ABSTRACT
Although Gambetta claims that protection firms, such as the Sicilian mafia, emerge to respond to a high potential demand for private protection, his theory concerns only how demand and supply converge and does not predict in detail how suppliers of protection manage to emerge (Personal Communication, 21 May 1996). The present research demonstrates that Hong Kong triads emerged to protect their job interests in labour markets at the turn of the century and some societies gradually engaged in selling protection to anybody who wanted to buy it. The development of Hong Kong triads can be summarised in four stages: (1) different voluntary societies, such as clan organisations and coolie houses, appeared spontaneously to provide mutual aid for their members who had emigrated to Hong Kong from China; (2) some members who had joined triad societies in China transformed their organisations into triad societies to increase their power to monopolise job opportunities; (3) a process of ‘triadisation’ forced other trade organisations to become formal triad societies to counter triad pressure; and (4) some triad firms came to sell protection to anybody who wanted it.
