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The formula is pretty simple. The US not only allowed South Korea to pursue export oriented industrialization, it actively encouraged it. It saw South Korea as
by pydry 4y ago
The formula is pretty simple. The US not only allowed South Korea to pursue export oriented industrialization, it actively encouraged it. It saw South Korea as a military bulwark against the Soviet Union.
Why can't every country follow in its footsteps? Well, some did and were encouraged for similar reasons. Taiwan, Japan, etc.
However, without preferential access to the markets of the world's richest nation(s), export oriented industrialization becomes very difficult if not impossible. You cant incrementally build up your car export industry if you can't sell your cars. This is, broadly speaking, why we have a Daewoo but no equivalent for, say, Ethiopia.
The US generally prefers not to encourage EOI. It usually prefers to stripmine poor 3rd world countries and sell luxuries to their elites instead.
- mathverse 4y agoIt's a combination of a lot of factors. Access to a rich market is one thing but protecting your own markets against much stronger competition is another. South Korea was a mercantilist nation and it protected its core industries in the early stages. That's why companies in traditional industries (construction,banking,insurance,food etc etc) in Korea are still mostly Korean when in Eastern Europe they are German,French,Italian etc etc
- pydry 4y ago>protecting your own marketing against much stronger competition is another. That's the whole point. Most countries that do this are locked out of rich markets. They're said to be competing "unfairly". They know mercantilism works they just can't practice it without being slapped with countervailing tariffs. It was US policy both to allow and encourage mercantilism for South Korea because that meant it could function as a military bulwark against the communist nations surrounding it.
- zozbot234 4y agoThey're not locked out, they just might have to pay retaliatory tariffs. The whole issue is countries that institute such mercantile tariffs in the first place tend to be exactly the ones where elites do not believe in export-driven growth, and pursue failing top-down schemes that increase their own petty influence within those same countries.
- pydry 4y ago>they just might have to pay retaliatory tariffs. That was, again, the whole point. A nascent Hyundai + retaliatory tarriffs => no Hyundai => South Korea remains 3rd world
- zozbot234 4y ago> A nascent Hyundai + retaliatory tarriffs => no Hyundai Says who? Plenty of countries successfully pursued industrialization in the 19th and early 20th century, back when tariffs were the norm.