For Western economists and journalists, the most distinctive facet of the post-war Japanese business world has been the keiretsu, or the insular business alliances among powerful corporations. Within keiretsu groups, argue these observers, firms preferentially trade, lend money, take and receive...

Most of what we collectively think we know about the Japanese economy is urban legend. In fact: - The keiretsu do not exist, and never did. An entrepreneurial research institute in the 1950s created the rosters to sell to Marxist economists looking for the monopoly capital that their theory told...