> If they weren't, they'd quickly got kicked out from the market by someone who was.
It's pretty naive to imagine that black market cartels are competing in anything like an idealized free market. In the lawless environments being talked about, a worse businessman can always beat a better competitor simply by being better at violence.
Gang warfare and mass killings are rife down their. This isn't some naive libertarian fantasy market where La Familia is just another scrappy silicon valley startup.
The abstract structure of a market seems to be the same, just the rules are different. Companies operating legally fight in courts, drug cartels fight on the streets with guns. In both cases, it's part of the rules the environment sets. So the competitor better at violence is a better competitor, by the rules of the market they operate in.
It's pretty naive to imagine that black market cartels are competing in anything like an idealized free market. In the lawless environments being talked about, a worse businessman can always beat a better competitor simply by being better at violence.
Gang warfare and mass killings are rife down their. This isn't some naive libertarian fantasy market where La Familia is just another scrappy silicon valley startup.