This one has my attention a little bit, Ima try to go a little more in depth to explain my thinking....


I read Machiavelli, I used to read it a LOT. ITS ALL ABOUT POWER.
Now, in this book, he talks about the different kinds of " principalities". Basically you have one where the Prince is the ABSOLUTE RULER, Like a tyrant.
This would be like the Profaci family, what Maranzano was TRYING to do, maybe the Chicago family under Capone, Toto Riina in Sicily, mafia Tyrants right?

Then you have the other, where the Prince is a figurehead, and he rules over powerful nobles who have their own armies, and or resources at their disposal,and pledge fealty to the prince, usually out of self interest. This is like the 50-60s genovese, the Bonnanos when Sonny Red was rebelling, consider him a powerful " noble" with his own army and resources. Basically families with lots of powerful capos, who have their own followings, and operate off the power of their own strength and abilities.

Now, as long as Carlo Gambino was ALIVE, Bruno was an absolute ruler. As SOON as Carlo died, he bacame a figurehead prince trying to reconcile the various factions that popped up. The factions, lead by " nobles" , ( guys like Scarfo, Caponigro, Narducci, Testa, Riccobene...)pledged fealty to whomever it was in their best interest, if they calculated it wasn't Bruno, they plotted to betray him. Riccobene is a good example of a " Noble" in this quasi feudal setup.

Remember in Leonettis book, when the family was in turmoil, he said Bruno came to see them. And basically tried to BUYthier loyalty. Contrast this to Scarfos crew, he could tell them to go shoot a biker in the stomach, and he had guys that would do it without hesitation, with total loyalty to HIM. Now one of the chief tenants of The Prince is a man with his own loyal army is ALWAYS POWERFUL, ALWAYS DANGEROUS. He also says basically if you have to pay your troops, if their loyalty is based of that ( remember Michaels convo with Tom Hagen ) they aren't ever going to be reliable. That's why I put Scarfo up there in the power department, NOT MONEY. It's also why Gotti was becoming so paranoid of Gravano, Sammy was building his own " army" within the family ( remember Gotti read Machavelli as well..), at the same time Gottis personal army was under siege, ( the Bergin indictments, Chin and Gas gunning for him), and he couldn't depend on the loyalty of the other " nobles" in the family to show absolute loyalty to him at that point.

Take the Genovese in the 60s; they were a bunch of rich "nobles" , with their own interest in various rackets.A lot of them were pretty autonomous. Chin changed all that, he became the Absolute ruler of that family, irregardless of ANY CAPOS RELATIVE POWER OR WEALTH. He let them have the money, but you better believe they better follow orders, or none of that money was going to save them. It's no coincidence he was close to and backed Scarfo, he had the SAME philosophy as far as power being more important than money, at least before he became boss.


I'll post a little, I need a typing break lol, any thoughts fellas?

Great examples with Catalano and Richie the Boot, Zannino too. Sonny Black as well...

@ Sonny &BillyBrizzi


I would agree with you guys in that money, resources are absolutely necessary for a guy to rule effectively. But Machiavelli has complex definitions for "Power" , "Fear", "Cruelty", it's not exactly black and white.


Here is an example, we will stay with Paul vs Chin;

Money is power right? Paul had a ton of money right? Yet 40-50 thousand dollars that he took off Gravano, might have got him killed. Think about it. That business deal he made to kill the Conneticiut guy, probably got him killed. This is because he put Money before Power, Money before Respect. Narducci was rich right? Like a multimillionaire, but what he wanted that he didn't have was POWER. Did Narducci take over? His money wasn't enough, put it a better way, he didn't have ENOUGH MONEY TO BUY OFF ALL THE GANGSTERS THAT WOULD HAVE LET HIM GET AWAY WITH KILLING HIS BOSS.



Again contrast with the Chin, let guys keep a lions share, and this gained him tremendous respect, which translates into power.





You gotta understand, WHY A GUY IS A GANGSTER, what makes a gangster loyal to another gangster. There is a great quote from BoardWalk Empire, where a prosecutor accused Nucky of ordering a murder. He, incredulously ask, " How the fuck do you order someone to commit murder?" It's a great question, actually....





You remember the scene from Carlitos Way, When Carlito talked about how his guy was worried he would die before he made him rich? And how the guy was willing to literally take a bullet for him, AS LONG AS HE THOUGHT IT WOULD GET HIM PAID DOWN THE LINE.... See his loyalty was based off that, Carlito was his meal ticket. You guys read Franzeses book? Remember the part where some guy was about to rat out his crew, and like six, seven guys volunteered to kill the guy immediately. Franzese said he could see that they were totally dependent on him for the lifestyle he was providing, and FEARED LOSING IT TO THE POINT THAT THEY WOULD KILL FOR HIM WITHOUT HESITATION.





So HE isn't exactly feared for violence, but the guys under him fear losing the windfall he provided.






In Machiavellis book there is the fear of death, but he also describes the fear of losing a potential windfall or source of revenue. Now awhile back, there was a thread where guys asked, " Where was Galantes feared army?" But I countered that the families feared losing his lucrative heroin connects. And sure he was a feared guy, yeah but as SinatraClub pointed out, once they found another heroin source, once the " fear" of losing that source disappeared that was it.Once the collective decision making body of the mob made up its mind, he was remarkably easy to kill. See they " feared" losing that potential source of revenue. This was a subtle nuance Chin understood. He wasn't just feared for being a real killer, a capo at that time would legitimately fear Chin being off the streets, because it would hurt him FINANCIALLY. Chin being in power was probably a key component of prosperity for a lot of guys. Now imagine how HARD it would be to get a majority of Genovese capos to go along with killing Chin. Him saying fuck the money made him effectively " Conspiracy proof" from inside his family. If your guys see you getting fat, and fatter, and fatter, and don't see their own prospects improving, they get VEEEERY JEALOUS. Profaci, Castellano, Genovese felt Costello held his crew back in favor of his own business deals, ect...





What did they say about Luchesse? He took VERY GOOD CARE OF HIS GUYS, and was a very popular boss as a result. Even cheap guys like Gambino and Genovese, had their own revenue sources' so they didn't have to constantly take from guys under them.






Another example; The Palermo Gambino click, the Inzerillos and all of them, these guys were so rich it was ridiculous. I mean the Gambino, Inzerillo, Bontade, Spatola, DiMaggio, Grado, these clans were VERY WEALTHY. But they weren't getting the rest of the mafia rich. Now the poor, Corleonesi mafia would do a kidnapping, get the ransom, and distribute the money amongst the struggling clans. This made clans indebted to them, brought them respect, and allies, and power. They eventually gained so many allies using methods like this that they gained control over a majority of the men that made the decisions for Cosa Nostra as a whole. Once they had control over the POWER APPARATUS of the mafia, once they controlled the mechanism that made and broke the rules, once they had the POWER, all the money in the world didn't save this clan from getting slaughtered, and this is all because they spent all their time worrying about their money and not the POWER THAT MADE THE MONEY IN THE FIRST PLACE.

It's Michael Corleone in the second movie, he had to stop focusing on the business and focus on the " BUSINESS"' in order to get back to doing business, if that makes any sense... It's the idea that money is a byproduct of power....