But you know, if it was gonna happen anyway, why wait? Why let the market kill you and drop you in the gutter? Why not escape like a resistance fighter and run there while you’re still alive? Why not earn a profit? That would totally confound Wall Street. You can’t go broke if you’re earning a profit. Fact is, it makes your stock go up.

Sure, it’s not pretty. It doesn’t follow the business plan. You’re not going to be able to go back to them for money if you don’t follow the plan. Won’t get to be dependent. But so what? If you’re making money, you don’t need them.

Wall Street, the establishment, thinks they own or control everything, but they don’t control the gutter. In the gutter the invisible hand rules. Make a profit, grow. Lose money, die. No mercy. No Road Shows. No gatekeepers. The dreaded reality of the marketplace. The ultimate force, before which even governments and Wall Street must bend.

No favoritism, no prejudice—just prove yourself on merit. That seemed fair enough to me. If the gutter was the only choice, I wasn’t going to walk there. I’d run. Investment banks, gatekeepers, lying rumors, falling stock prices—this stuff I’d never really understood. This was Harvard, the world I’d rejected. The gutter I understood just fine. Hot dogs, all-night brochure distribution, flying coach, selling the ads, and no matter what, balancing the checkbook. I could do the gutter as well as anyone. I was happy. I was gonna show them all, and succeed on my own terms. I was returning to the gutter. I was gonna make a profit. I was going home.

Sometimes, though, turning a profit means painful self-sacrifice. If you really want to earn your stripes in the American Mafia, you have to kill someone. Once you’ve rubbed someone out, then you’re really accepted. You’ve proved yourself. You’re a member of the club. A made man.

In Japan, things aren’t as simple. There they realize it takes no great courage or commitment to wipe out someone else. In Japan, if you want to join the mob, all the senior guys get together at a table to listen as you swear your loyalty to the organization. Oh, and just one more thing: While they’re at the table they also watch as you take out a knife and without complaint amputate half of your own finger to prove your commitment and courage. This, you can be sure, is a lot more serious than just pointing a gun at some stranger and firing.

The American Mafia is a sort of fringe organization. They engage in drug peddling, prostitution, gambling, hijacking, and the like. Everyone acts tough and lives well. Then, periodically, the government decides it has had enough. Soon everyone is arrested. People are falling over each other to be the first to violate the secret oath and turn state’s evidence, and soon the whole leadership is locked away in the federal pen. Till it all starts up again.

The Japanese mob, on the other hand, is all-powerful. Their tentacles reach into the giant corporations and into almost every level of government. Reportedly, every big financial transaction has to include a share for them. Almost no one is prosecuted and no one ever seems to rat on anyone else. The American mob is strictly a bunch of amateurs compared to their Japanese counterparts. Considering the admissions procedure, is this really a surprise?