system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Final Fantasy VII] How did Shinra become the overwhelmingly powerful political force that it is, when it's supposed to be an electric company?

Is there any backstory on the origins of Shinra? How did they start? When did they start? Did they do anything before they started making Mako Reactors? How did they essentially rise to being the kings of the planet?
gpt
Shinra is based on the Japanese "Zaibatsus". Zaibatsus are basically samurai families from way back in the Meiji era who intermarried with powerful merchants to create powerful families that had both political and monetary power. This meant that when Japan industrialized these families were in the position to both see the changes come and the money to fully exploit it. Said families own the largest and oldest companies in Japan i.e. Mitsubishi. These families also have incredible amounts of political clout and can buy and sell politicians to the point where it makes corruption look like a regular thing. Since they often own crucial parts of industry i.e. fuel, infrastructure development, banks, etc they also have large amounts of influence upon the population directly as well as indirectly via the politicians. They get to this point by diversifying and investing in literally everything, Samsung a Korean version has its fingers in weapons development, banking, construction, technology, entertainment, etc etc. Shinra diversifies following this model almost exactly, gaining more power along the way.

Shinra itself is basically this but in fiction form, many manga and anime also play upon this idea but often in a much more comedic manner. The families in these often have extremely large amounts of power and loaf around but are shown to have the power to make and break nations, Shinra is not so different in that regard.