Babones: Get the Society Right, and the Economy Will Follow
On the eve of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, South Korea had less than
one-third of the GDP per capita of its big neighbor, Japan. Despite
thirty years of rapid economic growth, South Korea still relied on Japan
for technology, investment, and orders. That reliance was made all the
more unpalatable by the fact that, before and during World War Two,
Japan had colonized Korea, raped its women, conscripted its men, and
sought to wipe out two thousand years of Korean culture.