Zaibatsu

After World War II, they were dissolved by the Allied occupation forces and succeeded by the keiretsu (groups of banks, manufacturers, suppliers, and distributors).

The zaibatsu were the heart of economic and industrial activity within the Empire of Japan, and held great influence over Japanese national and foreign policies.

Although the world was in the throes of a worldwide economic depression, the zaibatsu were prospering through currency speculation, maintenance of low labour costs and military procurement.

Matters came to a head in the League of Blood Incident of March 1932, with the assassination of the managing director of Mitsui, after which the zaibatsu attempted to improve their public image through increased charity work.

Throughout Meiji to Shōwa, the government employed their financial powers and expertise for various endeavors, including tax collection, military procurement and foreign trade.

After the Russo-Japanese War, a number of so-called "second-tier" zaibatsu also emerged, mostly as the result of business conglomerations and the awarding of lucrative military contracts.

Many of the economic advisors accompanying the SCAP administration had experience with the New Deal and were highly suspicious of monopolies and restrictive business practices, which they felt to be both inefficient, and to be a form of corporatocracy (and thus inherently anti-democratic).

The Matsushita Electric Industrial Company (which later took the name Panasonic), while not a zaibatsu, was originally also targeted for breakup, but was saved by a petition signed by 15,000 of its union workers and their families.

Despite the absence of an actual sweeping change to the existence of large industrial conglomerates in Japan, the zaibatsu's previous vertically integrated chain of command, ending with a single family, has now widely been displaced by the horizontal relationships of association and coordination characteristic of keiretsu (系列).

The term zaibatsu has been used often in books, comics, games, and films to refer to large and usually sinister Japanese corporations, often involved in shady dealings or with connections to the yakuza.