I agree with the above, but not so sure about the reason. I think the Outfit is crumbling due to, one, the feds have crushed it, two, there are really no concentrated areas of utterly impoverished Italians anymore, and Italian immigration started petering out around 1920. So what we see now are basically the sons of the last wave of first generation Italian immigrants.
The sons of Outfit members have gone on to do very well for themselves in many cases in legitimate professions. Meaning, in many cases, the fathers were just doing what they thought they had to do to support their families, and didn't let their kids get anywhere near it. And the more succesful members have been disinvesting themselves from illegal activities for a long time, transfering those assets into legal ventures.
In that sense, I would consider the Outfit extraordinarily succesful and sophisticated.
Part of the equation is being able to recognize when it's over.
Originally Posted By: jonnynonos
Originally Posted By: 123JoeSchmo
True Nicky, but with the Outfits smaller size and shrinking influence how many of those kids want to be in the mob? The Five Families will exist for many more years in the future because they have a large pool to recruit from, plus family connections, and some young kid is going to be enticed by the lifestyle. But with DiFronzo doing virtually nothing other than counting his money, you won't see the same level of persistence you see in the tri state area.
IMO the Outfit is for all intents and purposes closing down for business.
Very well put guys. Jonny your comments above would make a good closing paragraph for an Outfit history book.
Sometimes you'll hear people say "but there are still lots of Italians in (insert city with dying mob family here)" and that says it all. In Chicago, there are still hundreds of thousands of Italian-Americans, but not too many of them seem to want to become gangsters. The lack of mafiosi in spite of the continued presence of lots of Italians shows that it's not the preferred line of work for the assimilated.
I do think this was really moved along by GAMBAT and Strawman I and II ("Strawmen"?). Probably sped up the death of the Outfit by 20-30 years or so.
Now I'm not quite sure how important Family Secret was; I've heard comments ranging from "the feds were picking on a bunch of dinosaurs and wasting taxpayer money", through "Marcello really was the guy who was going to put it back together and taking him out was crucial for the feds". I don't know much about this so I yield the floor on this matter.
