Thursday, January 17, 2013

State Formations as Organized Crime


Charles Tilly’s review “State Formation as Organized Crime” relates to Weber’s theory of rationalization in the sense that they both have a concern for ethics and the way organizations operate. Weber suggests that to have a constant exercise of power it requires an organization with an administrative staff that carries out the needs and demands to maintain itself to carry out its objectives like winning wars, making states, protecting the state, and profiting from the state. Tilly’s view on organized crime suggests that government and illegal organizations act similarly, but states do it on a much larger scale that is permissible. There is internal control and external control in government as there is in illegal organizations like the mafia or drug rings. The internal control concentrates on monopolizing with a central authority, and the external control comes from war and competition which exist both in politics and organized crime for lust of power and money. You have kings and underneath them lords that run the state, which is identical to organized crime business models. They both deal with immoral acts of violence and perform unethically which suits their interests. Essentially, government is a legal form of organized crime. However, both organized crime and government are carried out with increased effectiveness over time in their ability to make decisions that are beneficial to them.

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