Few ideas are as central both to social scientific analysis and normative political philosophy as the concept of scarcity. For the social analyst, scarcity is at the core of many models, including most prominently what Gary Becker has called the economic approach to human behavior, for example rational choice and game theoretic approaches. Its importance in this sphere stems from the fact that it is one of the key ingredients generating calculation and strategic interaction, cooperative or conflictual. Where, conversely, a superabundance is postulated there is, as Carl Menger observed, no economizing behavior, no competition, nor any need for a property regime. And so too is the idea of scarcity one of the background conditions for the theory of justice in general—‘justice derives its origins’ from human selfishness combined with ‘the scanty provision nature has made for his wants’ —and for the problems of distributive justice in particular. Again, where there is superabundance these matters would not so much as arise. Yet scarcity is at the same time one of those concepts which, like the notion of the standard of living, seems readily accessible, transparent, indeed available almost pre-theoretically. So universal, so ready-to-hand does the notion of scarcity appear that we may be tempted to allow it to enter our theoretical lexicon unexamined.

My attention to gossip as a notion worthy of reflection was attracted by a trivial detail: the English etymology of gossip is god-sib, godfather, or, generally, god parent, ‘denoting—says the English Oxford Dictionary—the spiritual affinity of the baptized and their sponsor’. This intriguing origin alludes to gossip as the performing of an initiation ritual, the creation of an exclusive bond; above all, it bears an uncanny association with the mafia which happens to have been the topic of my research for sometime. I suppose I could have interpreted god-sib through the obvious gender bias as deriving from godmother rather than from godfather; this tallies with the Italian comare or the French commère which can also denote a gossip. But I did not think of this possibility at first. Instead, carried away by linguistic speculation, I went to check the etymology of the main Italian word for gossip, pettegolezzo. I was not a little surprised to find that the word comes from a rather less inspiring source. It comes from peto, to fart. In some northern Italian dialects, venetian, piedmontese and emilian, a common expression, ‘contar tutti i peti’, ‘to tell every fart’, refers to the habit of reporting and speculating about trivial events.

It is difficult to discuss a phenomenon when one does not know precisely what it is. This problem is particularly vexing in the case of the Mafia. It has been argued that ‘the need for a definition [of the Mafia] is crucial; not just for any definition with some degree of contingent empirical plausibility, but for a definition with some analytical clout’. The word ‘Mafia’ itself has travelled far to distant lands, such as the former Soviet Union. For instance, according to Arkadii Vaksberg, Russian journalist and author of The Russian Mafia, the Mafia is ‘the entire soviet power-system, all its ideological, political, economical and administrative manifestations’. In an article published in a magazine for British executives dealing with Russia, the label Mafiosi is used to lump together bureaucrats, smugglers from the Caucasus, the cpsunomenklatura accused of embezzling state funds, the late British businessman Robert Maxwell and many others.

Following the Cold War, nationalism has rapidly established itself at the centre of the world's political stage. This has had the immediate effect of increasing the importance of nationalism as an object of sociological investigation and this effect can confidently be expected to continue and expand.

When the Lord told Moses that his people should love the stranger as themselves (Leviticus 19:34), who was the stranger?