<http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/hartlandsberg150805.html>
South Korea: The Unraveling of an Economy by Martin Hart-Landsberg
<snip>
South Korea is now trapped in a self-reinforcing downward spiral. The post-crisis neoliberal restructuring increased the economy's dependence on foreign investment and exports. Thus, foreign firms and the large chaebol find themselves in an excellent position to demand further concessions that, if granted, would only reinforce this same dependency. Working people have already paid a heavy price for this outcome: poverty rates remain high and inequality has hit record levels. One reason is that the percentage of workers with irregular labor status has gone from 42 percent before the crisis to 54 percent; these workers receive only 53 percent of the wages paid to regular workers. Perhaps the best summary indicator of social conditions comes from a 2004 Korea Broadcasting System survey, which found that "more than half of South Koreans feel that the current economic situation is worse than it was in late 1997 when the financial crisis shook the nation."
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The intriguing thing about this description is how you could, by changing a few statistical details and so on, easily replace "South Korea" with "the United States" and produce an essay with more or less the same ideas and overall feeling.
Yes, of course, the US has its huge market to act as an attractor of foreign capital -- the means through which we keep our massive, national credit card account funded -- and other advantages of scale. But this "hollowing out" and increased labor insecurity are familiar themes to anyone carefully watching trends here.
Doubters should investigate the state of the television, cell phone and finished rubber goods industries in the US (for example) and the rise of
Wal -
Achtung Manufacturers!
move-your-manufacturing-base-to-China-if-you-want-to-be-profitable-AND-meet-our-strict-pricing-guidelines
- Mart
for reinforcing details.
Perhaps it isn't S. Korea so much that's being "hollowed out" (at least, not in isolation) but the global model of high wage, stable, skilled employment in the "advanced capitalist" nations -- that is, there is a greater "hollowing out" occurring than simply the one Korean workers are concerned about.
As valuable as this article is, I'm hungry to learn more about the global, interlocking "hollowing out" effect -- things sound dicey in France, Germany, Japan, etc, too -- and the role growing Chinese manufacturing power (and other factors I'm unaware of) seems to be playing in fueling it.
.d.
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