As John Lie argues in _Han Unbound_, the ROK's quick and radical land reform allowed millions of small farmers, in what was one of the world's poorest nations c. 1953, to subsist decently while the country was being industrialized by the state planners, who were largely drawn from the liquidated landlord class. The land reform allowed for a relatively easy way of slowly converting farmers into urban workers over three decades. All of this was planned by bureaucrats, who intentionally avoided the application of normal "market" forces.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
> On Behalf Of Doug Henwood
> Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2005 12:21 PM
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Subject: RE: [lbo-talk] Questions for Pugliese & Dolgoff on the
> CubanEconomy
>
> lweiger at umich.edu wrote:
>
> >mperial aid=the rocket booster theory. Why not make or at least point to
> a
> >convincing argument that this variable was as important as you suggest?
>
> I don't have stats for the 1950s at hand, but in the 1960s, S Korea
> received a total of $1.6 billion in "official unrequited transfers" -
> free money from foreign governments, meaning U.S. aid. The aid shrank
> as the decade passed and SK's economy grew, but from 1960-62, the aid
> averaged almost 8% of GDP; for the decade as a whole, it was 4% of
> GDP. That's a pretty big number, that allowed SK to finance a large
> merchandise trade deficit painlessly.
>
> Doug
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk