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South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

nationalinterest.org

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Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#81

Post by refurb »

ceejayoz wrote: post #23
nwienert wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s no problem with low birth rates, this is a meme that is told by a few economists and yet a very slight depopulation is not only survivable but has upsides as well and so far both South Korea and Japan (for going on three decades) have maintained incredibly competitive across nearly all metrics, certainly far better off than the US in so many ways. I got in an extensive debate over this with statistics a few m…

It's another offshoot of the "growth at all costs!" mentality you see in Wall Street and governments.

What do you think pays for your healthcare, public pensions, infrastructure as your population ages out of the workforce?

The Grenadier Guards?

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#82

Post by WanderPanda »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #13
calmd wrote: post #7

SK is committing demographic suicide though, so whatever you think of its success, it has a pretty fatal disease. It has the lowest birthrate in the world. This is going to cause significant economic problems quite soon, or they will have to open up massive immigration which will completely change the country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_birth_rate_in_South_Korea How does the developed world pull out of this ty…

> going to be one of the grand challenges of the 50 years I’m sceptical of this claim. Demand per capita grows unabated. Working lives are lengthening. A smaller population living well is economically indistinguishable, in the aggregate, from a large one living poorly. Maybe post-industrial civilisations settle into a lower-population steady state than ones requiring lots of unrefined labor. Yes, dependency ratios wi…

IMO Science and technology is a max() operator on the peoples ideas. Also, division of labour should go down in a smaller population, so I think this is far from linear in reality and a population collapse can be actually devastating

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#83

Post by thow-01187 »

calmd wrote: post #7

SK is committing demographic suicide though, so whatever you think of its success, it has a pretty fatal disease. It has the lowest birthrate in the world. This is going to cause significant economic problems quite soon, or they will have to open up massive immigration which will completely change the country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_birth_rate_in_South_Korea How does the developed world pull out of this ty…

I'm continually amazed how this isn't #1 topic on governments' agenda across the developed world. We're looking at South Korea losing 95% of its generational cohort size in 100-year timeframe. 80% for Japan or Italy, 70% for Germany, etc. Climate change is on everyone's mind - but what's the point of solving climate change if there's barely anyone left to inherit the planet?

Black Death, Mongols, world wars, not even intentional genocides managed to inflict this level of population loss. And it's met with yawns and shrugs, as if it's unavoidable like gravity.

And no - people's desire to have children hasn't dropped all that much:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/13/upshot/american-fertility...

https://www.oecd.org/els/family/SF_2_2-Ideal-actual-number-c...

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#84

Post by Danieru »

eatonphil wrote: post #25
someperson wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

South Korea, Taiwan, and China all developed their infrastructure relatively recently, so it makes sense that their skyscrapers and subway systems are gleaming. Fast forward 50 years (once the demographic collapse has fully hit Asia and Europe), and we'll see if their infrastructure continues to be so modern.

Yes but compared to Japan? All of Asia started from scratch after WW2 and Korea was only 10 years behind Japan due to their war. But Tokyo infrastructure felt basically as old as NYC infrastructure to me (a totally qualitative impression). That said, Tokyo is massively cleaner and nicer than NYC even if some of the infrastructure seems old. There is no question it is nicer than NYC.

> But Tokyo infrastructure felt basically as old as NYC infrastructure to me

In part because it is, most of Tokyo's major subway lines were built in the 1960s to 1970s. Ginza line was built before WW1 and was the first subway in Asia.

The highways were all built soon after the war too.

Thus part of the issue is age. Japan stabilized much sooner than Korea and built up faster.

A bigger component though is Japan's preference to build new then let sit. Maintenance for visual reasons is rare. Thus combined with the high humidity stuff rusts and molds. You can see rust on iron beams waiting at the JR platform in Shibuya! Literal rust on one of the most high traffic stations in the world with gleaming skyscrappers as your backdrop.

In part Japan feels like a retired country. All the heavy lifting has been done. The mortgage paid. I joke with friends we are young people in an old country. Everything around us is going into the night, and we are just now waking up.

I like it, but I can see why others would prefer a newer country.

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#85

Post by nwienert »

refurb wrote: post #81
ceejayoz wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's another offshoot of the "growth at all costs!" mentality you see in Wall Street and governments.

What do you think pays for your healthcare, public pensions, infrastructure as your population ages out of the workforce? The Grenadier Guards?

As long as gov spending per capita is not near or above income (ie, responsible fiscal policy) and you don't over-inflate, there's no reason you can't support all this with declining population.

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#86

Post by kayone »

dotcommand wrote: post #71

All of these kind of propaganda is the same. But nationalinterest is a propaganda outlet and the author "is a Member on the policy advisory boards of the Ministry of Unification, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the National Assembly's Committee on Unification, Diplomacy, and Trade." Without reading the article - "Western" values/democracy, "liberal values" and lgbt. I guarantee it. First…

it's absolutely amazing that you are criticizing someone else for pushing an agenda. Please enlighten us, wtf is the lgbt agenda. it sounds scary.

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#87

Post by mathverse »

jonpurdy wrote: post #74
nerdponx wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a professional in this field at all, but my personal experience suggests that we need more smaller cities, more densely connected, or perhaps more and smaller "downtown" areas within a single city. Then people could have a bit more personal space (less geographic concentration reduces demand and price pressure in specific areas), while keeping density and interconnectedness high to support mass transit, walk…

You are describing Seoul and Tokyo perfectly. Despite having tens of millions of people and average densities much higher than most cities, they’re both among the most livable cities in the world. Both of them inherited pre-war street layouts (in Tokyo’s case, despite being bombed, the layouts stayed the same). So neighbourhoods have narrow streets which makes them safer to walk (due to cars needing to drive slowly)…

I dont find them particularly livable.Yeah maybe when you are in your 20-later 30s then they are livable but they are absolutely dreadful when it comes to having a family.

All that convenience that you see is there because of that fast paced life style people have.

Source: Married to korean and lived in Korea.

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#88

Post by ceejayoz »

ptsneves wrote: post #80
ceejayoz wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We are not making this decision completely willingly, it is more just happening and it is out of the governments control. To me this means it is risky, and can we pull out of it? How do we pull out of this shrinkage? Isn't all this equally true of population growth as well as shrinkage?

No. Major population growth has been happening since the times of the new world migration. The only major time i can think of where there were major depopulation events are in the times of the Fertile Crescent civilizations and perhaps in Asia in Angkor Wat. In both of the scenarios this massive depopulation led to the extinction of those civilizations.

> No. Major population growth has been happening since the times of the new world migration.

Nah, at least not of this magnitude. The world's population only hit a billion at about 1800, two billion around WWII. We're now at nearly eight. The idea that we understand all the consequences of that is silly; we're only just recently starting to understand the climate change aspect of it.

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#89

Post by aikinai »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #79
aikinai wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither of these apply to Japan, especially Japan decades ago when their birthrate fell to around the current rate. So that’s a pretty strong data point against these theories being key factors.

What? 1. Yes, obviously Japan housing prices have fallen from their insane 90s peak, but housing is still very expensive in Japan, and especially in urban areas where most Japanese (especially younger Japanese) live, space is famously at a premium. 2. I can barely count the number of times I've read articles on the reasons Japanese women don't want to get married. Unlike some Western nations, there is still a cultura…

1. Space is limited, but always has been. Housing at the scale and quality expected in Japan is still very affordable and isn’t correlated with birthrate. This one is easy to disprove.

2. The reasons you listed are completely different from the one I responded to, and these are certainly potential factors. At least they’re often considered reasonable suspects in Japan.

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#90

Post by ptsneves »

throwaway4good wrote: post #33

Funny how the article doesn’t mention that Korea is a divided country technically still at war. Besides the development of modern South Korea out of a brutal military dictatorship is largely parallel to that of other Asian countries: Taiwan, Singapore, Japan and China.

The article title explicitly calls out South Korea.

The country is also recognized as sovereign nation by more than 188 countries, having a seat in the United Nations as well.

Territorial disputes are common even in Europe, as well as developments out of brutal dictatorship. I honestly do not get your point :)

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