Talk:Racketeering

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Protection Racket

hi tom

I guess the plan to reduce CO2 emission is the same. Mallerd (talk) 09:06, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Modern-day unions could be considered to be rackets as well. 24.141.76.19 (talk) 04:35, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Neither of these are rackets, as the offending organizations threaten and perform no illegal actions. If CO₂ emission were actually illegal, then subsidizing low-emissions fuels could perhaps be construed as legalized racketeering, although the subsidies would actually serve a purpose other than protection (keeping the industry profitable), so it still wouldn't really be racketeering. Unions, on the other hand, could only be rackets if quitting were illegal . . . which might be a problem, not to mention the fact that businesses don't actually pay unions, per se.

Interestingly, a person committing herself to an institution could perhaps be considered a racketeer, since she is receiving psychological treatment lest she commit a crime. Of course, the person isn't actually intending to commit said crime if not given treatment, but the threat is still there, in a sense. Eebster the Great (talk) 05:05, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's interesting to see how government grew out of racketeering. Originally taxes were "tribute"; you paid a warlord not to harm you or your property. A protection racket. The warlord used your tribute to fund armies to conquer more land and extract more tribute. Only later did they start offering services in return to the taxpayers. Nowadays service delivery is the dominant use of the tribute, but there is a straight evolutionary path from the racketeer to the king to the president/prime minister of today. It's also worth noting that larger organised crime syndicates sometimes do offer a form of service; their hegemony over the area excludes other criminals, thus in a sense offering a genuine form of "protection".82.71.30.178 (talk) 11:57, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The etymology of "racket" in the "protection racket" sense is unclear, but according to the OED is unlikely to have derived from illicit dances due to chronological attestations. The noise aspect of "racket" came much earlier, from gaelic "racaid". I'm removing etymology from the article as it's uncited and contradicted by an authoritative source. --Andrew (talk) 17:13, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

African National Congress

The ANC shouldn't be on this list. It's a legitimate political party. Unless someone can come up with a good justification for including it, it should be removed from the list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.247.236.47 (talk) 06:17, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to go ahead and remove it. If someone has a good argument for its inclusion, feel free to revert. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.247.236.207 (talk) 19:51, 6 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fully 9% of the ANC's most senior body are post-Apartheid criminals convicted of fraud, theft, drink driving, corruption. The leader of the ANC used political pressure to avoid facing charges for corruption regarding an arms deal with France. The ANC is currently working towards instituting censorship of the free press by establishing restrictive legislation and tribunals. Lower ranking members of the ANC (city councilors) have been discovered to be engaging in assassination plans to avoid having their corruption uncovered. The organization is criminal from it's head (Jacob Zuma) to it's lowest level officers. So although it poses as a legitimate political party, it is constantly engaged in illegal activity. It's a racket. The fact that the leader faced racketeering charges (amongst the 783 charges he escaped) is further evidence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.117.56.211 (talk) 12:18, 12 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of MegaUpload

I have removed MegaUpload from the "See Also" list. It simply does not meet the criteria of a racket. Thus far it has only been established as a company potentially involved in illegal activities, and not a "racket". With that criteria, any company/organization/group engaged in illegal activities could be labeled as a racket. This is simply not the case. We must be careful not to extend our scope of the definition, and maintain logic and reason when defining something as one thing or another.