More Lawyers in Japan (And Thus Less Yakuza)

I'm going through a copy of McMafia by Misha Glenny and he said in 1949, the Japanese passed a law limiting the number of lawyers who could graduate from the Legal Research and Training Institute in Tokyo to 5,000 per year. This was done to discourage litigation and encourage social harmony.

What ended up happening is the court system was clogged with civil cases that never got resolved (most lawyers would rather work for the zaibatsu) and people started turning to the Yakuza (the Japanese mob) to resolve their problems. The Yakuza emerged from their traditional rackets of prostitution and gambling into all sorts of other concerns, like debt collection, as a result.

What if this law had never passed, leading to a more functional Japanese court system?

Glenny said the Yakuza were heavily involved in the property bubble in Japan in the 1980s, typically forcing people out of their homes and businesses so they could be sold or demolished. Given how (I think) the bursting of this bubble caused Japan's "lost decade," there could be major macro-economic and political consequences.
 
I'm going through a copy of McMafia by Misha Glenny and he said in 1949, the Japanese passed a law limiting the number of lawyers who could graduate from the Legal Research and Training Institute in Tokyo to 5,000 per year. This was done to discourage litigation and encourage social harmony.

Hmmm... I haven't read that one, but reading that comment, and looking at some of the reviews on Amazon (a telling one wondered about the lack of references), I'd take it with a grain of salt.

I'd agree that the discouragement of litigation was by design, but rather than foisting it off on the Yaks, it was channeled through other, more bureaucratic means, such as mediation. Have a look at this article for a more detailed explanation. Also here. It sounds to me as if the author was over-hyping the involvement of the yaks.

What ended up happening is the court system was clogged with civil cases that never got resolved (most lawyers would rather work for the zaibatsu) and people started turning to the Yakuza (the Japanese mob) to resolve their problems. The Yakuza emerged from their traditional rackets of prostitution and gambling into all sorts of other concerns, like debt collection, as a result.

Debt collection, along with the loan sharking that goes hand in hand with it, is a pretty traditional yak business.

What if this law had never passed, leading to a more functional Japanese court system?

You'd have to change much more than just this law.

Glenny said the Yakuza were heavily involved in the property bubble in Japan in the 1980s, typically forcing people out of their homes and businesses so they could be sold or demolished. Given how (I think) the bursting of this bubble caused Japan's "lost decade," there could be major macro-economic and political consequences.

While jiageya were involved, I'd hesitate to lay all of the bubble at the yaks feet. I think you have that a bit backwards, in fact. Rather than a cause, they were a symptom.

If you're thinking that more lawyers could butterfly away or mitigate the lost "decade", I'd call that ASBs.
 
While jiageya were involved, I'd hesitate to lay all of the bubble at the yaks feet. I think you have that a bit backwards, in fact. Rather than a cause, they were a symptom.

If you're thinking that more lawyers could butterfly away or mitigate the lost "decade", I'd call that ASBs.

I wasn't blaming all of the blame for the bubble on the Yakuza, nor was I saying they caused it.

I was suggesting the Japanese real-estate bubble might not have happened the way it did if developers couldn't ally with the mob to force people out of their homes.

(I am not saying it would not happen at all. As you said, this was a symptom. However, it seems to me like it's a symptom that kept the bubble going. Kind of a feedback thing.)

So basically, I was suggesting more lawyers could keep the bubble from rising as high or as quickly.
 
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