of the old Behaviorist slogan “the brain secretes thoughts as the gall bladder secretes bile.” See “Nothing Here Now but the Recordings: Notes on the Shamanism of Bowden, Burroughs & Neville – Part 2.”

By contrast, noted occult historian Mitch Horowitz is quick to emphasize that he writes as a “participant-observer.” While acknowledging the need for some level of objectivity, he rightly points out that we are quite used to, for instance, histories of Mormonism written by Mormons, or accounts of the Inquisition, say, written by Roman Catholics. And if we are to prove a method by experience – otherwise, in what sense are we being empirical? – then we must have these experiences. “The perspective of the critics requires leavening by experience. But experience will not touch the staunchest among them simply because they avoid participation in ideas.” The Miracle Club: How Thoughts Become Reality (Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions, 2018), Chapter Ten, “Mirror Man: The Centrality of Neville Goddard,” and my review here.

[5] This is why Breton considered Huysmans a precursor of surrealism, despite – or rather because of – his origins as a devotee of Zola’s realist school; see “What is Surrealism?” (Lecture delivered in Brussels by André Breton on the 1st June 1934). On James and Lovecraft, consider “The Lesson of the Monster, or the Great, Good Thing on the Doorstep”; on Neville, see Horowitz, op. cit., as well as my collection
Mysticism After Modernism: Crowley, Evola, Neville, Watts, Colin Wilson, & Other Populist Gurus (Melbourne, Australia: Manticore Press, 2020).

[6] As we’ll see, there’s more than a touch of “chivalry” here, as in the Bond genre; Kingsley Amis explores this in his James Bond Dossier: “I will merely point out the other side of this part of the Byronic picture, the friendliness Bond feels for those possessed of instinctive dignity who treat him as an equal: Darko Kerim in From Russia, with Love, Vavra (the gypsy in the same book), Quarrel in Live and Let Die and Dr No. With Quarrel, Bond’s relationship is ‘that of a Scots laird with his head stalker; authority was unspoken and there was no room for servility.’ This is —isn’t it? — exactly how natural aristocrats are supposed to feel and behave. Perhaps they do, if they exist. Certainly Bond’s Scottishness makes such an attitude in him a couple of degrees more believable.” Scotland of course is a kind of Anglo Sicily, as Appalachia in the USA.

[7] Later, at the meeting of the Five Families, Vito will ask: “When did I ever refuse an accommodation?”

[8] Similarly, in Goodfellas, when Sonny goes to Paulie to ask for help with Tommy’s antics, Paulie rhetorically says, “What do you want me to do, shoot him?” When Sonny foolishly replies, “That wouldn’t be a bad idea,” Paulie glares at him silently until he apologizes for such a infra dig suggestion.

[9] One might also note, from a scene near the end, how the Don’s rhetoric resembles Mosca’s delineation of the increasing consequences suffered by the newcomer: “I’m a superstitious man, and if some unlucky accident should befall Michael – if he is to be shot in the head by a police officer, or be found hung dead in a jail cell… or if he should be struck by a bolt of lightning – then I’m going to blame some of the people in this room; and then I do not forgive.”

[10] Cf. Vito’s realization late in the film: “But I didn’t know until this day that it was Barzini all along.”

[11] Bonasera, of course, does discover that the “courts of law” in postwar America will still not help him; was the judge bribed, or a proto-woke activist?

[12] Spider in Goodfellas (later in The Sopranos) is killed when Tommy shoots him five times

[13] Compare how in Godfather II Don Fanucci provides “protection” from his own crimes. In general, the Corleones seem to operate outside of the Five Families, in their world but not of it, almost as saintly archetypes; this is made clear in the novel. Ironically, it is Michael who becomes the true mobster, losing (even killing) his own family to attain money and power; this may be why there was no response after he kills the heads of the Five Families – he has simply become them. In Gnostic terms, The Don is The One, Michael, his imperfect image in the material world. (“The Don’s slippin’”) The Sopranos was based on an actual mafia family that operated out of New Jersey, the Cavalcantis; unlike the Corleones, they got no respect: the New York families called them “farmers” and would not let them “make” anyone without New York’s permission. Ironically, their low profile made them the only survivors when Giuliani’s Feds wiped out the New York mob in the 80s.

[14] Although found typically in the lower strata, Mosca notes that the upper classes share the sense that some offenses must be dealt with by the duel.

[15] Bonasera’s daughter is not only beaten, but beaten “like an animal.”

[16] In Godfather II, young Vito realizes Don Fanucci is a fake tough guy (as Tommy will call Billy Batts in Goodfellas): “Vito came to the realization that Fanucci only acted like he was a mob boss in front of easy-to-trick immigrants, as no mafioso would allow an assassin to live, even if paid enormous sums of money, and no member of any mafia would ever need or resort to informing the police as a threat.” Deleted scenes show the incident where Fanucci’s throat is slit by a couple of punks; he later kills one, but takes money from the other’s family. In the completed film, we only see the scar on Fanucci’s throat while Vito stalks him at the parade.

[17] Mosca adds that l’omerta “is the main reason why witnesses in criminal trials often become deceitful or, rather, evasive. For Sicilians, even those from the poorest and roughest classes, outright lying is rare. Instead of telling falsehoods, they frequently claim that they do not know or do not remember the truth, which they actually know and remember very well.” This reminds us of Frankie “Five Angels” in The Godfather II: when called to testify against Michael, his attention is drawn to his brother who has come/been brought from Sicily, where he has his own mob family. Suddenly, his affidavit goes out the window: “I never knew no Godfather. I got my own family. I was in the olive oil business with his father a long time ago. That’s all.” Then he throws the FBI under the bus; “The FBI guys promised me a deal. So I made up a lot of stuff about Michael Corleone. Because then, that’s what they wanted. But it was all lies. Everything. They said Michael Corleone did this, Michael Corleone did that. So I said, ‘Yeah, sure.’” If Frankie thought Michael had tried to have him killed, the honorable thing would be to exact personal vengeance, not go to the courts.

[18] Michael Corleone, The Godfather.

[19] Tönnies, Ferdinand. Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft. Leipzig: Fues’s Verlag, 1887; Community and Society, trans. Charles P. Loomis. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2002.

[20] Even the traveling salesman Mr. Hutchinson feels this way as he begins to pummel Basil Fawlty:

– I’m not a violent man, Mr. Fawlty.

– (from the floor) Yes, you are!

– No, I’m not! But when I’m insulted and then attacked, I prefer to rely on my own mettle than call the police.” Fawlty Towers, S1E4, “The Hotel Inspectors”

[21] An example of the not-so warm and snuggly Gemeinshaft of the Irish mafia, as depicted in Scorsese’s The Departed:

French: Do you know me?

Billy: No. No.

French: Well, I’m the guy that tells you there are guys you can hit……and there’s guys you can’t. Now, that’s not quite a guy you can’t hit…but it’s almost a guy you can’t hit. So I’m gonna make a f*cking ruling on this right now: You don’t f*cking hit him. You understand?

Billy: Yeah, excellent. Fine. Fine, fine.

French: I f*cking know you. I know your family. You make one more drug deal with that idiot f*cking cop-magnet of a cousin of yours and I’ll forget your grandmother was so nice to me. I’ll cut your f*cking nuts off. You understand that?

Billy: Yeah, I do.

French: What are you drinking?

Billy: A cranberry juice.

French: What is it, your period? Get him a cranberry juice. He’s Jackie’s nephew.

Not much like Lord of the Rings, is it?

[22] Don Corleone, to Michael, The Godfather.

[23] “If I had a wartime consigliere, a Sicilian!” shrieks Sonny, whose interruption at the Sollozo meeting leads to the idea of Vito’s shooting, and whose “famous temper” leads to his own death; one has to ask if the Corleone family would have survived at all without Nordic Tom whispering in their ears. Even Vito must admit: “I never thought you were a bad consigliere; I though Sonny was a bad don.”

[24] Franky Five Angels, The Godfather Part II.

[25] “Your father never trusted Hyman Roth, or his Sicilian messenger boy, Johnny Ola.”—Frankie to Michael, Godfather II. AI says: “Their collaboration led to the creation of the National Crime Syndicate, which was founded after a conference in Atlantic City organized by Luciano, Lansky, Johnny Torrio, and Frank Costello in May 1929. This syndicate aimed to bring together Italian, Jewish, and Irish gangs to pool their resources and turn organized crime into a lucrative business. Lansky played a crucial role in the syndicate, serving as a financial mastermind and helping to establish a structured network that allowed for greater collaboration among the Mafia, preventing violent turf wars and promoting stability within their operations.”

[26] “The blackmail acquired on Hoover and the mob’s possession of the evidence has been cited as a major factor in Hoover’s decades-long denial that nationwide networks of organized crime were a serious issue. Hoover asserted that it was a decentralized, local issue and therefore outside of the bureau’s jurisdiction. By the time Hoover finally acknowledged the existence of national organized crime networks in 1963, they were so entrenched in the U.S. establishment that they were untouchable.” Whitney Webb, “Hidden In Plain Sight: The Shocking Origins of the Jeffrey Epstein Case.”

[27] Franky “Five Angels,” The Godfather II.

[28] Frank Costello (real-life: Whitey Bulger, Irish mobster who survived by trading info on the Italian mob to the FBI) felt differently: “I don’t want to be a product of my environment; I want my environment to be a product of me.” (The Departed).

[29] Though playing a “fellow Jew” Woods, like De Niro, is not in fact Italian; supposedly.

[30] Casino is a movie of reversals or at least revenge. Just as Joe Pesci kills Billy Batts in Goodfellas, here the same actor (Frank Marino) kills Pesci with a baseball bat; earlier, De Niro and Woods repeat their rivalry over a woman, but his time De Niro wins (if you could call being married to Ginger a “win”).

[31] AI says: “His original name, Hyman Suchowsky, was changed to Hyman Rothstein by Vito Corleone, who suggested the name after learning Roth admired Arnold Rothstein for fixing the World Series. This connection is explicitly referenced in the film when Roth tells Michael Corleone, ‘I’ve loved baseball ever since Arnold Rothstein fixed the World Series in 1919.’”

[32] As just alluded to, George W. Bush’s apparent idiocy may well have been a sort of Masonic sign to those in the know: “he’s one of us,” like being known as a “goodfella” (Goodfellas) or “a friend of ours” (Donnie Brasco). As Ann Richards famously and foolishly said, “Poor George [H. W.], he can’t help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth.” “George” went on to win the Presidency, and his son defeated her for Governor. As for the Duke of Windsor, “When Churchill presented him with an inscribed copy of his memoirs, the Duke thanked him and said he would put it in the bookshelf next to the other volumes. He had no interest in the arts or helping others. Once, after sitting through a concert organised by Lady Cunard, he asked, ‘Did that Mozart chap write anything else?’”—Andrew Lownie, Traitor King: The Scandalous Exile of the Duke & Duchess of Windsor, p. 250.

[33] The Godfather.

[34] “For Mosca, it provided direct experience with informal power, elite mediation, and communal authority.” – Maxwell, Introduction.

[35] Consider this meditation on Carl Schmitt: “The state does not exist to arbitrate consumer preference or to maximize comfort, but to embody the unity of a people[…] A regime that abdicates this role does not abolish politics; it merely allows politics to seep into other domains, where it is seized by factions, movements, or private powers eager to define enemies and friends in the state’s absence. This is why Schmitt judged liberal neutrality a fraud. A government that refuses to name its enemies is not more humane or enlightened; it merely cedes the ground to others who will do so with less restraint. The void created by refusal is never empty for long. Power rushes in, and those who claim to stand above conflict discover that they have merely surrendered their authority to rivals who recognize no such illusions.”

[36] Later, as mafia levels of violence increased, the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone was given the more fitting acronym CHOP (Capitol Hill Occupied Protest).

[37] Franky “Five Angels” thunderstrikes the Senate Organized Crime committee.

[38] Michael Corleone: “I challenge this committee to produce any witness or evidence against me, and if they do not, I hope they will have the decency to clear my name with the same publicity with which they have besmirched it.”

Senator Geary: “It would be a shame, Mr. Chairman, if we allowed a few rotten apples to give a bad name to the whole barrel. Because from the time of Christopher Columbus to the time of Enrico Fermi, to the present day, Italian-Americans have been pioneers in building and defending our nation. They are the salt of the earth, and one of the backbones of this country.” (The Godfather, Part II)

[39] When Evola “became an avant-garde painter…the somewhat prosaic name Giulio was replaced by its more classical version, Julius. It was around this period that the title of ‘Baron’ somehow became attached to his name.” Mark Sedgwick, Traditionalism: The Radical Project for Restoring Sacred Order (Oxford, 2023), p. 15.

[40] Committee Chairman: Did he at times use an alias that was known in certain circles as “Godfather?” Michael Corleone: Godfather is a term that was used by his friends — one of affection, one of respect. (The Godfather: Part II).