Nella nostra testa c’è l’idea dello spacciatore benestante. Mentre i nostri figli muoiono in strada, lui conta l’incasso comodamente stravaccato sul divano mentre tira un po’ di coca. Una vita a rischio ma dai soldi facili…
... The media eagerly glommed on to this story, portraying crack dealing as one of the most profitable jobs in America...
Sorge spontanea una domanda: perché allora abita nelle case popolari con la mamma?...
... not only did most of the crack dealers still live in the projects, but most of them still lived at home with their moms...
Se lo sono chiesti Steven Levitt e Stephen Dubner nel saggio " Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live with Their Moms? Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything".
La cosa migliore per capire è trascorrere una giornata da criminale. Anzi, con i criminali. Magari più di una giornata, magari un mese. Un anno.
***
Sudhir Venkatesh è nato in India e cresciuto nella suburbia newyorkese, poi si è trasferito in California dove si è laureato in matematica alla University of California di San Diego. Progettava di specializzarsi in sociologia presso l' Università di Chicago, era interessato a come i ragazzi del ghetto formano la loro identità. A questo scopo ricevette un questionario da somministrare ai protagonisti...
... His assignment: to visit Chicago’s poorest black neighborhoods with a clipboard and a seventy-question, multiple-choice survey. This was the first question on the survey: How do you feel about being black and poor? a. Very bad b. Bad c. Neither bad nor good d. Somewhat good e. Very good...
Andò in un edificio abbandonato dove poche famiglie vivevano al pian terreno piratando acqua ed elettricità. I piani superiori erano una pericolosa “terra di nessuno”. L'ascensore non funzionava nemmeno. Lì incontrò un gruppo di ragazzotti poco raccomandabili che giocava a dadi. Erano una gang di piccoli spacciatori, una filiale della Gangster Disciple Nation. Non erano contenti di vedere un estranea, a quel tempo era in corso una guerra tra bande. Che fare dell'intruso? Lasciarlo andare dopo averlo spaventato o... A quel punto, per fortuna, comparì un “anziano” a raffreddare i bollori. Prese il questionario a scelta multipla e lo trovò incompleto...
... he realized that the multiple-choice answers A through E were insufficient. In reality, he now knew, the answers should have looked like this: a. Very bad b. Bad c. Neither bad nor good d. Somewhat good e. Very good f. Fuck you...
Mancava l'opzione "vaffanculo", l'unica che era disposto a barrare.
Poi, per ultimo, apparve il capo, JT. Disse che non poteva rispondere alle domande perché erano rivolte a ragazzi neri afroamericani. Lui non era né nero né afroamericano. Era un negro.
Venkatesh realizzava progressivamente quanto fosse stupida la sua missione...
... Venkatesh would occasionally try to discuss his survey, but the young crack dealers just laughed and told him how stupid his questions were...
Era molto più istruttivo passare del tempo con questa fauna...
... It struck Venkatesh that most people, including himself, had never given much thought to the daily life of ghetto criminals. He was now eager to learn how the Black Disciples worked, from top to bottom...
Capì subito che JT era un tipo "quadrato", scoprì poi che era anche laureato...
... As it happened, J. T. was a college graduate himself, a business major. After college, he had taken a job in the Loop, working in the marketing department of a company that sold office equipment. But he felt so out of place there—like a white man working at Afro Sheen headquarters, he liked to say—that he quit. Still, he never forgot what he learned. He knew the importance of collecting data and finding new markets; he was always on the lookout for better management strategies. It was no coincidence, in other words, that J. T. was the leader of this crack gang. He was bred to be a boss...
Chi ritiene che la laurea non serva a nulla, sappia che invece nel crimine serve eccome. Con una laurea in tasca le possibilità di carriera lievitano.
Dopo qualche giorno Venkatesh si ritrovò "embedded" a tutti gli effetti nella banda, e rimase tale per un anno...
... For the next six years, Venkatesh practically lived there. Under J. T.’s protection he watched the gang members up close, at work and at home...
Capì la durezza di quella vita: tutti i giorni una guerra. La gente lottava per sopravvivere.
Un bel giorno un membro della banda consegnò a V un libro che si rivelò molto prezioso per le sue ricerche. Era il libro mastro della gang...
... He handed Venkatesh a stack of well-worn spiral notebooks—blue and black, the gang’s colors. They represented a complete record of four years’ worth of the gang’s financial transactions. At J. T.’s direction, the ledgers had been rigorously compiled: sales, wages, dues, even the death benefits paid out to the families of murdered members...
JT teneva una meticolosa contabilità (del resto era laureato in finanza).
Come operava la gang sul territorio? Qual era il suo business-plan? A dire il vero, somigliava molto a quello di McDonald's, le differenze era minime...
... So how did the gang work? An awful lot like most American businesses, actually, though perhaps none more so than McDonald’s. In fact, if you were to hold a McDonald’s organizational chart and a Black Disciples org chart side by side, you could hardly tell the difference...
L’organizzazione era chiaramente piramidale: vertici alti e base larga. Ecco la scala degli stipendi…
… J. T. paid the board of directors nearly 20 percent of his revenues for the right to sell crack in a designated twelve-square-block area. The rest of the money was his to distribute as he saw fit. Three officers reported directly to J. T.: an enforcer (who ensured the gang members’ safety), a treasurer (who watched over the gang’s liquid assets), and a runner (who transported large quantities of drugs and money to and from the supplier). Beneath the officers were the street-level salesmen known as foot soldiers…
Lo spacciatore di strada ha un solo obbiettivo: diventare mini-boss. Questo perché la sua è una vita di merda: alti rischi e basso stipendio (ma sopra di lui intravede il paradiso)…
… At the very bottom of J. T.’s organization were as many as two hundred members known as the rank and file. They were not employees at all. They did, however, pay dues to the gang—some for protection from rival gangs, others for the chance to eventually earn a job as a foot soldier…
JT, per esempio, guadagna bene, specie dopo il boom del crack…
… In the first year, it took in an average of $18,500 each month; by the final year, it was collecting $68,400 a month…
Le bande, oltre ai soldati-spacciatori, si avvalgono dell’opera di “autonomi” precari…
… The gang did allow some rank-and-file members to sell heroin on its turf but accepted a fixed licensing fee in lieu of a share of profits…
Il finanziamento delle operazioni è affidato perlopiù alla vendita del crack, ma c’è anche un gettito fiscale…
… The extortionary taxes were paid by other businesses that operated on the gang’s turf, including grocery stores, gypsy cabs, pimps, and people selling stolen goods or repairing cars on the street…
E nelle uscite si contabilizza anche la paga di mercenari…
… Mercenary fighters were nonmembers hired on short-term contracts to help the gang fight turf wars…
Poi il varie ed eventuali: parcella avvocato, bustarella corruzione, feste, birra...
Infine, c’è la spesa sociale: funerali, pensioni, sussidi di povertà… Una specie di welfare per il ghetto…
… The gang not only paid for the funeral but often gave a stipend of up to three years’ wages to the victim’s family…
Domanda a un membro della banda: ma perché siete tanto generosi con il quartiere?…
… “That’s a fucking stupid question,” he was told, “’cause as long as you been with us, you still don’t understand that their families is our families. We can’t just leave ’em out. We been knowing these folks our whole lives, man… You got to respect the family.”…
Ma c’è un’altra ragione: una vicinanza ostile rappresenta una minaccia.
Sia come sia, mi pare chiara la parentela tra stato e banda criminale. Nel bene come nel male.
***
Facciamo ora i conti in tasca a JT…
… Here is the single line item in the gang’s budget that made J. T. the happiest: Net monthly profit accruing to leader $8,500 At $8,500 per month, J. T.’s annual salary was about $100,000—tax-free, of course, and not including the various off-the-books money he pocketed…
8500 al mese, non male.
E JT è uno dei 100 piccoli boss dei “Black Disciples”.
Un top-boss (ne esistono una ventina) incamera 500.000 all’anno, anche se 1/3 di loro è in prigione.
Una piramide a base larga, dicevamo. In fondo si guadagnano 3 euro l’ora (la metà di una baby sitter). Uno stipendio da fame che ci fa capire perché lo spacciatore vive nelle case popolari con la mammina…
… J. T.’s hourly wage was $66. His three officers, meanwhile, each took home $700 a month, which works out to about $7 an hour. And the foot soldiers earned just $3.30 an hour, less than the minimum wage. So the answer to the original question—if drug dealers make so much money, why are they still living with their mothers?—is that, except for the top cats, they don’t make much money…
Per ogni criminale milionario ce ne sono centinaia che vivacchiano senza il becco di un quattrino.
La gang è come una multinazionale: manager strapagati e tanto, tanto precariato sottopagato…
… In other words, a crack gang works pretty much like the standard capitalist enterprise: you have to be near the top of the pyramid to make a big wage… Notwithstanding the leadership’s rhetoric about the family nature of the business, the gang’s wages are about as skewed as wages in corporate America. A foot soldier had plenty in common with a McDonald’s burger flipper or a Wal-Mart shelf stocker…
Molti spacciatori fanno un doppio lavoro per sopravvivere, il secondo spesso è legale, magari proprio da McDonald’s.
Ma perché questi peones non vengono pagati un po’ di più viste le risorse della gang? Risposta di un leader…
… “You got all these niggers below you who want your job, you dig?” he said. “So, you know, you try to take care of them, but you know, you also have to show them you the boss. You always have to get yours first, or else you really ain’t no leader. If you start taking losses, they see you as weak and shit.”…
La paga serve ad incentivare, per un peones l’ incentivo è costituito dalla paga dei capi (ovvero di cio’ che mirano a diventare), non c’è bisogno di alzare la loro. La ricchezza si concentra in alto.
Oltretutto, i soldati della gang lavorano in condizioni terribili…
… For starters, they had to stand on a street corner all day and do business with crackheads. (The gang members were strongly advised against using the product themselves, advice that was enforced by beatings if necessary.) Foot soldiers also risked arrest and, more worrisome, violence…
Se pagassero l’ INAIL il loro premio sarebbe astronomico…
… A 1-in-4 chance of being killed! Compare these odds with those for a timber cutter, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics calls the most dangerous job in the United States. Over four years’ time, a timber cutter would stand only a 1-in-200 chance of being killed…
La loro speranza di vita è più bassa di chi risiede nel “braccio della morte” del Texas…
… compare the crack dealer’s odds to those of a death-row inmate in Texas, which executes more prisoners than any other state. In 2003, Texas put to death twenty-four inmates—or just 5 percent of the nearly 500 inmates on its death row during that time. Which means that you stand a greater chance of dying while dealing crack in a Chicago housing project than you do while sitting on death row in Texas…
Domanda legittima: se la paga è da fame e il lavoro di merda, perché farlo? Semplice…
… for the same reason that a pretty Wisconsin farm girl moves to Hollywood… They all want to succeed in an extremely competitive field in which, if you reach the top, you are paid a fortune…
Si tenta la fortuna.
Si tratta di un lavoro glamour: sempre a contatto con l’oro… e dopo tanta merda, l’oro potrà cadere copioso su di te. Uno su mille ce la fa, ma quell’uno vive da dio…
… To the kids growing up in a housing project on Chicago’s south side, crack dealing seemed like a glamour profession…
Teniamo anche conto da dove vengono questi ragazzi e le alternative che hanno…
… Fifty-six percent of the neighborhood’s children lived below the poverty line (compared to a national average of 18 percent). Seventy-eight percent came from single-parent homes. Fewer than 5 percent of the neighborhood’s adults had a college degree; barely one in three adult men worked at all. The neighborhood’s median income was about $15,000 a year…
Naturalmente, le professioni glamour hanno il già citato inconveniente…
… The problem with crack dealing is the same as in every other glamour profession: a lot of people are competing for a very few prizes…
Lo si capisce meglio se si tengono nel dovuto conto le 4 leggi del lavoro…
… These budding drug lords bumped up against an immutable law of labor: when there are a lot of people willing and able to do a job, that job generally doesn’t pay well. This is one of four meaningful factors that determine a wage. The others are the specialized skills a job requires, the unpleasantness of a job, and the demand for services that the job fulfills. The delicate balance between these factors helps explain why, for instance, the typical prostitute earns more than the typical architect…
Una prostituta, anche alle prime armi, guadagna bene: la sua professione è l’ anti-glamour per eccellenza: nessuna sogna di diventarlo…
… little girls don’t grow up dreaming of becoming prostitutes, so the supply of potential prostitutes is relatively small. Their skills, while not necessarily “specialized,” are practiced in a very specialized context. The job is unpleasant and forbidding in at least two significant ways: the likelihood of violence and the lost opportunity of having a stable family life. As for demand? Let’s just say that an architect is more likely to hire a prostitute than vice versa…
Nei lavori glamour, al contrario, vige la legge del “torneo”…
… In the glamour professions—movies, sports, music, fashion—there is a different dynamic at play. Even in second-tier glamour industries like publishing, advertising, and media, swarms of bright young people throw themselves at grunt jobs that pay poorly and demand unstinting devotion. An editorial assistant earning $22,000 at a Manhattan publishing house, an unpaid high-school quarterback, and a teenage crack dealer earning $3.30 an hour are all playing the same game, a game that is best viewed as a tournament. The rules of a tournament are straightforward. You must start at the bottom to have a shot at the top…
Devi lavorare duro e a lungo, in più a stipendi da fame; questo se vuoi spuntarla. E se non ce la fai, la cosa più semplice è mollare tutto.
Tra i “soldati” di JT il turn over è continuo: la gente molla dopo un po’.
***
Ma tra tanti pericolo il vero terrore dei boss è la guerra tra clan. E’ terribile per i loro profitti…
… But with a gang war, sales plummet because customers are so scared of the violence that they won’t come out in the open to buy their crack. In every way, war was expensive for J. T. So why did he start the war? As a matter of fact, he didn’t. It was his foot soldiers who started it. It turns out that a crack boss didn’t have as much control over his subordinates as he would have liked…
Eppure le guerre ci sono, spesso sono i peones più coglioni a farle partire con qualche sgarbo che innesca un’ escalation. Poi, tornare indietro è impossibile.
Il fatto è che ai peones ambiziosi la guerra giova: è un’occasione per distinguersi, per mettere in mostra il loro valore, la loro attitudine a diventare capetti. Un killer è rispettato e temuto.
I capi, al contrario, vogliono la pace e nei loro incontri non fanno che maledire gli elementi rissosi della cosca…
… “We try to tell these shorties that they belong to a serious organization,” he once told Venkatesh. “It ain’t all about killing. They see these movies and shit, they think it’s all about running around tearing shit up. But it’s not. You’ve got to learn to be part of an organization; you can’t be fighting all the time. It’s bad for business.”…
JT ha la mentalità del capo, è un vincente. Anche per questo ama la pace e gli affari…
… J. T. was a winner. He was paid well because so few people could do what he did. He was a tall, good-looking, smart, tough man who knew how to motivate people. He was shrewd too, never tempting arrest by carrying guns or cash. While the rest of his gang lived in poverty with their mothers, J. T. had several homes, several women, several cars. He also had his business education, of course. He constantly worked to extend this advantage. That was why he ordered the corporate-style bookkeeping that eventually found its way into Sudhir Venkatesh’s hands…
JT entrerà nel Board della gang, era un predestinato. Ma anche la sua fine sarà abbastanza prevedibile…
… Not long after he made the board of directors, the Black Disciples were essentially shut down by a federal indictment—the same indictment that led the gangster named Booty to turn over his notebooks to Venkatesh—and J. T. was sent to prison…
COMMENTO PERSONALE
Nel mio immaginario Sudhir Venkatesh si è sempre affiancato/contrapposto a Roberto Saviano: entrambi hanno mirabilmente descritto dall’interno il mondo del crimine, lo hanno vissuto e lo conoscono a menadito. Entrambi hanno assimilato la criminalità ad una multinazionale. Entrambi hanno messo in luce le ferree leggi della malavita e la loro parentela con le ferree leggi dell’economia di mercato. Ma Saviano, facendo questa scoperta, si è depresso. Ha trovato opprimente la potenza di una Mafia “intelligente”. Venkatesh invece si è entusiasmato: se il crimine ragiona, se risponde agli incentivi, possiamo controllarlo, re-instradarlo, basta produrre gli incentivi giusti. JT è una persona ragionevole, sa fare i suoi conti, il suo libro mastro è impeccabile. JT è uno dei nostri, pensa esattamente come noi, non è un alieno, uno psicopatico, con lui si puo’ parlare, possiamo sistemarlo nel “nostro” mondo come merita perché é in grado di comprenderlo alla perfezione.
