Originally Posted By: mustachepete
Originally Posted By: Lilo


Vito has to muck around in numbers, bookmaking, extortion and other slimy activities. He's outside of the upperworld. But the money and power he builds up doing this is transferred to Michael who uses it to "purchase" legal casinos and hotels.

Michael straddles the upperworld and underworld but builds even more wealth than his father did. Then the next generation that comes after Michael is completely removed from any sort of criminal activity but has enough resources to own international banks, huge shipping interests, sports franchises, and so on.


A bit of a parallel:

"I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain."

--John Adams


Exactly!

"When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives."
Winter is Coming

Now this is the Law of the Jungle—as old and as true as the sky; And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk, the Law runneth forward and back; For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.