This is from a review of what sounds like a fascinating book:
"An unexpected result of my research on the mafia," (the author) writes, "was to find out that mafiosi are quite incompetent at doing anything" other than shaking down legitimate businesses and enforcing trade agreements among smaller-scale hoodlums. "Mafiosi are good at intimidation and stick to it.... They let the professionals and the entrepreneurs take care of the actual business operations."
Rather than getting involved in running a restaurant or dealing drugs, they joke about their cluelessness in such matters and simply collect payment for "protection." But this professed incompetence (evidently quite well-demonstrated on the rare occasions that a mafioso tries to go legit) makes them strangely trustworthy to those using their services: "If mobsters showed any competence at it, their clients would fear that they might just take over."
The book's author (Diego Gambetta) goes on to argue that something similar happens in the Italian academy: the most powerful figures in this system tend to be the least intellectually distinguished.
But why stop there...?
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