I guess the question is whether the people petit bourgeoisie or pretty poor.
It doesn't really matter what the "rank and file" were, the leadership was basically big feudal families who managed to retain control over territories via illegal means as Italy progressed to capitalism, and made tons of money by smuggling stuff and killing people. The Sicilian mafia was nuts, significantly worse than the mafia in the US. Now, the mafia in the US was also a horrible thing, but it was not merely a repeat of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra. A big part of what initially kept it together was Italians being a marginalised group of immigrants when they first came to the US. Additionally, the mafia in the US laid lower than the Sicilian mafia, because the second was trying to fight and outright replace the state in the territories they controlled, the first was trying to keep the state far from its business. So the mafia in the US had a code and abstained from using explosives, killing women and children (in general), tried to avoid collateral casualties, etc. The Sicilian mafia was more like "let's detonate 200kg of TNT to kill this one person in a highway, who gives a fuck".
It doesn't really matter what the "rank and file" were, the leadership was basically big feudal families who managed to retain control over territories via illegal means as Italy progressed to capitalism, and made tons of money by smuggling stuff and killing people. The Sicilian mafia was nuts, significantly worse than the mafia in the US. Now, the mafia in the US was also a horrible thing, but it was not merely a repeat of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra. A big part of what initially kept it together was Italians being a marginalised group of immigrants when they first came to the US. Additionally, the mafia in the US laid lower than the Sicilian mafia, because the second was trying to fight and outright replace the state in the territories they controlled, the first was trying to keep the state far from its business. So the mafia in the US had a code and abstained from using explosives, killing women and children (in general), tried to avoid collateral casualties, etc. The Sicilian mafia was more like "let's detonate 200kg of TNT to kill this one person in a highway, who gives a fuck".