
Why the yakuza are not illegal - Turukawa
http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2015/09/economist-explains-20
======
kriro
"Should we outlaw this" vs "freedom" is an interesting and hard problem
especially if you are generally inclined to mistrust the state and not see it
as a great benefactor of humankind by default. I live in a country that is
quicker to outlaw certain things which in the US would be considered a breach
of freedom of speech (or religion). Nazi symbols is one example but 1%er
symbols were also outlawed for a while until it got overturned. I'm favoring
the "don't outlaw" stance but the other side has sensible arguments as well.

Scientology is another good example. I can see the argument for "freedom of
religion" but depending on your views about the state it has a certain
obligation to protect citizens from their own idiocy. The borders in the sand
are hard to draw.

A very common case is that people who vehemently disagree with outlawing
Scientology also strongly believe vaccination is a good idea. I think that's a
fairly inconsistent stance but it is also completely reasonable (as in it
protects the person and also others like their family in both cases).

Political parties are also a good example. I think the stance of "never
outlaw, society has to handle that and let the idiots be idiots" is perfectly
reasonable but parties get tax money for various things and I can see how
people have a problem with their tax money funding neo-nazi organizations.

I used to be more radically pro freedom no questions asked but these days my
stance is pro freedom by default but some deep thinking and gut check for
individual cases. It bothers me a lot that I'm fairly inconsistent (since I am
against maximum freedom in quite a few cases) but it's the most reasonable
course of action for my value system.

~~~
delinka
Summary: can't outlaw Scientology, can't legally compel vaccinations. I'm
against Scientology, I'm for vaccination. Neither of the opinions should ever
be codified into law.

I'm pretty certain vaccination isn't "the law." The only thing compelling
anyone to have their children vaccinated are the rules (not laws) for public
education (keep in mind: I'm in the US and public school systems differ from
county to county in my own state.) You're not required to send your children
to public school; they can allow vaccination exceptions on a case-by-case
basis ... there's a good amount of freedom here.

That said, I want my children vaccinated. And in the rare medical cases where
they can't be vaccinated, I want to know they're safe from people who might
carry a life-threatening disease (i.e. others who aren't vaccinated.) It's a
tough balance, but the socially responsible thing is to vaccinate, or avoid
diverse social contact (such as ... public school.)

~~~
Retra
There's a _reason_ these freedoms are protected. They're not just axioms of a
society. Most of them stem from one very strong principle: if you don't have
and _extremely_ good reason to know something, then you can't prohibit the
alternatives, because you may be prohibiting improvements. And in the long
run, it's better to have 9 people fail and one succeed than to have 10 people
do nothing new.

But you can have laws that guide behavior. Those 9 people who will fail? You
can learn the lesson about that failure and make it illegal to fail in the
same way. For instance, at one time, you were free to beat your children,
because nobody really knew that it wasn't the most effective way to teach
them. But if you have overwhelming evidence that it doesn't work, then you can
make it illegal. You still have the freedom to choose how to raise your
children, you just can't do it in obviously failure-prone ways.

So yeah, you can outlaw (parts of) scientology and legally compel vaccinations
when those actions are shown to definitively run counter to the justification
of those freedoms in the first place. You are not free to make clear and
obvious mistakes. Take any safety law as an example.

The only thing you really need is proof.

~~~
nine_k
A nitpick: you are of course free to make any costly mistake if it _only
affects you_ and no one else.

Various safety laws protect innocent bystanders from mistakes other people
make, e.g. losing control of a car due to excessive speed or alcohol intake,
or spreading a virus.

The fact that tax money is spent on various social protection things, like
health care, allows to legally limit one's apparently personal choices, like
smoking, that increase the tax money spending due to those choices. Such is
the nature of most, if not any, tax-funded welfare features.

~~~
Retra
There are very few costly mistakes that only affect you, though. I actually
can't think of a single one.

Emergency healthcare is a public resource (you can only handle X patients per
unit time) and it's a costly one. I would bet that most safety laws are
forcing you to protect yourself by way of doing simple things that lower
public medical costs. Even if you commit suicide, _someone_ has to clean up
your remains and deal with the potentially dangerous bio-materials.

Yes, you are free to do things that hurt only you, but good luck finding
anything that does.

~~~
nine_k
Why, damaging or destroying your property, or entering an utterly disastrous
but legal contract can be examples, both pretty wide categories.

~~~
Retra
There are limits on those things, though. You can't burn your house down. You
can't live in filth. You can't strip mine your land or pollute it. And you can
get thrown in jail for failing to fulfill certain contracts, so it can be
indirectly illegal. There's also fraud: you can't lie to enter a contract you
know you can't fulfill. And it _should_ be illegal to exploit people by
offering them contracts they can't be expected to fulfill, even if it
currently isn't.

Sure, I can just smash up my stuff or start a risky business. But the reason
for that is that there isn't proof that what I'm doing constitutes failure.
(They could be very educational activities.)

------
anon4
Was expecting "because they control a lot of money", but got reasoning more in
line with Ankh-Morpork's Patrician's view on the Guild of Thieves.

~~~
BetaCygni
Thieves' Guild - Formally the Guild of Thieves, Cutpurses and Allied Trades

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilds_of_Ankh-
Morpork#Thieves...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilds_of_Ankh-
Morpork#Thieves.27_Guild)

------
taejo
Because making membership of an organization illegal is a violation of freedom
of association, as guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution of Japan?

~~~
vinceguidry
Freedom of association does not typically disallow the government from
designating certain organizations to be illegal and barring membership in
them. Happens here in the US all the time. No freedom is absolute. What keeps
them from abusing it here is checks and balances.

For example, trade unions were considered an illegal restraint on trade until
the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914. Also, certain forms of corporation have
been made legal and illegal over the course of history.

~~~
taejo
Unlike Japan, the USA _doesn 't_ have an explicit constitutional guarantee of
freedom of association (though the Supreme Court - reasonably - starts to read
such a right into the first amendment in the 50s).

If I understand what I'm reading correctly, the pre-1914 trade union ban was
_not_ a ban on association (workers could still form professional
associations, working-men's clubs, etc.) but on "cartel-like" behaviour:
collective bargaining, strike action, etc.

~~~
vinceguidry
I wouldn't read too much into it, Japan has a Western style constitution, and
the idea of a universal right to free association didn't really start to
coalesce until the mid-20th century. Japan's constitution happened to get
ratified in 1947. If we had to do the US Constitution over, there would
probably be freedom to associate codified.

------
peterwwillis
They were historically a legitimate feudal organization, they have a strict
code of honor, they provide aid to local people in the event of natural
disasters, they have political ties, there's few Japanese laws specifically to
help prosecute organized crime, some of the groups disdain certain activities
like theft or drug trade, and they operate in a quasi-open fashion.

~~~
tsotha
All that's changing, though. The younger guys eschew tattoos and finger
chopping. Plus, they view drugs as an increasingly important part of the
business.

They're being driven slowly underground with changes in the law, and when that
process is complete they'll probably be few in number but far more violent.

~~~
digi_owl
> All that's changing, though. The younger guys eschew tattoos and finger
> chopping.

Echoing a generational change in the nation in general.

Damn it, it may be easy to forget but Japan was feudal until the 1800s (the
last shogun stepped down in 1867). And their WW2 militarism was something of a
last hurrah of that.

Since then it seems to have been directed more inwards, in how they run
businesses etc. The execs care for the workers, and in return the workers
dedicate themselves to the company (or some such).

As best i can tell, the core of most stories produced in Japan even today can
be boiled down to the old samurai question of duty vs self-respect.

Meaning that you will find a endless row of characters that spend time
agonizing over following orders (or expectations) from their superiors, even
though they personally find it wrong or offensive in some way. Looking for
some escape clause that allow them to appease both.

------
wodenokoto
How is this so much different than HA? It's not like their hangouts are
unknown and unlisted and members make a big deal of showing where they belong.

~~~
mirimir
What's "HA"?

Edit: Never mind. Hell's Angels. Maybe if HA had been around since the 1600s,
nothing ;)

~~~
vacri
I read it as 'high availability'...

~~~
debacle
Constantly in a turf war with QOS.

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aaron695
It's very scary that the world has become a place that people think it's
normal to arrest people just because they are a member of a group without any
evidence that person has committed a crime.

~~~
gambiting
I think it's completely normal and I expect people to be arrested for
belonging to neo-nazi organisations, especially since simply displaying any
nazi symbols is illegal where I live(as it should be). Is that scary?

~~~
ryandvm
> Is that scary?

Yes. Because making other people's beliefs illegal is the first step towards
forcibly supplying your own.

~~~
gambiting
Well.....Hitler should have been and in fact was forcibly stopped from
practicing his beliefs. In my mind, people who walk in front of Auschwitz with
swastikas on their flags and shout how X minority should be exterminated also
should be stopped. Those people _should_ be forcibly supplied other beliefs,
just like rapists are forcibly put into prison and forced to accept a
different set of rules from their own.

~~~
ryandvm
And what about atheists' beliefs in a country largely populated by theists?
How should we treat them?

It's easy to say that you think that speech that is almost universally
repugnant should be illegal. The problem is that the benefit from doing so
does not outweigh the risk that some day you may hold a socially repugnant
belief of your own and find yourself legally silenced.

------
solidsnack9000
The article does not really go into why.

~~~
pakled_engineer
The why is that they have compartmentalized their organization enough so that
law enforcement can't prosecute them. There's never any provable direct links
to criminal activity so members can parade around in full view without worry
about arrest. If you are a member of these orgs all you do is pass money
between lawyers.

Triads and Yakuza offer a package like SaaS. You pay them for all your various
operational needs but they do not get involved in your business, so you are
free to do whatever you want, so long as you keep paying them a monthly fee by
using their laundering services, and you don't heat out the streets so much
that it affects business. Everybody works with them because they have their
own banks and financial networks built over decades with rules about not
burning customers.

No lesser gang will run the risk of rising up against them and there really is
no reason to since they are not involved in your decision making they are just
cleaning your illegal profits at 30% fee and offer capital to expand your
criminal operations. They also have extensive prisoner services and since
every gang member ends up doing a few months for being caught with an illegal
handgun you need them to pay off rivals not to kill you inside, to pay your
family money while incarcerated, to offer you credit when you come out to
restart a drug business ect.

Now you see where the myth of the Yakuza and Triads having millions of hitmen
comes from, since all their customers are criminal street gangs it's trivial
for them to organize mass violence by merely calling in all their favors
through a proxy. Street gang X probably had members avoid jail with an
expensive defense attorney the Yakuza provided, so being thugs they will jump
at the chance to pay back the debt with violence since that's what they
specialize in anyway.

------
Paul_S
I'd like to think it's because the cost of fighting them is higher than the
cost of letting them operate.

Sadly it might be more to do with social acceptance.

------
smegel
> At least now they are regulated and subject to the law

Even when they are breaking the law?

~~~
ekianjo
The police in Japan does not go against Yakuza unless they want to show off or
make an impression. There is a clear understanding of each other's boundaries
and most of the time there is no investigation going on with gangs' actions.

------
barking
Summary: Probably not illegal because

"Japan, it seems, prefers organised crime to the disorganised alternative."

~~~
unsignedint
It's actually a bit complicated.

One premise is that the Yakuza is very hierarchical, not only a personal
hierarchy in clan internally, but as an organization. Members of the most
major Yakuza clans, for example Yamaguchi-Gumi, are a leader of another clan
himself, one tree down from the parent clan itself. So, when they say there's
a certain Yakuza clan, you are not talking about one clan manging people under
them; you are probably talking about tens, perhaps hundreds of organizations
under the clan, which can stem two or three levels down. (So when they talk
about 23000 clan members, that's including everyone in the tree -- there are
only a little more than 80 members in "Yamaguchi-Gumi" itself.)

Essentially, as a "public stance," many higher organization "prohibits" lower
organizations down the tree from engaging in illegal activities. For example,
Yamaguchi-Gumi's known to have very strict "no-drug" policy, and they even
tell their under if they engage business of drug dealing, they will shun
offenders.

But here's a problem. Basically, it is expected that lower clans pay a
membership due regularly to higher clan, and it can get very costly as a
person goes higher up on the tree, except the leader of the very top clan
himself, perhaps. (As a side note, a lot of news speculates this is probably
why split of the Yamaguchi-Gumi took place in the first place.) That's you are
talking about payment of 100000yen-ish (basically $10000-ish) every month.

Being a leader of a clan under the main clan themselves, they will naturally
order their henchmen below to pay him a membership dues. As you go down the
tree, someone will have to get their hand dirty to make that kind of money;
they could be legally to down right illegal business like prostitution
(there's very legal gray areas of this in Japan), loan sharks, and some do,
turn to crimes mainly, like fraud, and exploitations in order to make that
kind of money.

Essentially, while it is an argument that laws and regulations are attempting
to make it harder and harder to get away with, basically the top clan's saying
"hey, I am telling everyone to not engage in illegal activities, we even fire
when they violate it, so we are not responsible for their actions."

~~~
throwaway7767
Quite similar to how these things happen in corporations. No exec ever makes a
decision to violate the law, they just put underlings into stressful
situations where they can't achieve the set goals without doing so.

The people at the top can then say they knew nothing of it, and they're
shocked, _shocked_ , that their employees would do such a thing.

~~~
unsignedint
Their "contract" between their pseudo kinship makes it very difficult for
someone in the lower hierarchy to blame their upper, let alone whistle blow,
about such wrongdoing without very severe consequences.

Many of clan members would voluntarily accept imprisonment by limiting blame
to themselves instead of to their upper or their immediate upper would
pressure for them to do so, which I don't necessarily think the case for
corporations. (I wouldn't say this doesn't exist, though.)

------
digi_owl
Better the gangsters you know,than the gangsters you don't?

------
brador
What if they didn't exist, would Japanese society be better? It looks like all
the good points they have could be replaced by local community initiatives and
collective planning.

Imagine a society free of aggressive and predatory crime. It's possible with
the technology we have today. What are we waiting for?

~~~
kbutler
> Imagine a society free of aggressive and predatory crime. It's possible with
> the technology we have today. What are we waiting for?

The concern is generally what else you give up in order to remove the crime.

See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dystopia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dystopia)

~~~
TeMPOraL
We've been trained by the works of fiction to immediately pattern-match high-
tech crime prevention with dystopia, but I think it might be good to stop for
a minute and consider if the belief isn't seriously biased. It's incredibly
hard to make an utopia that's not immediately boring - to be enjoyable,
narratives _require_ conflict. Even Star Trek, arguably the last popular sci-
fi with positive outlook on the future, just took the conflict out of the
utopian Earth and moved it somewhere else. So the reason crime-solving
technology leads to dystopia is not a feature of the tech, it's just because
an utopia would be boring.

~~~
kbutler
No, we've been trained by centuries of experience that the concentration of
power invites abuse.

Before we give the government the tools to monitor and control the populace,
we need to make sure the populace has the tools to monitor and control the
government. (I originally wrote "any organization", but any organization with
such compulsory power becomes the de facto government...)

A recent sci-fi with a positive view of hyper-tech civilization is "The
Culture" (Iain Banks). However, the interesting stories there all occur on the
borders, with the interaction of the Culture with non-Culture civilizations.
"Player of Games" is a good starting point.

~~~
brador
> No, we've been trained by centuries of experience that the concentration of
> power invites abuse.

And this is what tech can solve. We could be "ruled" by adaptive algorithms we
collectively vote on. If a better algo is discovered it can be voted up and
eventually replace another.

Many refer to society as a machine, what would happen if we really treated it
like one?

