Globalization, Transnational Corporations and Japanese Fascism

Over the decades, we have spo­ken at great length about the Sec­ond World War and fas­cism as out­growths of glob­al­iza­tion, a phe­nom­e­non gen­er­ally thought of as hav­ing begun in the post World War II period. Most of the dis­cus­sion has cen­tered on the rela­tion­ships between Ger­man and Amer­i­can cor­po­ra­tions and oligarchs.

With both Don­ald Trump and Bernie Sanders tar­get­ing trade agree­ments and glob­al­iza­tion in their cam­paign rhetoric, we review the car­tel rela­tion­ships between the Japan­ese Zaibatsu (fam­ily trusts) and their Amer­i­can coun­ter­parts. As well, we note the cen­tral role of Emperor Hiro­hito in the wag­ing of Japan’s war of aggres­sion and the post-war his­tor­i­cal revi­sion­ism that has eclipsed his activities.

“. . . . America’s oli­garchs had res­cued Japan’s oligarchs. . . .”  (more...)

Globalization, Transnational Corporations and Japanese Fascism

Audio

The sad life of the disenfranchized:

Yakuza gangsters 'forcing homeless people to work on the Fukushima nuclear plant clear-up