SOCIAL-ORDER OF LOWER CLASSES IN MODERN J APAN (17TH 20TH CENTURIES) - MOBS AND CONTROL OF VAGRANTS

In this panorama of the lower classes of the society, the author fries to show the role of mobs as a structuring factor in these segments of the population. With the rapid development of the cities during the T okugawa period and the increase of urban construction hired laborers b ecame to be more numerous and were largely controlled by people connec ted to mobs and gamblers with a de facto delegation of the government. For a brief period in the 19th century mobs could have been involved in movements of social revolt and to a certain extent could be perceiv ed as ''social bandits'' but from the begining of the century they mov ed to a ''patriotic gangsterism'' and contributed to the repression of the left. In Modern Japan, gangsters continued To play a role of auto -regulation of the marginal element of the society.