The Green Mafia and Social Enterprise

Law enforcement in Italy is cracking down on an industry reputed to be controlled by the mafia:

Windmills.

Turns out that La Cosa Nostra sees the eco-biz as a growth industry--tax breaks and government funding make it pretty much a sure-fire investment:

"Operation Wind" revealed Mafia promises to local officials in Mazara del Vallo of money and votes in exchange for help in approving wind farm projects.

The Mafia suspects were alleged to be linked to Matteo Messina "Diabolik" Denaro, a fugitive clan boss on ltaly's most wanted list.

Prosecutors suspect the hand of the Mafia in fixing permits and building wind farms that are then sold on to Italian and eventually foreign companies.

In an effort to assert its control over the sector, the Mafia is suspected of destroying two wind towers that were in storage in the port of Trapani after their delivery by ship from northern Europe, local officials told the FT.

"It is a refined system of connections to business and politicians. A handful of people control the wind sector. Many companies exist but it is the same people behind them," said Mr Scarpinato, whose investigations have focused on the evolution of the Mafia into a modern business organisation.

Which got me thinking. When I got into the social enterprise scene after years of bridging the worlds of nonprofit and for-profit law, my impression was that social enterprise offered a holistic vision with the potential to break down artificial walls between so-called sectors. However, in far too many ways social enterprise has become just another way for small groups of self-defined insiders to seize control of the market in virtue. This particularly hits home everytime I hear someone tell me that such-and-such group, person or area of activity is not really social entrepreneurship, as if excluding people from the movement were its real value added.

It's easy to condemn the criminal mafia, but often the more dangerous practice is what's legal.