A keiretsu is a set of companies with interlocking business relationships and shareholdings that dominated the Japanese economy in the second half of the 20th century. In the legal sense, it is a type of business group that is in a loosely organized alliance within Japan's business community. It rose up to replace the zaibatsu system that was dissolved in the occupation of Japan following the Second World War. Though their influence has shrunk since the late 20th century, they continue to be important forces in Japan's economy in the early 21st century.
A monopoly is a market in which one person or company is the only supplier of a particular good or service. A monopoly is characterized by a lack of economic competition to produce a particular thing, a lack of viable substitute goods, and the possibility of a high monopoly price well above the seller's marginal cost that leads to a high monopoly profit. The verb monopolise or monopolize refers to the process by which a company gains the ability to raise prices or exclude competitors. In economics, a monopoly is a single seller. In law, a monopoly is a business entity that has significant market power, that is, the power to charge overly high prices, which is associated with unfair price raises. Although monopolies may be big businesses, size is not a characteristic of a monopoly. A small business may still have the power to raise prices in a small industry.
Big business involves large-scale corporate-controlled financial or business activities. As a term, it describes activities that run from "huge transactions" to the more general "doing big things". In corporate jargon, the concept is commonly known as enterprise, or activities involving enterprise customers.
Liberalization or liberalisation is a broad term that refers to the practice of making laws, systems, or opinions less severe, usually in the sense of eliminating certain government regulations or restrictions. The term is used most often in relation to economics, where it refers to economic liberalization, the removal or reduction of restrictions placed upon economic activity. However, liberalization can also be used as a synonym for decriminalization or legalization, for example when describing drug liberalization.
Zaibatsu is a Japanese term referring to industrial and financial vertically integrated business conglomerates in the Empire of Japan, whose influence and size allowed control over significant parts of the Japanese economy from the Meiji period to World War II. A zaibatsu's general structure included a family-owned holding company on top, and a bank which financed the other, mostly industrial subsidiaries within them. Although the zaibatsu played an important role in the Japanese economy beginning in 1868, they especially increased in number and importance following the Russo-Japanese War, World War I, and Japan's subsequent attempt to conquer East Asia and the Pacific Rim during the interwar period and World War II. After World War II, they were dissolved by the Allied occupation forces and succeeded by the keiretsu. Equivalents to the zaibatsu can still be found in other countries, such as the chaebol conglomerates of South Korea.
Mitsui Group is a Japanese corporate group and keiretsu that traces its roots to the zaibatsu groups that were dissolved after World War II. Unlike the zaibatsu of the pre-war period, there is no controlling company with regulatory power. Instead, the companies in the group hold shares in each other, but they are limited to exchanging information and coordinating plans through regular meetings.
A chaebol is a large industrial South Korean conglomerate run and controlled by an individual or family. A chaebol often consists of multiple diversified affiliates, controlled by a person or group. Several dozen large South Korean family-controlled corporate groups fall under this definition. The term first appeared in English text in 1972.
In economics, market power refers to the ability of a firm to influence the price at which it sells a product or service by manipulating either the supply or demand of the product or service to increase economic profit. In other words, market power occurs if a firm does not face a perfectly elastic demand curve and can set its price (P) above marginal cost (MC) without losing revenue. This indicates that the magnitude of market power is associated with the gap between P and MC at a firm's profit maximising level of output. The size of the gap, which encapsulates the firm's level of market dominance, is determined by the residual demand curve's form. A steeper reverse demand indicates higher earnings and more dominance in the market. Such propensities contradict perfectly competitive markets, where market participants have no market power, P = MC and firms earn zero economic profit. Market participants in perfectly competitive markets are consequently referred to as 'price takers', whereas market participants that exhibit market power are referred to as 'price makers' or 'price setters'.
The Sumitomo Group is a Japanese corporate group and keiretsu that traces its roots to the zaibatsu groups that were dissolved after World War II. Unlike the zaibatsu of the pre-war period, there is no controlling company with regulatory power. Instead, the companies in the group hold shares in each other, but they are limited to exchanging information and coordinating plans through regular meetings.
The RAMJAC Corporation is a fictional multinational conglomerate, or megacorp, featured in several novels by Kurt Vonnegut. In Vonnegut's 1979 novel, Jailbird, the company, at its height, owns 19 percent of the United States, twice as large as the next largest conglomerate in the "Free World". Copyrights on Vonnegut's later books are also held by RAMJAC, much like Isaac Asimov's later copyrights are held by Nightfall, Inc..
Corporate statism, state corporatism, or simply corporatism, is a political culture and a form of corporatism the proponents of which claim or believe that corporate groups should form the basis of society and the state. By this principle, the state requires all citizens to belong to one of several officially designated interest groups, which consequently have great control of their members. Such interest groups thus attain public status, and they or their representatives participate with national policymaking, at least formally.
The engine of Japanese economic growth has been private initiative and enterprise, together with strong support and guidance from the government and from labor. The most numerous enterprises were single proprietorships, of which there were more than 4 million in the late 1980s. The dominant form of organization, however, is the corporation. In 1988 some 2 million corporations employed more than 30 million workers, or nearly half of the total labor force of 60.1 million people. Corporations range from large to small, but the favored type of organization is the joint-stock company, with directors, auditors, and yearly stockholders' meetings.
Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price is a 2005 documentary film by director Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films about the American multinational corporation and retail conglomerate Walmart. The film presents a negative picture of Walmart's business practices through interviews with former employees, small business owners, and footage of Walmart executives. Greenwald also uses statistics interspersed between interview footage, to provide an objective analysis of the effects Walmart has on individuals and communities.
Uni-Mart was a Pennsylvania-based company that owned, operated and franchised numerous convenience stores in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States (US). In 2008, the company operated 283 convenience stores and gas stations in the US states of Pennsylvania, New York and Ohio, and, as of 1995, its annual sales totaled $327.01 million. Henry Sahakian was Uni-Mart's founder and, as of 1997, the company consisted of 2,700 employees.
The PJSC United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) is a Russian aerospace and defense corporation. With a majority stake belonging to the Russian government, it consolidates Russian private and state-owned aircraft manufacturing companies and assets engaged in the manufacture, design, and sale of military, civilian, transport, and unmanned aircraft. Its corporate office is at Leningradsky Avenue, Khoroshyovsky District, Moscow.
Free-market roads is the idea that it is possible and desirable for a society to have entirely private roads.
Megacorpstate is a form of market structure that designs new strategies to systematize the cartel power in the world. This particular market framework consists of oligopolistic interdependent nations-states and multinational corporations, which have established alliance to own majority of the market power. The most prominent organizations within the structure are OPEC and the Seven Sisters that include Exxon, Mobil, Socal, Royal Dutch-Shell, BP, Texaco and Gulf. Regardless of its great influence, Megacorpstate does not have a major recognition in the world. The main reason for its unfamiliarity is its disinclination to characterize itself as a separate market structure.
RoboCop is an American cyberpunk action media franchise featuring the futuristic adventures of Alex Murphy, a Detroit, Michigan police officer, who is fatally wounded in the line of duty and transformed into a powerful cyborg, brand-named RoboCop, at the behest of a powerful mega-corporation, Omni Consumer Products. Thus equipped, Murphy battles both violent crime in a severely decayed city and the blatantly corrupt machinations within OCP.
An evil corporation is a trope in popular culture that portrays a corporation as ignoring social responsibility, morality, ethics, and sometimes laws in order to make profit for its shareholders. In rare cases, the corporation may be well intentioned but extremist, engaging in noble cause corruption.
Shadowrun is a science fantasy tabletop role-playing game set in an alternate future in which cybernetics, magic and fantasy creatures co-exist. It combines genres of cyberpunk, urban fantasy, and crime, with occasional elements of conspiracy, horror, and detective fiction. From its inception in 1989, it has spawned a franchise that includes a series of novels, a collectible card game, two miniature-based tabletop wargames, and multiple video games.
