Capitalist Maturity and South Korea’s Development Conundrum

Korea’s economic development trajectory is well known. From an impoverished war-torn nation, the country has progressed on all fronts. In the 1950s the country’s per capita income was estimated to be lower than India’s. Today the income difference is fifteen-fold in favor of Korea. It stands out internationally when it comes to education. Politically it has moved away from authoritarian to more spirited, people-driven democratic system. This presentation will shift the debate to the question what does a country do after it has achieved prosperity. Using the concept of capitalist maturity, do we look for answers in the OECD experience or should we treat Korea on its own terms? What are the development challenges for Korea in the post-development era? Given that there are both external and internal issues that merit appropriate responses, the presentation focuses on Korea’s regional (Asian) economy, business and institutional responses to expanding Asia, and the societal adjustment issues to increasing flows of Asian students, professionals, and unskilled workers. The presentation concludes by briefly indicating the many unfinished domestic reforms at multiple levels, which could reinforce Korea’s external engagement and potentially resolve the development conundrum arising from capitalist maturity.

Anthony P. D’Costa is Chair and Professor of Contemporary Indian Studies, Development Studies at the University of Melbourne. He was the A.P. Møller Mærsk Foundation Professor of Indian Studies, Copenhagen Business School and Professor of Comparative International Development for 18 years at the University of Washington. He also taught at National University of Singapore, Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, and Bordeaux École de Management. He has published widely on the political economy of development, global capitalism, labor, and industrial restructuring using the steel, auto, and IT sectors. His most recent book is International Mobility, Global Capitalism, and Changing Structures of Accumulation: Transforming the Japan-India IT Relationship (2016). His edited books include Transformation and Development: The Political Economy of Transition in India and China (2012), Globalization and Economic Nationalism in Asia (2012), After-Development Dynamics: South Korea's Contemporary Engagements with Asia (2015), and The Land Question in India: State, Dispossession, and Capitalist Transition (2017), all by Oxford University Press. He edits Dynamics of Asian Development book series and has held several fellowships: Fulbright-Hays, American Institute of Indian Studies, Korea Foundation, Abe - Japan Foundation, and POSCO at the East West Center.