Comments by "capmidnite" (@capmidnite) on "How the Rich Ate South Korea" video.

Many other underdeveloped countries received massive amounts of foreign aid and tried to build export-oriented industries around the same time (1950s 60’s 70s) but failed to mature the same way the Korean economy did.
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I think the Industrial Revolution in Europe wasn’t started by the established landed aristocracy. Rather, it was the upstart merchant class and “hands on” type of men that built the first factories and companies.
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@thetigerii9506 Singapore while East Asian in culture isn’t part of geographic East Asia.
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@francisdayon “We need to move the system to meritocracy where capable leaders are promoted.” Who does the “promoting” and how? You seem to admire the Chinese model of authoritarian technocratic leadership combined with a strongman (Xi) on top. Chinese leaders get to the top through years of internal power building and back scratching in the CCP. The Japanese government with its elite bureaucracy has also followed a technocratic model since the Meiji Era with various levels of authoritarianism and militarism creeping in. The rules and rights based Constitutional government of the United States has been around since 1776 (when the rest of the world was under some form of tyranny) and has so far brought prosperity, rule of law and freedom to the American people. Even countries in Europe in that span of time have flirted with dictatorship, fascism, Communism and numerous revolutions. You seem to have little faith in representative democracy.
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@hoangle2483 The US economy is so huge and diversified it can’t really be dominated by a handful of companies like the Korean economy. There ARE regional centers of corporate influence such as the DuPont company in Delaware, or the Ford Motor Company which has been controlled by the Ford family like a chaebol.
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The Chinese characters for chaebol are the same as “zaibatsu” (or family wealth), incidentally.
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@francisdayon I don’t know what country you are from but in the USA the mayor of a city isn’t directly responsible for “growth.” The job of a mayor is to provide for the public safety and public necessities (roads, parks) for the citizens. I believe there’s an Asianometry video about the problems China is having with debt bubbles, real estate crashing and provincial leaders throwing up a mirage of “growth” that is fueled by unsustainable debt.
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@msp5138 You are just babbling at this point. A city can have little economic growth but still have an established tax base. For example, NYC has been losing jobs and corporate HQs in the past decade. The state of New York on the whole has average 1 % growth. The big topics in the past NYC mayoral race was crime and Progressive politics, not “growth.” The people continue to elect the same stupid politicians again and again.
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Despite the undue influence, size and power of the chaebols, many if not the majority of South Koreans are proud of their worldwide influence and competitiveness. There’s a “Korea is a small country” mentality and the assumption is that South Korean companies can only compete with established Western and Japanese companies by being huge. Also, the Netherlands (for example) is dominated by a handful of huge companies such as Shell but outsiders don’t perceive the Dutch economy as being one dominated by “the rich.”
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@francisdayon Long term prosperity arises from creating a diversified economy that offers opportunities for skilled workers with a variety of talent and skills. You think real estate bubbles create wealth? Why don’t you read up on the Dutch Tulip Mania.
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@francisdayon The “majority” of American build their wealth with housing bubbles? Historically, real estate has basically just kept up with inflation. Housing bubbles in the USA happen most in densely populated coastal areas such as the SF Bay Area, NYC, etc and benefit those who are already wealthy. I’m not if you really even are using the word “bubble” right or understand what you are spouting. Investors over the long term prefer steady growth not “bubbles” because bubbles inevitably end up popping. Like the Japanese bubble economy of the 80s and early 90s. Real estate prices took 20 years to go back to their previous levels.
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@francisdayon You are perfectly entitled to your opinion. I am curious, you keep talking about “we” “over here” and “we are just a modern day colony.” What country are you from?
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A list of the top 10 richest families in the USA is much different from the same list from 20 or 30 years ago.
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@موسى_7 Except in this case it’s not obvious because “chaebol” and “zaibatsu” are not similar at first glance, at least in pronunciation or English transliteration.
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@francisdayon The Amazon HQ2 search was one very high profile case. Companies will naturally move to jurisdictions that offer a good business environment. In the past year over 100 companies moved from California to Texas without fanfare. They moved not just because of the efforts of one mayor of one city but because of the overall benefits of moving to Texas. Mayor of cities do not have control over state taxes or regulations.
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@Schinshikss South Korea, Taiwan and Japan of course also had the advantage of being military wards of the USA since WW2.
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@Schinshikss One critique of Studwell's land reform analysis is that correlation isn't causation. And are small farms the most efficient? The most efficient and productive farmland in the world is in the American Midwest, where most of the land is owned by huge corporations that employ wage labor. Studwell's thesis is ultimately one unproven thesis among many trying to explain the rise of the Asian tigers.
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@NoodleDance "but I imagine SK got a lot of help from the US. Just a hypothesis." Since the Korean War, the USA has guaranteed South Korea's national security. The Korean construction industry got its start and know-how from the US Army Corps of Engineers who gave Korean firms many projects. During the Vietnam War, Korean firms sold tons of supplies to the US forces. The USA also opened its market to Korean imports.
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@Schinshikss Zimbabwe tried out "land reform" and ended up destroying the economy.
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@francisdayon “If they don’t hit their metrics they don’t get promoted.” Why this emphasis on “metrics?” The inevitable result of emphasizing metrics (tangible numbers) is that first, the metrics will get fudged by those whose job is to compile and report them because they are working for the government and second, the politicians will start governing first and foremost to “hit the metrics.” Whatever the cost. Maybe in a business setting “hitting the metrics” is a good idea (sales figures, cost cutting, balance sheets, etc) but you think governing a state or city or country with its many variables and competing constituencies and demands can distilled down to “hitting metrics”?
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@francisdayon China has a huge problem with provincial governors and local leaders reporting massaged “metrics” to Beijing in order to look good.
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@msp5138 “The West got rich because it colonised . . .” And in that same period of time non-western powers such as the Mughals and Manchus were busy conquering and exploiting other people. The West got rich because it created the Industrial Revolution and the Scientific Revolution. You think the steam engine and science was “stolen” from African people?
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@qjtvaddict How is the US a “complete failure”? What political system is perfect? The USA is mid-pack according to corruption indexes compiled by NGOs.
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Big chaebols such as Hyundai like to play up their scrappy rags to riches founding stories. The founder of Hyundai for example was a farmer’s son who fled to Seoul to make it rich. Left unsaid is the massive amounts of government favoritism and cronyism and corruption in the background.
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