Violence and Economy Building

Violence and Economy Building discusses Vadim Volkov's Violent Entrepreneurs, a book on the Russian maffiya:

Vadim Volkov's 'Violent Entrepreneurs' has an interesting discussion of protection rackets in the Russian economy. An interesting point is that Russian business and oranized crime have become symbiotic. Once a gang provides 'protection' to a business, the gang considers the business their 'turf' and becomes dependent on the income from the business. Eventually, gangsters come to guarantee transactions of the businesses they protect, a sort of underwriter that facilitates business. Volkov points out that a later wave of ex-army 'protectors' came to provide a more legitimate, institutionalized form of protection against these earlier gangsters, which in turn opens the door for the reclaiming of the Russian state's monopoly over violence. Robert Cottrell has a nice discussion in his New York Review of Books essay.

It sounds like a discussion of the evolution of government in general.

I enjoyed this bit from the Amazon blurb:

Volkov investigates the making of violence-prone groups in sports clubs (particularly martial arts clubs), associations for veterans of the Soviet-Afghan war, ethnic gangs, and regionally based social groups, and he traces the changes in their activities across the decade.

Martial artists? Engaged in protection rackets? Inconceivable! Incidentally, Vladimir Putin is a dedicated judo "player"; he even wrote a book on judo.