How Life in Pre-Capitalist Korea was Qualitatively Different from Capitalist Korea

How Life in Pre-Capitalist Korea was Qualitatively Different from that of Capitalist Korea
Student Name
University
Course
Lecturer
Date
How Life in Pre-Capitalist Korea was Qualitatively Different from that of Capitalist Korea
Western scholars have long assumed that Korean culture was incapable of indigenous economic growth. This notion ended with the economic miracles in the 1960s and 1980s in Korea and other East Asian countries (Kim, 1980). During this period, Korea quickly developed into one of the largest industrialized nations with a rapid annual growth rate of its gross domestic product (Palais, 1995). According to Sewell Jr (2008), this historic growth was the discerning stress of Confucian virtues, causing employees to be subordinate to their superiors and meticulous within their work. Korea’s economic boom eventually inflicted jealously on other developing countries. This paper examines how life in pre-capitalist Korea was qualitatively different from that of capitalist Korea. According to researchers, the transition was initiated by the Japanese opening and the country’s colonization at the turn of nineteenth century into twentieth century. To date, Korea lives under capitalism.
Life in Pre-Capitalist Korea
Until early twenty first century, Korea operated under a tribute system imposed by the Choson dynasty in late fourteenth century (Larsen, 2013). The tribute consisted of a permanent, steady, and hierarchic system, with China as the hegemon, deeming cultural achievement as important as military and economic aptitude (Kang, 2010). Hegemony refers to dominance of one country over another, where a dominant state has a legitimate authority to shape the global politics rules based on its interests (Kang, 2010). Developed on both substantial and authentic power, the tribute system offered a normative social order that involved Chinese commitment not to exploit nations that assimilated its authority. Korea, for instance, did not face any Chinese military threat after accepting China’s authority (Kang, 2010). Although explicit, the system promoted inequality.
Korea also used the tribute system to collect taxes in the form of various products and mobilize workforce to obtain the required services and handicrafts. Towards the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth century, Japanese and Chinese armies that invaded Korea devastated the command system, forcing a change to a market economy (Larsen, 2013). The dented administration began to obtain taxes in merchandises such as textile and rice, encouraging them to lift trade restrictions. The wars also affected slavery, creating room for labor markets.
During this period, merchants found it hard to improve markets. Grain markets in Korea seemed less cohesive than those in Japan and China (Larsen, 2013). However, population and property recuperated swiftly from the severe effects of the wars. The beginning of eighteenth century saw a halt in population growth followed by a long period of demographic sluggishness due to increased mortality (Kang, 2010). Living standards deteriorated during the nineteenth century before capitalism in Korea. This was demonstrated by a reduction in wages and rents and an increase in budget deficits (Larsen, 2013). Peasant insurgences ensued regularly, and low-income farmers relocated to Northern China.
Although the population and property remained firm throughout the nineteenth century, the dilapidated living standards meant the land and labor were being utilized ineffectively (Larsen, 2013). The decline in efficiency was associated with collapsing water control system including irrigation and flood control. The challenge of water control stemmed from China. Population increase influence deforestation because peasants considered burning forests in areas with unclear property rights (Larsen, 2013). Improving the water control system needed public initiatives. However, these initiatives lacked in the Korean dynastic administration.
Powerful landowning families began to control young and indisposed kings, compelling the state to serve individual interests. The water control challenge mainly affected quality of rice farming. Landlords and peasants transformed paddy fields into dry lands, forcing workers to quit divert their attention from agriculture to commerce and handicraft (Larsen, 2013). The main Korean agricultural areas reported extensive cyclical variations in rice prices than those observed in Japan, indicating a higher interest rate, reduced capital per person, and lower living standards in Korea.
The tribute system also led Korea to accept Chinese Confucianism. As long as China maintained its Confucian belief, Koreans inevitably switched their loyalty to China without compulsion or extensive intervention. According to Kang, (2010), Confucianism is a set of ideas, based on ancient Chinese classic philosophical texts about the proper ways of organizing the government and society. Korean elites determinedly imitated Chinese practices to strengthen their relationship with China (Kang, 2010). The primary principles of Confucianism entailed kingdoms with common rituals, intellectual literary, and social practices (Kang, 2010).
A shared Confucian worldview had an immense impact on state relations. Being one of the most Confucian states, Korea held higher ranks, giving it access to different trades and diplomatic privileges with China (Kang, 2010). Korea became a centrally administered bureaucratic system by adopting Chinese Confucianism. This cultural relationship comprised educational system and language as well as political and social institutions.
Life in Capitalist Korea
The Korean economic growth was conceivable through the ingress of capitalist systems from the west. According Sewell Jr (2008), capitalism is a form of social life dominated by the endless pursuit of profit for its own sake. Many scholars have defined it as an economic system that allows private actors, rather than the state, to own and control property for profit based on their interests. The motive behind capitalism is profit. In a capitalist economy, capital assets like factories, railroads and mines can be privately owned and controlled (Sewell Jr, 2008). Labor is purchased for money wages while capital gains accumulate to private owners. Capitalism is also characterized by the inexorable saturation of domestic markets. The constant market intensification caused by rising wages and increasing per capita inc...