[progressiveweb]

South Korea transformed from the poorest nation to the richest not because of the trope that education was largely responsible and I don't discount that but it's far fetched to suggest that as a single cause.

After all, without Park Chung Hee's military dictatorship, without essentially enslaving 1/2 of the population as a glorified slave with the threat of violence, without handing over the destiny of millions of Koreans to the hands of the dozen family run corporate dynasties (aka chaebols), without the massacre and denial of reparations and the censure, capture, torture and killing of dissidents,

South Korea would not be as successful as it is.

Life in South Korea during the military dictatorship which lasted 2.5 generations, was just as hard if not oppressive like the North. If you read about the Gwangju Massacre (Korea's Tianmen Square), it's pretty clear that South Korea was virtually no different than North Korea in terms of political freedom.

This is the miracle of the Asian tigers - when you don't have natural commodity, the people become that commodity, expendable, something to be taken advantage of by people with capital.

[tatrajim]

May I polititely suggest that your assertion of equivalence between South Korea and North Korea in terms of political freedom during the Park and Chun years is overwrought nonsense. Just ask any South Korean who lived through this period or any American peace corps volunteer like me who lived in the countryside (near Gwangju in fact) in the 1970s under the Park regime and who studied in graduate school in Seoul under the Chun regime in the 1980s. The issues are complex and require long, nuanced elaboration, but in crude terms Park was all but a fascist in name during his dictatorship and Chun was largely a loutish thug. Park is remembered surprisingly fondly by his generation, while Chun is reviled. And it is true that political dissidents were brutally treated by both Park and Chun and that the 1980 Gwangju Massacre was a horrible incident for which Chun later went to prison. However, North Korea was much worse in its control, e.g. over all religious groups and intellectuals. If you had a bad class background ("seongbun") you had nil chance for any higher education or social advancement. And with the growing cult of personality of Kim Il Sung from the mid-1960s, virtually no one could hope to express openly any thoughts critical of Kim or the Worker's Party official party line. In sum, life in the south under Park was by turns comic and tiring (the whole nation was forced to arise at 6 am every day!) and under Chun disspiriting and at the margin dangerous, but in the north under Kim, little or no freedom of personal expression existed even between spouses. Just check out the personal accounts of those who lived through it.

[dba7dba]

people become that commodity, expendable, something to be taken advantage of by people with capital.

Around where I am, I see plenty of western corporations doing above, even with plenty of natural commodity to extract from.

And no, you simply cannot compare Park Chung Hee with Kim of North Korea to be equally dictatorial/brutal/etc. You simply lose all credibility when you make that assertion, while discussing Korean affairs.

Education was the single most important factor for S. Korea. And successful introduction of market based economy too, how ever troublesome it was. But without educated, competent workforce, nothing will work.

Also, you stated that S. Korea's wealth improved due to enslaving half of the population, and chaebols being given control over affairs in S. Korea.

What about N. Korea? N. Korea enslaved the entire population, with complete control that the chaebols of S. Korea can only dream about. And look where N. Korea is now. Practically a beggar state.