Mafia politics in italy - Essay Example

MAFIA POLITICS The mafia in Italy is a powerful and deadly force. They have control of numerous markets and have caused widespread terror. They arethe epitome of organized crime and have tentacles in other countries, especially the United States, where poor immigrants lacking money used the freedom of markets to establish wealth and power for themselves in immigrant communities.1 These families also wield significant political power. In this essay, I will argue that the mafia most be destroyed in order for democracy and freedom to flourish.

Statistics show that every year corruption costs Italians more than 50 billion euros.2 This is an unacceptable cost. One of the ways that the mafia infiltrates the economy is through corruption. They manage to control entire markets and take a cut of every part of the operation. They buy off police officers, prosecutors, and judges, and continue to leach from the economy. As one boss once described Mafia operations in Sicily: “Mafia organizations entirely control the building sector in Palermo – the quarries where aggregates are mined, site clearance firms, cement plants, metal depots for the construction industry, wholesalers for sanitary fixtures, and so on.

”3 Often, in order to generate the maximum amount of revenues, the mafia will use “fronts organizations”—legitimate business ventures that are developed in order to hide illegal activities.4 It is not hard to see, based on this information, why the mafia must be rooted out and destroyed. They undermine the rule of law. We need politicians who are strong enough to stand up to these people who are willing to do anything and buy anyone in order to stay in power. They must be stopped. In some countries, the problem of the mafia is taken very seriously.

In the United States, the Kefauver Committee in the 1950s travelled around the country and sought to inform citizens about the numerous problems caused by the mafia and by mafia politics.5 Actions in the U.S. have been very successful in shutting down large swaths of the mafia empire. In Italy, in the 1990s, some efforts were taken during the Clean Hands Operation. Nevertheless, crime and corruption continues, and judges are routinely criticized by the Italian prime minister.6 The mafia is able to influence politics.

The mafioso Antonino Calderone once said: “Politicians have always sought us out because we can provide votes . . . between friends and family, each man of honor can muster up forty to fifty other people. There are between 1,500 and 2,000 men of honor in Palermo province. Multiply that by fifty and you get a nice package of 75,000 to 100,000 votes to go to friendly parties and candidates.”7 This is a truly serious problem that goes very deep. It is clear that no respectable country should permit organized crime to have this kind of power over their lives.

The mafia is a cancer which must be removed. Democracy is a fragile thing. It can come and it can go. It needs the rule of law to support it. In Italy, that rule is undermined by the mafia and the kind of politics which they practice. More must be done to remove the mafia from the national life of Italy. Before it is too late. Work consulted Arlacchi, Pino. Mafia Business. The Mafia Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. USA (Oxford University Press: 1988). Arlacchi, Pino. Men of Dishonor: Inside the Sicilian Mafia.

USA (Morrow: 1993). Doherty, Thomas. Cold War, Cool Medium: Television, McCarthyism, and American Culture. USA (Columbia University Press: 2005). Servadio, Gaia. Mafioso. A history of the Mafia from its origins to the present day. UK (Secker & Warburg: 1976). Paoli, Letizia. Mafia Brotherhoods: Organized Crime, Italian Style. USA (Oxford University Press: 2003) “Crime: Corruption Costs Italy Billions.” Wanted in Europe. July 1, 2009. (http://rome.wantedineurope.com/news/news.php?id_n=5999) Accessed on May 17, 2011.

“Fury as Berlusconi judge filmed.” BBC News. October, 19, 2009. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8314110.stm) Accessed on May 17, 2011.