Korea bro here.
I think IQ explains it.
Jews have the highest IQ.
The next is Korean, and then Chinese or Japanese.
Growth miracle is proportional to IQ.
How did South Korea get so rich?
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Leftists would probably regard me as a down-the-line neoliberal, but I have to say that you're embarrassing yourselves if you think that South Korea's success is a clear example of the success of free-market capitalism. Yes, it demonstrates that a mostly capitalist system is superior to the hellish, statist repression to the North. But South Korea's economic policy during the boom was remarkably interventionist -- if you want a clear example of successful lassiez-faire in the second half of the 20th century, you should be looking at Hong Kong, certainly not Korea.
Here are some features of Korean policy under Park Chung Hee:
-- Completely repressed financial markets, with the landscape dominated by domestic banks effectively controlled by the government. No serious public equity or bond markets. Massive curbs on foreign capital. Nonconvertible won. Government-directed loans to selected sectors at preferential interest rates accounting for a majority of lending. Big decisions "from the top" to develop in certain sectors -- for instance, the heavy and chemical industry push in the 1970s.
-- Barriers to entry that cemented the stature of a few large chaebol, causing them to bloat into absurdly diversified entities controlling a huge chunk of the economy. Incentives to amp up leverage in anticipation of inevitable government rescues. Protective tariffs imposed as rewards for export performance.
I'm not saying that these policies were good, but evidently they weren't bad enough to stop Korea from developing at perhaps the fastest rate in world history (up until that time). The problem with cases like this is that there are so many possible contributing factors that it's hard to really say what worked. There's plenty of material for heterodox economists like Ha-Joon Chang to claim that Korea vindicates their view of development, yet also many ways in which Korea's success can be understood in the context of mainstream economics. I tend to come down on the latter side, though some aspects of the Korean experience raise uncomfortable questions.One also needs to realize a lot of east Asia shares similar story. I have a feeling that most of people in this thread have not looked at east asian economic history.
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$500 GDP/capita in the 60s. Now, they're on the technological frontier with Samsung, Hyundai, and LG -- gradually ripping market share from our most cherished technological innovators.
WTF happened?
While OP posts this on EJMR, his wife is alternately sucking 2 hard cocks at the same time she sits on 2 other ones through both her standard amd exotic holes. She always goes for both quantity and quality!Are you a pimp for this slut?lol...
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Koreabro here
One very very important non-economic aspect of our stellar growth is connected to the cold war framework.
Because under the cold war Korea was an important U.S ally, the U.S was willing to step in as a last resort guarantor of Korea's debt. That was why Prez Park Chung Hee could get external financing from foreign gov'ts (such as West Germany), while countries in a similar economic position could have never gotten such credit from foreign gov'ts.
That's mainly how (at least how I see it) Korea was able to advert at least a couple banking crises (b/c of the exorbitant cost of implementing Korean style industrial policy) during the 70s. -
Korean success follows largely from immitating corporate Japan model e.g. excessive protectionism, from giving legal immunity to killing off competition, to foster growth of its Choebols, Japanese Zanbastu's counterpart.
Japanese style industrial protectionism succeed because it's more able to aline their chosen firms' long-run incentives away from simply extractive interests. This is where other protectionist policies fail. The mechanism is complex and cultural.
However, as we now see, the Japanese model stifles growth for small/medium sized businesses and innovations. In the short-run, the model put the country into a stream of success. But when the sh@t hits the fan, the model stifles economy's recovery ability. Japan is slowly moving away from this by diversifying.
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Why would Korean people drive US autos even American people do not drive in the US?
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Their government protected fledgling industries (e.g. didn't import many U.S. autos in order to allow Hyundai to grow). At the same time, they became pals (politically and through somewhat open trade) with the U.S. Add in hard work and good education, and the GDP growth starts making sense.This doesn't touch on all the complexities of why the Korean economy grew over this time, but it at least gives you a starting point.