My understanding is that Yakuza are generally "Burakumin", which is basically a sub-ethnicity that has been discriminated against in Japan for hundreds of years. They have a strong cultural heritage of decorative tattoos, which is why people with tattoos aren't allowed in gyms or nice restaurants in Japan. It's illegal to discriminate against them in the workplace, but basically every company still does extensive family background checks looking for any sign of Burakumin heritage, and if discovered, they'll suddenly realize that you just aren't a good fit for the company.
This is why they're "born to lose". They can't get legitimate high paying jobs, so they build their own ecosystem that they can thrive in. Lots of criminal participation around the world comes directly as a result of systemic discrimination. These are often smart people making the best of a shitty situation that they were born into.
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/meth-syn...
But in general, this is not true or at least not true everywhere. Our local mafias and "black market" were not desperate people. They were people seeing opportunities and taking advantage of them to the max. Some of them generated desperate people among their victims, sure. But, those rarely turned into bosses or gang members.
Most of what they did were choices and not a result of "not having any other choice".
Eh I wouldn't say that's entirely accurate. Much like any other domain there's opportunity and cost. When an illegal enterprise is profitable, there's very little incentive to actually stop. These people aren't necessarily desperate, their business models are more directly... amoral. It's true that the underclass dominate petty crime, but that's not really an accurate description of the underground criminal enterprise. They're just the most visible victims, and in an industry that essentially tries to keep itself faceless and out of the limelight, it might appear to the untrained eye that there's only a little more beyond that.
The addict engaged in robbing your car is but one end link of a long chain of traffickers: transporters, producers, middlemen, and corrupt officials that lined their pockets with a little bit of the proceeds. Few or none of which even consume any of their product.
The only ways I could imagine it occurring is maybe trying to join big old Japanese companies (but a background check of that nature seems like it would still be - legally? - difficult) or perhaps marriage into a super traditional home which there can't be many of now.
I can't see it being too hard to get a copy of their koseki? Not that I've ever tried.
As I understand it, the Yakuza basically have their hands in everything related to entertainment (especially gambling and porn) in Japan, including the video game studios. There's a story about a certain four-letter video game studio that had a developer's sister kidnapped to keep them from working for Nintendo[0], a company that had its own Yakuza connections when it sold hanafuda cards and ran love hotels[1].
But... what's the point of being an organized crime syndicate that only obeys the law?
[0]https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2015/11/rumour_leading_jap...
Nintendo never stopped selling hanafuda cards. I have a set right now.
They touch a lot of land related business (construction, real estate market, worker groups), and will also front "grey" areas like non-bank loans, risky work contracting (sending workers to Fukushima...), credit card contracting, and as sister comment points out, entertainment and sexy work.
In short, they've well expanded into any area where shitty morals is a strong business advantage.
I guess that's most of those businesses if not all business then
They're active in politics too?