The Wealth of Zaibatsu Owner Families: The Impact of Zaibatsu Busting in Occupied Japan

Steven Ericson

doi:10.5195/shashi.2021.48

Abstract

Contrary to widely accepted views, the former zaibatsu owner families, despite the drastic reduction in their enormous wealth, emerged from the U.S. Occupation with relatively sizable assets. The Holding Company Liquidation Commission, the Japanese agency that at the direction of Occupation Headquarters (GHQ) seized stocks that the zaibatsu families had held either directly or through their holding companies, worked to protect the families, especially by convincing GHQ to switch compensation from nonnegotiable bonds to cash. Furthermore, in the sale of stocks, the policy of giving purchase priority to zaibatsu company employees appears to have made it possible in some cases for the families to buy back shares and regain control over their former enterprises after 1952. As it turned out, the confiscatory measure was not so much the appropriation of the families’ assets under the GHQ-mandated dissolution of the combines as it was the Japanese government’s own punitive capital levy.

Highlights

Contrary to widely accepted views, the former zaibatsu owner families, despite the drastic reduction in their enormous wealth, emerged from the U.S Occupation with relatively sizable assets
Takanaga would find himself on the list of 56 zaibatsu family members designated in March 1947 by the Holding Company Liquidation Commission (HCLC), the Japanese body that carried out Occupation directives to break up the zaibatsu combines and big companies
In February 1947, he had to declare his taxable assets to the Ministry of Finance under the 1946 capital levy, which would take a full 87 percent of the ¥47 million he reported

Summary

Introduction

Contrary to widely accepted views, the former zaibatsu owner families, despite the drastic reduction in their enormous wealth, emerged from the U.S Occupation with relatively sizable assets.

Results

Conclusion