The Reality of Mikajime Fees: The Shadow of the City and the Backside of the Economy: The End of the 1990s

The Reality of Mikajime Fees: The Shadow of the City and the Backside of the Economy: The End of the 1990s

The "mikajime fee," also known as "moridai," began as a major source of funding for the gangsters who rose to prominence during the chaotic postwar period. It began when demobilized soldiers and young people who had lost their jobs formed cliques in the name of restoring order in the city after the collapse of the controlled economy during the war. They took money from restaurants and street vendors under the pretext of maintaining public order. This system was later absorbed into the yakuza system and institutionalized as the "bouncer's fee" and "guardian's fee.

During the period of rapid economic growth, mikajime fees became established as a business practice rather than a symbol of violence. Even as downtown areas expanded and shopping districts were developed, the yakuza maintained their presence as the "face of the community. They collected money under the guise of "deterring trouble" and "preventing external harassment," but in reality they themselves controlled the "harassment. This was, so to speak, the internalization of violence, a structure in which the guarantee of power was bought with money.

In the 1990s, with the enforcement of the Violence Prevention Law, it became difficult to collect money explicitly, and the names changed. The name of the fee remained "cooperation fee," "event fee," or "community safety sponsorship," and it evaded the legal net. Some local officials have come to believe that it is wiser to use the traditional mutual aid schemes of "mujin ko" and "yorimoko ko" to circulate money in a way that is integrated into the local economy, rather than openly collecting such funds. By relegating the circulation of funds to legal "koso," they maintain their influence while keeping in touch with the outside economy.

During this period, the wave of financial liberalization brought sophistication to the city's backstreet economy. When banks and small businesses ran into financial difficulties due to the recession that followed the bursting of the bubble economy, mikajime fees or "bouncer fees" began to function as a kind of "commission" for raising funds. The relationship of control and dependence survived without violence, but in a different form. The mikajime fee was no longer simply extortion, but a contract between the economy and power that operated on the underside of the city, and a survival technique for those living on the margins of Japanese society.