The Big 4 – Government Sanctioned Organized Crime?

How are the Big 4 like the Mafia?

Discuss…

The basic characteristics of organized crime can be summarized as follows:

1. Profit accumulation. (Duh!)
2. Longevity. (The firms go back a long way, merging and growing bigger and more oligopolistic every day…)
3. An organizational structure which facilitates criminal activity. (Partnerships are like fraternities, in more ways than one, and we know how secretive they are…)
4. Efforts to corrupt government officials, police, and corporate officials.
5. The use of violence. (The only thing left that they haven’t resorted to, that we know of…)

“Increasingly, organized crime is viewed as “entrepreneurial crime” because of its attraction to any commodity which can be profitably exploited. Entrepreneurial crime groups begin as loose amalgamations (or loose confederations of separate legal entities with a global reach) with common criminal interests. Just as small businesses grow and become more structured as profits are generated, criminal alliances may at times develop into very sophisticated organizations. “