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South Korea was fortunate in that its second dictator, despite being an utterly despicable human shitbag, had a knack for economic development (or maybe he had

South Korea was fortunate in that its second dictator, despite being an utterly despicable human shitbag, had a knack for economic development (or maybe he had good economic aides - I don't know). However, its 60s economic system was about as capitalist as 90s China - it was built upon massive government projects to boost export, allocated to large corporations, and the government repressed wages and crushed labor unions so that these corporations could stay competitive. In fact there were strong parallels to the Soviet economic plans, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-Year_Plans_of_South_Korea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-Year_Plans_of_South_Korea vs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-year_plans_of_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-year_plans_of_the_Soviet_...

cpleppert 5y ago
There has been a lot of studies into the economic performance of south korea and the other asian tigers compared to latin american countries that had similar levels of economic development after WWII and one commonality is the inability of government subsidies to influence export success. A product exported on the global market by a country desperate for foreign investment probably doesn't have the means to gain a competitive advantage through direct capital investment or subsidies. Of course, a country can always be competitive by keeping wages low (probably artificially low in south korea) but I think south korea and the other asian tigers got a lot of things right that aren't comparable to how mainland china approached economic reform. Besides being of a duration of five years there isn't a lot in common the economic planning of the soviet union and south korea in the aftermath of the Korean war. The soviet union's plans controlled the allocation of almost every resource and good in the economy and its ultimate price. South Korea's planning was mostly limited to guiding government investment and lacked the policy levers available to Gosplan.

cpleppert 5y ago

There has been a lot of studies into the economic performance of south korea and the other asian tigers compared to latin american countries that had similar levels of economic development after WWII and one commonality is the inability of government subsidies to influence export success. A product exported on the global market by a country desperate for foreign investment probably doesn't have the means to gain a competitive advantage through direct capital investment or subsidies. Of course, a country can always be competitive by keeping wages low (probably artificially low in south korea) but I think south korea and the other asian tigers got a lot of things right that aren't comparable to how mainland china approached economic reform. Besides being of a duration of five years there isn't a lot in common the economic planning of the soviet union and south korea in the aftermath of the Korean war. The soviet union's plans controlled the allocation of almost every resource and good in the economy and its ultimate price. South Korea's planning was mostly limited to guiding government investment and lacked the policy levers available to Gosplan.