Outlaw and economics: Biker gangs and club goods

Ennio Emanuele Piano ()

Rationality and Society, 2018, vol. 30, issue 3, 350-376

Abstract: Today, outlaw motorcycle gangs are best known for their involvement in an international criminal network dealing in narcotics, human trafficking, and arms smuggling. Law enforcement agencies in three continents have identified groups like the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, the Outlaws Motorcycle Club, and the Bandidos Motorcycle Club as a major threat to public safety. Before their descent into organized crime, outlaw bikers captured the imagination of the American public due to their peculiar look and outrageous behavior. They dressed in dirty sleeveless leather jackets and Nazi paraphernalia, their arms covered in tattoos of Nazi and White-supremacist symbolism. They drove highly customized, loud, and heavy American bikes—almost always Harley-Davidsons—and despised Japanese vehicles. They were notorious for their erratic behavior, in particular, the propensity to use violence in an idiosyncratic way when interacting with non-bikers and the public display of nudity and sexual practices. Unlike standard treatments of outlaw bikers, which draw from criminology, sociology, and psychology, I propose an explanation for these seemingly irrational and certainly odd practices rooted on the economic approach. Following the literature on the economic theory of religious sects, I argue that these odd practices served as effective obstacles to the ability of outlaw bikers to free ride on the club goods provided by these organizations.

Keywords: Club goods; outlaw bikers; sacrifice and stigma (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:ratsoc:v:30:y:2018:i:3:p:350-376

DOI: 10.1177/1043463117743242

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