The Post-Bubble Japanese Business System and Globalization: Implications for Japanese Society

In its modern history since the mid-nineteenth century Japan has experienced a number of major events that caused fundamental changes to Japanese society. The Meiji Restoration in 1868 and the end of the Second World War in 1945 are undoubtedly two such events. For example, who was in control of political and economic power in Japan changed a great deal after these two events. At the same time, these events reshaped the feelings of ordinary Japanese people about their life -present and future. The supremacy of the controlling samurai ranks, together with the Japanese caste system, ‘ were formally abolished in the Meiji Restoration, which encouraged the development of free thought and modern entrepreneurship. The Meiji Restoration opened up new possibilities for many Japanese to be connected, in terms of business and otherwise, directly to world affairs. After the Second World War, the major land reforms implemented by the Allied Forces, unprecedented in scale in world history, forced the massive transfer of ownership of agricultural land from landlords to contract farmers. The zaibatsu families,2 who controlled their pyramids of enterprises and possessed much of the political and economic power in prewar Japan, were also disbanded by the Allied Forces.