Mahjong ☆ Wonderland ~ Sakagi

July 13, 2009 in Akagi, Funny, Saki
Tags: Akagi, Akagi Shigeru, Cartel, Cooperative capitalism, Ichikawa, Knee-jerk Reaction, mahjong, Nobuyuki Fukumoto, Ritz Kobayashi, Saburo Hirayama, Saki, Saki Miyanaga, Self-Regulation, Washizu, Yasuoka

Cooperative capitalism

…This cas hints at an underlying “knee-jerk” reaction to crisis that may strike one as strange : rather than letting some compagnies go bankrupt and thus increase market share and profit over time, the companies cooperated to ensure that all of them could remain solvent. A regional association of mahjong club owners provides another example of this attitude. Mahjong is an originally Chinese game based on small pictograph stones and dice, which in many ways assumes the social and functional equivalent role of poker in the U.S. ; there are playing clubs all over the country where four players are matched and bet on their luck. These clubs are regulated by the “Law Regarding the Appropriate Management and Rules Relating to Business Affecting Public Morals” (Fuzoku eigyō-tō no kisei oyobi gyōmu no tekiseika-tō ni kan suru hōritsu), which required disclosure of fees and, as of 1996, set the maximum mahjong playing fee for one hour per person at ¥620.
In one area, competition had driven down fees to only 70-80% of the allowed maximum charge, and with the number of customers decreasing due to the recession, club owners found themselves in dire straits. The local association of mahjong club owners decided that, rather tan let some of their own members go bankrupt, they would all raise their fees to the legal limit.

Cooperative capitalism: self-regulation, trade associations, and the antimonopoly law in Japan, Ulrike Schaede, 2000, p 172