| Abstract: | To understand why racketeering flourishes in the United States in a way that it does not elsewhere we need to understand how it differs from other kinds of professional crime. A model of the developed racket is presented which shows how it depends on relations that have been built up over time with customer-victims and with agencies of law enforcement and how it has an inherently expansive tendency. Three episodes in the history of racketeering in the United States are then discussed to show how (1) the ‘machine’ system in city politics contributed to the corruption of law-enforcement, (2) Prohibition contributed to monopoly control over markets, and (3) labour racketeering contributed to ruling-class acquiescence to organized crime. |
