51–60 of 66 posts
there's a reason that almost every Korean movie or TV show has an underlying theme of extreme economic inequality
The TV most people watch is highly commercialized.
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Environmental determinism hardly stood the test of time, as far as theories go.
I'm curious to know more. Sure, they're not well-tested theories and never will be, given their nature, but broadly it seems to track. The powerful forces of climate and geography on a people's culture and the effect of that culture compounded over generations seem at least an adequate explanation between the wealth gap of equatorial countries and those in colder climes.
there's a reason that almost every Korean movie or TV show has an underlying theme of extreme economic inequality
Not necessarily. I have been told that the stuff that gets play over in the US is a pretty niche category in Korea. The TV most people watch is highly commercialized.
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> The Park government provided these capitalists promotional privileges—particularly cheap credit from state-owned banks and monopoly privileges in local markets—to grow their firms Sounds to me like the losers were Koreans whose businesses were crushed by an unequal playing field. Had there been true competition, who is to say there wouldn't be more thriving and innovative businesses in Korea?
Certainly smaller businesses in Korea do poorly. Maybe there is a generation of startups we are missing. Samsung though, is leading the world in a number of areas. It makes processor chips, it makes flash memory. I think it's the only important cell phone brand other than Apple that isn't based in China. It wins in areas where (say) Sony fails. People in the US might ask why there are no heavy forges in the US but th…
As a result they occupy only a tiny niche of the market but they keep going on as they are. Like they don't even care.
It's a shame because they made great stuff. My Z4 Tablet with its Bluetooth laptop dock is the most useful mini laptop I've ever had. Never saw a successor though :'(
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The article lists Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Thailand is doing very well. Malaysia has done ok. Indonesia has ups and downs, but is better than you might think. And don't forget that China has been very successful building societal wealth amid corruption so deep it is almost official. The model has other successes. But the one thing South Korea had over all of them: the USA. The ROK was a US garrison state, a…
The economist had an article on how Indonesia is the next economic powerhouse https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/11/17/why-indonesia-m...
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South Korea have a fairly direct threat of invasion that at least somewhat limits how dysfunctional the elites can be without the risk of facing consequences themselves. Taiwan, Finland, Israel and so on.
1. American presence in the DMZ is an immediate no-go when it comes to a plausible 'threat of invasion'. 2. Even if the US were not involved - If you think Russia invading Ukraine is a debacle, don't think too much about what North Korea trying to invade South Korea would look like.
They’ve literally murdered people in DMZ and have sent special forces multiple times to assassinate presidents. Not to mention artillery fire on a village fairly recently.
Nowadays no one thinks NK could invade but it was certainly a plausible threat until 80s.
> In most places in the world, corruption tends to be growth-reducing, but this is much less true in East and Southeast Asia, where it tends to be growth-enhancing. This is a pretty astonishing claim. The richest place in Asia is famously corruption-free Singapore, and it's blatantly obvious that corruption has held back neighboring countries like Malaysia (billions embezzled from 1MDB), Philippines, Indonesia, Thail…
the claim is also ridiculous. the special benefits given to a few "capitalist" firms could have been done without kickbacks to politicians...
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I'm curious to know more. Sure, they're not well-tested theories and never will be, given their nature, but broadly it seems to track. The powerful forces of climate and geography on a people's culture and the effect of that culture compounded over generations seem at least an adequate explanation between the wealth gap of equatorial countries and those in colder climes.
but the wealth gap only started in the last 600 years or so. why didn't it "track" the other 6000 years between 5000BC and 1000-1300AD when science, philosophy, and literature were dominated by the mesopotamians, egyptians, indians, chinese, ummayads, persians, byzantines, ottomans?
Perhaps it's more accurate to say that this factor is conducive to forming empires, not just cultures. Of the four classical cradles of civilization (China, Egypt, India, Mesopotamia), only half fit this winter criterion, so it's clearly not a prohibitive factor for the formation of a civilization; perhaps just for its technological development and dominion over others.