One of my most reflex-like thoughts whenever I talk to any anarchist is, "But wouldn't the gangs/mafia just take over everything?" Peaceful people don't naturally form groups and train with weapons to face potential enemies. But government creates jobs out of it (police, army) and outright forces people to serve (mandatory army service). So is it possible gangs are the force that drives and necessitates government? Sometimes the government is even itself a gang. Putin took care of the regular gangs by basically becoming the number one gangster. In political science and history "gangster regime" is the official academic term they use for Putin's regime!

Regarding gangs and the (socio)enonomic aspect, I remember one method Penn & Teller and James Randi and others used to make tricksters stop fooling people out of their money by pretending to talk to the dead and such, was to offer them actual jobs. These "psychics", mostly talented and smart people, often just had no other way of making money, so they turned to conning.