Zaibatsu

Zaibatsu (財閥) are major industrial and financial family-owned vertically-integrated business conglomerates in Yamatai, Hinomoto, and to some extent Chisei. The size and diversification of most zaibatsu enable them to exert influence and control over significant parts of the Yamataian economy. Zaibatsu generally include a family-owned holding company at the top, a bank that finances the corporate group, and various other subsidiaries.

Zaibatsu emerged from family-owned trading companies founded by former samurai families that had their lands confiscated following the Second Yamataian Civil War in the 18th century. They steadily grew and became major drivers of the industrial revolution in Yamatai, and came to dominate the entire Yamataian economy. In 1920, the military government nationalised the assets of many zaibatsu with the Strategic Industries Consolidation Law, causing the downfall of many of the smaller zaibatsu and the beginning of the dominance of the Yamataian economy by a small handful of zaibatsu with close ties to the ruling government.

After the post-war liberalisation of the Yamataian government and the privatisation campaign of the 1950s, a new form of non-family-owned conglomerates known as keiretsu emerged, as former military officials or civilians with no ties to the corporate families bought over various assets and founded new businesses.

In Chisei
Zaibatsu, also known as Zaibochi, developed in Chisei in the early 19th century, with many of the earliest familial conglomerates arising due to mass confiscations of land and property from aristocracy and business owners that supported the Taihei Revolution. While never attaining the same level of oligopoly as in the Yashiman archipelago, the Zaibochi played a major role in the Chiseian industrial revolution and economy going into the 20th century. They were a major part of the Nitō Tōsei (二黨頭制, lit. 'Two Party Head System') that dominated Chiseian politics from the 1880s to the First Escar-Varunan War, with the Gonshi and Shusumori groups serving as the primary financial backers of the major political factions of the time.

The Zaibochi reached the peak of their power under the Conciliar Government, which eagerly courted industrialists and their family companies to maintain its rule and expedite the remilitarisation of Chisei in the 1920s. However the growing dependence of the Zaibochi on generous government subsidies and favoritism during the interbellum and war years meant that when the military regime began to unravel in the 1950s, many of the largest conglomerates rapidly collapsed in the face of genuine market competition. From the 1960s onwards, the Kokubochi model began to supplant the old system as the Chiseian government encouraged the development of less centralised industrial conglomerates such as Honmyō and Kanayachi to consolidate the fractured remains of the fallen zaibochi.

A few modern Chiseian companies still retain characteristics of the old zaibochi system, including vertical integration and strong family control; the most notable of these are the Chiotanne Group, the Gonshi Group and the Yuba Corporation.