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It's not just presidents. You can't go from receiving foreign aid from Ethiopia one day to being a glittering rich megalopolis the next day without a culture of

It's not just presidents. You can't go from receiving foreign aid from Ethiopia one day to being a glittering rich megalopolis the next day without a culture of corruption, nepotism, and selfishness sticking around for a few generations afterward. The good news is every year things improve by a huge %. Younger Koreans are more and more honest, reasonable, kind-hearted and selfless. Just give it another generation or two.

randallsquared 2y ago
> You can't go from receiving foreign aid from Ethiopia one day to being a glittering rich megalopolis the next day without a culture of corruption What? Corruption would be a drag on economic growth, not a boost to it...
- Joker_vD 2y ago
  There has actually been quite a number of studies like Abstract: Several cross-country studies have found that corruption is detrimental to economic growth, but the findings are not universally robust. We utilize the economic freedom index to examine if corruption can facilitate growth by allowing entrepreneurs to avoid inefficient policies and regulations when economic freedom is limited. Using regression analysis, we find that corruption is growth enhancing when economic freedom is most limited but the beneficial impact of corruption decreases as economic freedom increases. Not all areas of economic freedom affect the corruption-growth relationship equally. In particular, we find that when we analyze individual areas of economic freedom the beneficial effect of corruption disappears most quickly when the size of government and the extent of regulation decrease. But whether they're valid or not, I can't say.
  - xeonmc 2y ago
    See: Middle East
- unsupp0rted 2y ago
  Korea didn't become prosperous "because of" corruption and nepotism necessarily, but at least "in addition to". And now that it is prosperous and the rising tide has lifted all ships, it'll be a few more generations before they can largely clean up the corruption and nepotism that has been along for the ride.
xeonmc 2y ago
> Just give it another generation or two Until they go extinct?
saturn8601 2y ago
That sounds great but it makes you wonder, how are they going to solve their extremely bad birth rate? Within one generation they will be back to 1950s population levels. Would it matter if they shed the corruption and chaebols (which is an amazing accomplishment if it comes true) if there is no one around to see it? [1]:https://www.populationpyramid.net/republic-of-korea/2023/ https://www.populationpyramid.net/republic-of-korea/2023/ I guess unique challenges will call for unique solutions. Maybe 50% of the population of 2100 will be robots or something and we will be living in Star Wars.
- alephnerd 2y ago
  > how are they going to solve their extremely bad birth rate A Gulf-style exploitative guest workers program with migrants from Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines, Nepal, etc doing (literal) shit jobs. This is already the norm in Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, and similar abuses to those that happen in the Gulf happen as well, but just don't get reported in English language media. It's ironic because Koreans used to be bottom tier guest workers in Saudi and Gulf back in the 1980s and up to the 2000s
  - saturn8601 2y ago
    I could see it, all the countries listed either will plateau in the 2050s or have healthy population graphs that will keep them going till 2100. However all of them are on the upswing right now so why would people from those countries immigrate to Korea? I'd imagine the US slurps up their best and brightest and the remainder get picked up by whatever western country gives them the best deal + many will want to stay in their country as they are all on a positive trajectory.
    - alephnerd 2y ago
      > However all of them are on the upswing right now They are better than they were 10 years ago, but the bottom half of society still earns peanuts. This is the same reason why you still see Chinese migrant workers in Korea and Japan as well, like the 20 that died when that battery factory in SK burnt down a couple months ago [0] The brutal reality is that GDP growth doesn't fully equate to growth in developmental standards. As long as a janitor in a developed country can earn more than a college graduate in a developing country, the arbitrage will continue. For example, a specialist doctor (extremely selective - you only get 1 chance to apply) in Vietnam who doesn't specialize in something plastic surgery adjacent will end up only earning around $1,000-$1,500 a month in Saigon working 60 hour weeks with only 1 day off. That's why my SO left for the US. Yet she was still better off than most Vietnamese - who would be working 70-80 hours earning maybe $100-$300/mo at most in a factory, running a stall, or working in the service industry. At the end of the day, the median household income in all the countries I listed remain below the $500/mo mark, so there is and will remain a reservoir of desperate people for the foreseeable future. [0] - https://apnews.com/article/south-korea-lithium-battery-factory-fire-chinese-workers-ac55d1ae148c6b9b1b98780272a2f147 https://apnews.com/article/south-korea-lithium-battery-facto...

randallsquared 2y ago

> You can't go from receiving foreign aid from Ethiopia one day to being a glittering rich megalopolis the next day without a culture of corruption What? Corruption would be a drag on economic growth, not a boost to it...

Joker_vD 2y ago
There has actually been quite a number of studies like Abstract: Several cross-country studies have found that corruption is detrimental to economic growth, but the findings are not universally robust. We utilize the economic freedom index to examine if corruption can facilitate growth by allowing entrepreneurs to avoid inefficient policies and regulations when economic freedom is limited. Using regression analysis, we find that corruption is growth enhancing when economic freedom is most limited but the beneficial impact of corruption decreases as economic freedom increases. Not all areas of economic freedom affect the corruption-growth relationship equally. In particular, we find that when we analyze individual areas of economic freedom the beneficial effect of corruption disappears most quickly when the size of government and the extent of regulation decrease. But whether they're valid or not, I can't say.
- xeonmc 2y ago
  See: Middle East
unsupp0rted 2y ago
Korea didn't become prosperous "because of" corruption and nepotism necessarily, but at least "in addition to". And now that it is prosperous and the rising tide has lifted all ships, it'll be a few more generations before they can largely clean up the corruption and nepotism that has been along for the ride.

xeonmc 2y ago

> Just give it another generation or two Until they go extinct?

saturn8601 2y ago

That sounds great but it makes you wonder, how are they going to solve their extremely bad birth rate? Within one generation they will be back to 1950s population levels. Would it matter if they shed the corruption and chaebols (which is an amazing accomplishment if it comes true) if there is no one around to see it? [1]:https://www.populationpyramid.net/republic-of-korea/2023/ https://www.populationpyramid.net/republic-of-korea/2023/ I guess unique challenges will call for unique solutions. Maybe 50% of the population of 2100 will be robots or something and we will be living in Star Wars.

alephnerd 2y ago
> how are they going to solve their extremely bad birth rate A Gulf-style exploitative guest workers program with migrants from Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines, Nepal, etc doing (literal) shit jobs. This is already the norm in Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, and similar abuses to those that happen in the Gulf happen as well, but just don't get reported in English language media. It's ironic because Koreans used to be bottom tier guest workers in Saudi and Gulf back in the 1980s and up to the 2000s
- saturn8601 2y ago
  I could see it, all the countries listed either will plateau in the 2050s or have healthy population graphs that will keep them going till 2100. However all of them are on the upswing right now so why would people from those countries immigrate to Korea? I'd imagine the US slurps up their best and brightest and the remainder get picked up by whatever western country gives them the best deal + many will want to stay in their country as they are all on a positive trajectory.
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    > However all of them are on the upswing right now They are better than they were 10 years ago, but the bottom half of society still earns peanuts. This is the same reason why you still see Chinese migrant workers in Korea and Japan as well, like the 20 that died when that battery factory in SK burnt down a couple months ago [0] The brutal reality is that GDP growth doesn't fully equate to growth in developmental standards. As long as a janitor in a developed country can earn more than a college graduate in a developing country, the arbitrage will continue. For example, a specialist doctor (extremely selective - you only get 1 chance to apply) in Vietnam who doesn't specialize in something plastic surgery adjacent will end up only earning around $1,000-$1,500 a month in Saigon working 60 hour weeks with only 1 day off. That's why my SO left for the US. Yet she was still better off than most Vietnamese - who would be working 70-80 hours earning maybe $100-$300/mo at most in a factory, running a stall, or working in the service industry. At the end of the day, the median household income in all the countries I listed remain below the $500/mo mark, so there is and will remain a reservoir of desperate people for the foreseeable future. [0] - https://apnews.com/article/south-korea-lithium-battery-factory-fire-chinese-workers-ac55d1ae148c6b9b1b98780272a2f147 https://apnews.com/article/south-korea-lithium-battery-facto...