How developed is South Korea?

Before I launch into this argument, I will first acknowledge the methodological assumptions at its heart. Development, modernity, and culture are all assumed as universals in this argument. They are essentialist notions, that are in reality constructions of western culture and western historical circumstances. Specifically as a western paradigm it is rather self congratulatory to say that our industrial revolution, our technological creations, they are development, and pre-existing alternatives are regressive, and antiquated.

South Korea is a developed country. It has one of the largest GDP per capita in the world. Economically it is one of the most advanced economies producing cutting edge technology, as an example broadband in South Korea is far faster than the rest of the developed world with the possible exception of Japan. If you know Samsung, Hyundai, LG, or POSCO then you've seen the Korean economic miracle; South Korea emerged from the the Korean War in 1953 as poor as any state in the world, similar to any sub-Saharan African state in the 1950s. This is understandable, the war itself was tremendously brutal, and destroyed an already extremely underdeveloped post-colonial economy. Yet thanks to excellent economic management of the country under President Park Chung-hee and the influx of foreign capital the country took off.

Concomitantly Korean culture has changed radically since the 1945. There had been Korean nationalists since the 1880s. By this I mean nationalists in the modern sense of the world, appealing to an abstract racial and ethnic identity, an imagined, pure blood line. This is a rather modern idea in world terms and even more so in Korean terms. Certainly Korea culture does have an insular element to it. Korea was well known as the hermit nation, the Confucian Choson dynasty relied on seclusion to maintain itself; and modern Korean nationalism in its racial claims to ethnic homogeneity owes a debt to this. Nonetheless the concept of a Korean race was not a part of the Korean popular identity until after 1945. Korean nationalism is almost more important in the political Korean left today, in its suspicion of American power, the globalisation project and its desire for close cooperation with North Korea. Nonetheless nationalism is still very important to the Korean right, in spite of their pragmatic pro-America foreign policy, and their open door toward western capital the right is firmly committed to the Korean nationalist nativity story. But this wasn't the point of my blog...

Korea whilst being very developed in world terms still suffers from cultural lag in a number of fields. Culturally for obvious reasons the middle-class in the main behave like Russian oligarchs; their conspicuous consumption of consumer goods, and services, the mass proliferation of plastic-surgery is a classic example of this. People in this country are not only not ashamed of their environmental impact, in the main they are positively proud of it. Before I sound patronising or condemnatory I should point out that many western people are equally unconcerned by their environmental impact. But consumption in this country is a direct hallmark of status, to have a specific set of consumer goods marks you as having arrived. To shop in western shops, and to buy western consumer products marks you as a sophisticated middle class person. It is rather comical that to many but by no means all Koreans, Starbucks is considered sophisticated.

Culturally this country is often branded as Confucian. This is a rather general term, it means many things in many different time periods and countries. In this context the term is used to account for among other things the extreme commitment Koreans have to education, which does appear to the outsider as excessive, personally I find it refreshing coming from England. In the context of education, I perceive development itself as being more important, education is associated with the ability to live a middle class or even better a rich lifestyle. In a society that was only 30 years ago still suffering from many of the material problems of a developing country (such as a shortage of electricity and some foods) one can understand why people still prize material security bordering on excess. Excessive scholasticism can be seen in this context as perfectly rational, rather than as being a throwback to a bunch of bearded scholars sitting around ornate palaces in the late 19th Century studying their Confucian classics by candle light.

But in other ways the Confucian label does make a great deal of sense. For instance the persistence of gender inequality. Cultural lag is an extremely pertinent term in this context; whilst an economy can develop from an agrarian backwater to a modern, dynamic consumer society, cultural norms and values usually take longer to change. Whilst I have a great respect for Korean culture, specially the respect for elders, and the strong sense of family, speaking bluntly the status of women is contemptible, and should not be excused according to a relativistic accommodation of cultural differences. To be specific the persistence of the largest gap in pay in the OECD, and the extreme segregation of the Korean workforce with women predominantly occupying informal, part-time and low paying jobs desperately needs to change. Furthermore the ubiquity of prostitution, all my peers know of it, many have visited brothels and are proud of it. Many more men of all ages do so routinely to seal business deals, promotions or foster useful connections at work. There are arguments in favour of prostitution, but in a society where sex trafficking is still widespread, visiting a prostitute is little different to rape or domestic violence in terms of its morality and impact. Yet many thanks to women's culturally inferior status, this developmental vestige or form of cultural lag, excuses what should be considered despicable.

More prosaically, the Korean economy whilst being very advanced remains dominated by Chaebols. Chaebol which literally means Rich family is the name commonly given to Korean mega corporations which I mentioned earlier. These companies along with an activist state were one the key motive forces behind the Korean economic miracle. Yet like in a developing economy they still exercise an inordinate amount of power over civil society, the government and of course the economy. The negative side effects of this are numerous. The Korean media is widely reputed amongst the general public to be in the pay of the rich and therefore not trustworthy when it comes to sensitive political issues like corruption (which it often allegedly does not report) and incidents like the Cheonan (which it allegedly was complicit in aiding government cover-ups). Now most of these conspiracy theories are undoubtedly just that, but the media lacks incentive to critically analyse corporate abuses and pro-business politicians seeing as the media is owned by those corporations. Furthermore, the government itself is widely know to not function according to the law but the rule of personal connections. One can see this in the fact that every Korean president since 1980 has been embroiled in a business related corruption scandal that has affected them or their close relatives. This is improving year-on-year, but corruption remains worse here than most other parts of the developed world and still in many ways is reminiscent of a developing rather than developed state. This is partly born out of the extraordinary economic power of the Chaebols and their oligopolistic control of the Korean economy, civil society and government itself. In the purely economic sphere this is expressed in many different ways. The level of consumer protection is much lower than in Western Europe, therefore phones are far more expensive to use than in Britain in terms of line rental for example. Another example is the frankly unjustifiable banking charges, we have to pay if we withdraw money from our banks after closing time, and if we make a withdrawal from an ATM that is not our bank's own. This is as a result of the Chaebol's economic and political power that mean consumer protection remains much lower than the rest of the developed world.

This is just a small sketch of the ways in which South Korea whilst being a developed society still has developmental vestiges and culturally lags behind Europe. Nonetheless, this country has another feature that much of the developed world now lacks, it has tremendous dynamism, people in this country are so filled with energy and are so constantly busy. It is inspiring to be around, and to be a part of this society as it progresses towards unification....