> medicine to patients but cocaine to users ... no noble mission
I wouldn't say it's ignoble, though you're right, their case would be far stronger if they were supplying a more varied product.
Your explanation of violence doesn't explain why other groups get by with less violence, and otherwise appear to be respectable members of society. Look at a Chicago Outfit's massacre[1] and the Zeta's[2].
I know, I'm abusing the word massacre, but in one case, notoriety is because of the killing of a few rival criminals. In the Zetas case, they just rape, torture, and murder hundreds of innocent civilians.
That seems very shortsighted and not beneficial to business. Unless it's a tactic to raise the barrier to entry by making the whole area just terrible to work in, overall.
> In the Zetas case, they just rape, torture, and murder hundreds of innocent civilians.
> That seems very shortsighted and not beneficial to business.
An organized crime group that engages in this kind of behavior may, within a reasonable approximation, be rationally focused on maximizing their own experienced utility [0], but even if they are, their utility function may not weight financial returns as highly as, say, yours does.
[0] I should emphasize that I am not at all taking the position that this is the case.
As violent as the Chicago Outfit were, they still had to be careful much of the time. The Zetas are far more brazen because they're allowed to be. They live in a lawless backcountry, not the heart of one of North America's biggest cities.
A better comparison for the Zetas would be groups like Boko Haram and ISIS.
I wouldn't say it's ignoble, though you're right, their case would be far stronger if they were supplying a more varied product.
Your explanation of violence doesn't explain why other groups get by with less violence, and otherwise appear to be respectable members of society. Look at a Chicago Outfit's massacre[1] and the Zeta's[2].
I know, I'm abusing the word massacre, but in one case, notoriety is because of the killing of a few rival criminals. In the Zetas case, they just rape, torture, and murder hundreds of innocent civilians.
That seems very shortsighted and not beneficial to business. Unless it's a tactic to raise the barrier to entry by making the whole area just terrible to work in, overall.
1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Valentine%27s_Day_Massacr... 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_San_Fernando_massacre