[QUOTE]Originally posted by olivant:
Turnbull, I think you're competely off on this. The Mafia was in its heyday in the 40s and 50s. What is this small pond you refer to?
Ca. 1945-46, the Mafia's activities had been constricted for years because WWII had taken most of the able-bodied men who could serve in the Mafia (and serve as their suckers for loan-sharking, etc.) into the Armed Forces. There was very little non-military construction, and even less highway-building. Freight hijacking was off because most freight was military and guarded by the Armed Forces. And the economy was tightly regulated by the government and restricted by a paucity of overseas trade. The only new racket the Mob had during the war years was counterfeit or stolen rationing stamps. One of the reasons that Vito Genovese called the famous and ill-starred 1957 Apalachin meeting was to bless the traffic in drugs--desperately needed by the Mob as a new source of revenue. They did ok during the Forties and Fifties, especially because RICO didn't exist, and the FBI paid them no heed. But the "pond" was relatively small compared to the ocean they swam in later with construction rackets, dope, stock market swindles, airport hijacking, etc.
In addition, I didn't infer that Michael wanted to be organized crime's emperor. He conducted his affairs in shark infested waters and took appropriate actions to protect those affairs. When business opportunities opened up, he attempted to take advantage of them. Pensate!
In the novel, which doesn't get to his "emperor" stage, he killed only Tattaglia and Barzini, which could be called "appropriate" to protecting his affairs since they were the up-front enemies. But in GF, he whacks all the Dons. Was that an appropriate or proportional response to the threat? In II, he's becoming dominant in Nevada, maneuvers to take over Roth's Cuban empire, and still dominates New York through Pentangeli. And in III, when he's supposedly "legitimate," he's the guarantor of the Vatican Bank and about to be the dominant peson in International Immobiliare. That suggests emperor.