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> "South Korea actually has a rather high income per capita — $24,000 — and the average monthly salary for a factory worker is $2000 per month." South Korea is

by nhebb 14y ago

> "South Korea actually has a rather high income per capita — $24,000 — and the average monthly salary for a factory worker is $2000 per month." South Korea is an economic miracle. Back in 1985 I ran out of money half-way through college and enlisted in the US Army for the college fund (plus they repaid my existing student loans, which was a nice deal). I got stationed in S. Korea and became friends with a number of KATUSA soldiers. KATUSA stood for Korean Augmentation to the US Army, and was mostly college students fulfilling their service requirement. Quite a few of my KATUSA friends were engineering students like myself. They told me that the average starting salary for an engineer was $400 / month. So when I see that 25 years later, the average factory worker is making 5 times that amount, it's truly stunning. As a side note, when I was there, most of the cars on the road were new. It wasn't because everyone could afford to ditch their old cars and buy new ones. It was because prior to that period, not many people could to afford to buy any car, so there simply weren't many old ones. And their products were crap. Buy a TV, VCR, or other electronic device, and they often failed out of the box. Pop open the hood of a Korean car and you half expected to see a squirrel on a tread mill. But they keep plugging away, improving quality, and growing their markets. Today, I buy Korean products with confidence. People talks about the rise of China, but to me, with factory salaries at $2000/month, South Korea is the more impressive success story in the developing world.

jiggy2011 14y ago
Indeed, I know a few people these days who are choosing KIA cars over alternatives from VW or BMW for reasons of reliability and build quality.
Symmetry 14y ago
Japan, Korea, and China are really just three countries at different places on the same road. There was a time in the 20th century when the story of Japan was young people moving from the countryside to work in sweatshops taking in raw Chinese silk and turning it into spools. But the workers were paid more than they'd get on the farm, and the capitalists accumulated capital, and the supply of surplus labor was absorbed, and by WWII Japan was in more or less the relative position that Korea is now. And China seems to be in more or less the same position that Korea was under Park[1]. Of course, China has this huge hinterland that wasn't there in South Korea, and there's nothing saying that China's political evolution will look like South Korea's (hopefully it won't look like Japan's). But its engaging in almost exactly the same sort of export led growth under an authoritarian government. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Republic_of_South_Korea http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Republic_of_South_Korea
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  > China has this huge hinterland that wasn't there in South Korea Exactly. China can't solely depend on export for its growth, like South Korea did. That will make its development quite a bit slower, not to mention more difficult. Parts of the country will become developed first (this has already significantly happened in Beijing and Shanghai), and then bring the rest of the country up. In the process, there will be significant economic disparities, which has the potential to rupture the social fabric.
- toemetoch 14y ago
  There was a program on BBC2 recently [2] of a business owner with textile factories in both China & the UK. One of the illustrations they made was an increase in pay in China (something like 3-fold in recent years IIRC). The employees over there were getting quite vocal, they'd go to the office and demand a 50% increase or walk away. There were also markets were employers would advertise their business, job seekers compared pay and extras. One of the things that stood out most were the worker's clothes & haircut: colorful, modern, trendy. [2] The town Taking on China http://bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01hn6l8 http://bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01hn6l8
- ced 14y ago
  hopefully it won't look like Japan's I'm curious: what's wrong with Japanese politics?
  - Symmetry 14y ago
    These days? Nothing much. When they had half-finished industrializing? They were a totalitarian state that invaded its neighbors and launched a surprise attach on the US to keep us from intervening. Lets call that the worst case scenario.
parimm 14y ago
The same thing is happening in the major manufacturing hubs of India, ten years ago the salary of an unskilled laborer was around $1.50/day today it is around $8 per day

by nhebb 14y ago

jiggy2011 14y ago

Indeed, I know a few people these days who are choosing KIA cars over alternatives from VW or BMW for reasons of reliability and build quality.

Symmetry 14y ago

Japan, Korea, and China are really just three countries at different places on the same road. There was a time in the 20th century when the story of Japan was young people moving from the countryside to work in sweatshops taking in raw Chinese silk and turning it into spools. But the workers were paid more than they'd get on the farm, and the capitalists accumulated capital, and the supply of surplus labor was absorbed, and by WWII Japan was in more or less the relative position that Korea is now. And China seems to be in more or less the same position that Korea was under Park[1]. Of course, China has this huge hinterland that wasn't there in South Korea, and there's nothing saying that China's political evolution will look like South Korea's (hopefully it won't look like Japan's). But its engaging in almost exactly the same sort of export led growth under an authoritarian government. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Republic_of_South_Korea http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Republic_of_South_Korea

w1ntermute 14y ago
> China has this huge hinterland that wasn't there in South Korea Exactly. China can't solely depend on export for its growth, like South Korea did. That will make its development quite a bit slower, not to mention more difficult. Parts of the country will become developed first (this has already significantly happened in Beijing and Shanghai), and then bring the rest of the country up. In the process, there will be significant economic disparities, which has the potential to rupture the social fabric.
toemetoch 14y ago
There was a program on BBC2 recently [2] of a business owner with textile factories in both China & the UK. One of the illustrations they made was an increase in pay in China (something like 3-fold in recent years IIRC). The employees over there were getting quite vocal, they'd go to the office and demand a 50% increase or walk away. There were also markets were employers would advertise their business, job seekers compared pay and extras. One of the things that stood out most were the worker's clothes & haircut: colorful, modern, trendy. [2] The town Taking on China http://bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01hn6l8 http://bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01hn6l8
ced 14y ago
hopefully it won't look like Japan's I'm curious: what's wrong with Japanese politics?
- Symmetry 14y ago
  These days? Nothing much. When they had half-finished industrializing? They were a totalitarian state that invaded its neighbors and launched a surprise attach on the US to keep us from intervening. Lets call that the worst case scenario.

parimm 14y ago

The same thing is happening in the major manufacturing hubs of India, ten years ago the salary of an unskilled laborer was around $1.50/day today it is around $8 per day