"
The worst of times sometimes brings out the best in people - even in Japan’s mafia, the yakuza.
The Daily Beast news website said that hours after the first shock waves hit, two of the largest crime groups went into action, opening their offices to those stranded in Tokyo and shipping food, water and blankets to the devastated areas. "
what the?this is amazing.
Am I supposed to now pardon the mafia for the method they empoyed for acquiring this aid in the first place? If this news touches your emotions deep, you are vulnerable to thoughts like, let’s say, indulgence for the entire mafia activity, or for what the mafia did in order to attain possesion of this concrete wealth it is now giving away.
“Am I supposed to now pardon the mafia for the method they empoyed for acquiring this aid in the first place? If this news touches your emotions deep, you are vulnerable to thoughts like, let’s say, indulgence for the entire mafia activity, or for what the mafia did in order to attain possesion of this concrete wealth it is now giving away.”
No, I understand that most western governments are probably run by a mafia like organization. But, I thought this article would be interesting to all you good free market people.
please don’t ask to activate the link…this should be done automatically. as a matter of fact, i want the free market to work itself out here. you can take the government approach and force me to activate or ban me, or we can let the free market work…as you want these links activated more and more, you or someone else who wants it will find a way to work out a solution.
8P
If a moderator bans you or kicks you, or merely demands from you to post or not post in some fashion, he is not forcing you, he is telling you what are the rules for using his property (or the property he is assigned to take care of), i.e. the forum.
I have no idea how to activate links either. Isn’t the mafia helping people a “broken window fallacie”?
"If a moderator bans you or kicks you, or merely demands from you to post or not post in some fashion, he is not forcing you, he is telling you what are the rules for using his property (or the property he is assigned to take care of), i.e. the forum. "
dang it…touché .
How cute, the two mafias (the little ones and the BIG one) are in a PR competition.
Saving the goose that lays the golden eggs. That’s monarchy at its best for you.
Mafia > Government. So speaketh Rothbard.
They did the same for the Kobe quake as well. They do justify their existence as being sort of feudal style protectors, so the state and yakuza comparison is apt.
Except the Yakuza makes most of its money providing real services to willing customers, so it’s not. Violence in organized crime is a product of statist intervention; violence in the state is essential to its character.
Well, when the yakuza says that people have to pay to have stall protection for a fair those people don´t have the option of going to other places. And if an organization views itself as some sort of feudal protector that is entitled to collect a form of taxes then I would say that violence is inherent in that organization because it has the same mindset as a state.
When it comes to such a devasting disaster people use what ever resources they have available to help out. The mafia being in such a position to command quite a resource can be more helpful. I don’t think it should be over analysed anymore than that.
There’s not just one yakuza in Japan. There are a whole bunch of Japanese ones, and then Korean and Chinese mafias have a large presence as well. So maybe it is possible to shop around for protection.
I found an illegal video shop in Nipponbashi just the other day (selling uncensored and bootleg DVDs). Perhaps shops like that hire yakuza protection against state crackdowns of their completely peaceful activities.