Thanks Daniel Corleone.

What about the mafia's role in protecting the weak from the pezzo novante? Giving them protection in return for some payment.

Isn't this described somewhere as the tribute system with the Cosa Nostra getting a piece of everything that their communities made - in return for protecting them from other people trying to rip them off?

Isn't this what Henry Hill talks about in Goodfellas; That what the FBI could never understand was that it was just the tribute system being extended to America with Paulie
using the union rackets to stop other guys ripping Italians off.

Isn't this why this type of racketeering and protection worked for so long until the Cosa Nostra lost sight of the protecting bit and the cops became less anti -Italian?

I have read a little about this, but would like to know more.