Anti-mafia enterprise: Italian strategies to counter violent economies

This chapter contributes to building a diverse, non-capitalocentric economic vocabulary by making visible concrete entrepreneurial practices that are involved in fighting criminal economies. Although they do not fit into the dominant representation of the ‘Economy’, that is, as including all those ‘productive’ activities that result in waged labour for a capitalist firm, both mafia and anti-mafia enterprises represent one of the many ways people organize to survive. After introducing some of the fundamental characteristics of mafia enterprise, the author discusses three prime strategies that are being effectively deployed to counter mafia enterprises in the Italian context. The themes addressed are property, labour and communication. The contribution maps out the core elements of these economies that may be of use to different contexts around the world in countering organized crime.