The decline of Japan’s yakuza

The fortunes of Japan’s mafia have suffered along with the economy. Are they now in terminal decline? Simon Wilson reports.

Why are the yakuza tolerated?

For decades, many Japanese clung to a romantic myth that the crime syndicates with their intricate hierarchies, pseudo-familial relationships and codes of honour retained something of the samurai spirit. Although they claim links to 16th-century castes of peddlers and gamblers, the modern yakuza grew up in the late 19th century and flourished in the construction boom following World War II. In the modern era defenders say they played a useful role in containing violent crime.

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Simon Wilson’s first career was in book publishing, as an economics editor at Routledge, and as a publisher of non-fiction at Random House, specialising in popular business and management books. While there, he published Customers.com, a bestselling classic of the early days of e-commerce, and The Money or Your Life: Reuniting Work and Joy, an inspirational book that helped inspire its publisher towards a post-corporate, portfolio life.   

Since 2001, he has been a writer for MoneyWeek, a financial copywriter, and a long-time contributing editor at The Week. Simon also works as an actor and corporate trainer; current and past clients include investment banks, the Bank of England, the UK government, several Magic Circle law firms and all of the Big Four accountancy firms. He has a degree in languages (German and Spanish) and social and political sciences from the University of Cambridge.