Even guys, like Meyer Lansky, ran rackets with the threat of death for non compliance. Remove the violence and the threat of violence....and these mobsters would be ineffective in both the underworld and the real world.

Otherwise, some of these high school drop outs might have been excelled with high level jobs in real world companies. Take away the illegal advantages the would depend upon, and they would have run the companies into the ground due to incompetence- or because of a planned bust out.