They’re violent, they’re ruthless, they have caused misery to many, but you can’t fault their business sense: Mafia bosses know how to make a profit. Its practices may be largely illegal, but Cosa Nostra is not as retrograde, or conservative, as it has often been portrayed. Its raison d’etre is profit. Like any business, it is pragmatic and constantly changing to exploit new opportunities.
Big business has learned how to sell itself to the public, with television shows such as The Apprentice and Dragons’ Den granting us a view of harsh but compellingly competitive environments. Businessmen such as Alan Sugar, Duncan Bannatyne and Peter Jones have become unlikely media personalities. But the Mafia has been using these methods for years.
Mafia bosses are acutely aware of the importance of image: in Naples, they flaunt their celebrity status and are patrons to the city’s singing stars. In Sicily, the boss retains a moral authority: people look to him for protection, resolution of conflicts, help with getting a job. Superstore managers, for example, could look at the way the Mafia co-opts popular support to sell its principal product — protection. It cannot just frighten people into buying protection — they must believe that they need the Mafia, that life is easier under the boss’s wing.
PHOTO: NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
When a number of rival companies are in competition for materials and labor, prices rise. If they are brought under the same multinational umbrella, prices are driven down, since no one can afford to lose the trade. The Mafia, by eliminating the tiresome element of competition (trade unions are actively discouraged, materials are sourced from Mafia-owned companies, prices are fixed by cartels), exercises a comfortable monopoly. Rival businesses have a choice: they may pay a tax and join the system, or close.
During the drug boom of the 1980s, Cosa Nostra clans needed to launder so much money that they ended up making huge acquisitions. With the mafia’s investment in private health clinics, factories and tourist resorts, the lines between legitimate and illegal business were no longer clear.
Cosa Nostra’s comfortable relationship with business came under threat during the wars for control of the drug trade, in which the upcoming Corleone clan murdered hundreds of members of rival families and their business associates. The organization no longer offered security, so why would people pay?
PHOTO: NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
When Bernardo Provenzano took over the organization in the mid-90s, he inherited a depleted and demoralized workforce, who had scuppered their own access to politics and industry. The bombs that killed anti-Mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino had created a PR disaster and a law enforcement backlash. Hundreds of Mafiosi were in prison, and many of them were so disillusioned with the organization that they were telling the authorities everything they knew.
It has been said of Provenzano, as of so many Mafia entrepreneurs, that had he turned his talents and resources to legitimate business, he would have been extremely successful. Magistrates and Mafiosi agree: Provenzano was the charismatic force who revived the fortunes of Cosa Nostra. Fortunately, the Mafia’s particular modus operandi — the use or threat of violence to create monopolies and price-fixing cartels — is not part of general business practice. But his “System” turned around a failing organization with far-sighted tactics worthy of any business impresario. The fact that he wrote his reforms by letter means that we have what amounts to a manual of how to run a successful business — one from which any industry could learn a good deal.
Submersion:
When a company is failing, the first step is to take it below the radar. You want to lose that cursed epithet “troubled” as quickly as possible, even if it means disappearing from the business pages. “It’s the sensible thing to do — you bury your mistakes and get on with it,” says Peter Wallis (AKA social commentator Peter York), management consultant at SRU Ltd. You also want to buy shareholders’ patience and convince them to hold their nerve and trust you.
“Our aim was to make Cosa Nostra invisible, giving us time to regroup,” recalled Provenzano’s lieutenant, Nino Giuffre, who collaborated shortly after his arrest in 2002. After a series of power struggles that had left many dead, businessmen were understandably reluctant to return calls. Mafiosi were instructed to avoid any activity that would attract publicity. If a factory owner refused to pay protection, no one was to set fire to the machinery or blow up the trucks. Peaceful persuasion was the only way.
By contrast with the old-style system of shoot first and ask questions later, any hostile action would have to be thoroughly assessed for potential PR damage. “It was essential to weigh up whether a person could do more damage dead or alive,” revealed Giuffre.
Announcing his system, Provenzano warned that recovery would take time: members might have to wait between five and seven years before they were making profits again. Rebuilding links with business and politicians could only be done out of the glare of publicity. In relative obscurity, Cosa Nostra would be repositioned to shake off its parasitic image and become part of the industrial and political institutions.
Mediation:
“Be calm, clear, correct and consistent, turn any negative experiences to account, don’t dismiss everything people tell you, or believe everything you’re told. Always try to discover the truth before you speak, and remember that, to make your judgment, it’s never enough to have just one source of information.”
This letter has been described as “a manifesto of Cosa Nostra under Bernardo Provenzano.” After a decade of unspeakable violence under the previous leader, Toto Riina, Provenzano changed the culture of Cosa Nostra by instructing his men in the art of negotiation and the importance of dialogue.
Provenzano was decisive, and on occasion demanded swift and direct answers to his questions, but he could be a ditherer when it suited him. Playing for time, he encouraged his men to negotiate agreements between them. If that failed, Provenzano was at his typewriter night and day, offering his wisdom and experience (and just occasionally, a little double-dealing) to resolve disputes.
Like any company director, who carefully crafts his or her media persona, Provenzano didn’t want to come across as a tyrant, he wanted to be a “kindly dictator.” He coordinated the activities of different and competing groups, without imposing his will. He was the uncontested boss, but he gave the impression that his decisions were reached after long consultation.
Consensus:
Provenzano answered letters from every level of society about job vacancies, exam results, local health and hospital administration. Like the charity work carried out by major corporations today, Provenzano was clear: the Mafia must present itself as a positive element of society. The boss had to appear as a beneficent figure, an uncle whose advice and consent was sought on all matters — business and personal. He understood that persuading the people they need you is a far more effective way of promoting your business than imposition and violence.
“Let me know whatever [the people] need,” he wrote to his adviser, “they must expect nothing but good from us.”
One key step in the organization’s recovery was recapturing the popular consensus. The mafia has always relied on the obedience (goodwill might be putting it too strongly) of the community. In the business of selling protection, social control is essential: if your “clients” unite and rebel, you’re in trouble.
Don't let your politics get in the way:
Businessmen from all walks of life and political persuasion usually find themselves co-opted on to a government advisory board eventually. The rags-to-riches man made good is not your traditional Labour supporter, but Alan Sugar has reportedly been advising British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on enterprise. “This government’s not Labour, it’s old-fashioned Tory,” he says. “I prefer Gordon to Tony. Blair was refreshing but Brown is more like me. He has a strong work ethic.”
Provenzano took this further, changing his political allegiance whenever it suited him. He looked for politicians who were prepared to pursue his self-serving demands for lighter sentences against convicted Mafiosi, as well as the end of protection for collaborators. “Links were to be forged behind the scenes with politicians who had no trace of connection to scandal or sleaze,” recalled Giuffre. “If a politician was seen to be supported by men of honor of a certain rank, within 24 hours he’d be destroyed by the opposition.”
Modesty:
During his career, Provenzano transformed himself from a hired thug, to business investor, political mastermind and, ultimately, strategist and leader. Part of his mystique was that no one really knew whether he was a genius or an illiterate chancer. To emphasize his humble character and present himself as a simple man of the people he would write letters full of spelling and grammatical mistakes, and always signed off with the same humble apology: “I beg your forgiveness for the errors in my writing ... . ”
Every letter ends with the same saintly and affectionate benediction and an apology for grammatical errors. The bad spelling and schoolboy mistakes detracted nothing from the authority of its writer. For a man who moved easily in the worlds of business and politics, it was apparently part of a carefully constructed image. Investigators maintain his semi-literacy was a deliberate ruse.
It’s a strategy that political and business leaders have used to good effect. “George Bush’s family is as upper-class as you’re going to get in the US,” says Wallis. “He is not a real Texan. To what extent he talks like that out of incompetence, to what extent it is crowd-pleasing, we don’t know — but we know it works.”
Similarly, Justin King, multimillionaire savior of Sainsbury’s super-markets in the UK, says: “I’m not a book reader ... I’m just a normal bloke.” Sugar has never disavowed his roots. He doesn’t give himself airs, but the point is still made: he grew up with no privileges, but he is the one with the power.
Provenzano took false modesty a step further, suggesting (almost entirely untruthfully) that he would rather have someone else in charge. “They want me to tell them what to do,” he wrote, “but who am I to tell them how to conduct themselves? I can’t give orders to anyone, indeed I look for someone who can give orders to me.”
Unfortunately for him, since his arrest in 2006, his wishes have been fulfilled.
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