m.n. CHAIRMAN
It’s important to acknowledge that in the canon timeline, where Rook City is home to an economic underclass that lives lives of desperate poverty as they are oppressed by the Organization, the c.t. Chairman’s various Thugs are not members of the downtrodden population, taking the only work they’re qualified for so that they can feed their family. The Organization in the canon timeline doesn’t hire honest hard working people trying to rise above their station; Graham Pike has no interest in seeing anyone’s lot in life improved. The Thugs are guys who beat weaker people up for fun, primarily, and only secondarily because they draw a paycheck from doing it. They are never from the bottom economic ring, nor even the second one up; guys looking to get hired by the Organization usually have decent money socked away, probably gained through crime or gambling or other dubious activities, and what additional wealth their off the books Pike Industries job nets them is typically wasted at the races or the like. These guys do crime because they enjoy violence and bullying and coming up with schemes that seem clever compared to the other dull bulbs around them; nobody should find any of them sympathetic or relatable characters at all. Even for the spider at the heart of the web, Chairman Pike itself, the money is only a means to an end; it is unquestioned power which he craves, the certainty that his word is law and there is no defense against it.
All that must be said up front, in order to understand that for the m.n. Chairman, everything the Organization does really IS just about the money. A completely amoral billionaire, and still willing to kill if necessary, the neutral Pike is nonetheless a good corporate steward of the urban ecosystem that he’s part of, doing whatever he feels is acceptable to try and bolster the economic muscle of all Rook Citians, not out of any degree of altruism whatsoever, but because a rising tide raises all boats. There is none of the carefully rationed sadism that the c.t. Chairman loves to rarely indulge, when someone makes the mistake of earning his undivided attention; m.n. Pike genuinely does not care whether people are happy or sad, so long as they line his pockets either way. Within that certainty, many members of his Organization do indeed consist of relatable and sympathetic individuals, doing the best job they’re qualified for and saving their earnings in the hopes of providing a legacy for their children, and Pike ensures that these employees, while still illegal and given zero forgiveness for any betrayal, are well taken care of as long as they remain loyal, incentivized not to consider other offers which would take them away from the stability of the status quo.