Radical Reconsiderations on Organized Crime

It is late, so my thoughts are a little disorganized. However, I thought I would quickly through out this idea to see how well it is received (if at all).

I have been reading excerpts from Michel Woodiwiss' Organized Crime and American Power and was struck by his definition of Organized Crime:

"organized crime is systematic criminal activity for money or power."

Using that definition, Woodiwiss is able to identify many corporate, government, and gangster activities as being "organized crime." Although I have yet to thoroughly review the literature on this issue, I must agree with him. For too long, many area experts have thought of terrorism, gangsterism, fraud, espionage, subversion, piracy, and corruption as being separate (and therefore, "special") issues. Perhaps it is time to look at these issues as simply being trades or tools of the same overall problem: crime committed by organizations for money or power.

More on this later.