In South Korea, equity is the new ideal

SEOUL — With its rapid economic rise, South Korea has earned a reputation as a ruthless, competitive society, go-go. But now the equity has become chic.

Students protest for it; Ministries of the Government promise to support the newspaper's editorial said that the President has been too slow to deliver it. Experts say that the establishment of equity reflects dismay in which rapid change won: a widening gap between rich and poor and residue of corruption.

 

For the President, Lee Myung-bak, this is more of a problem, because a string of fraud, scandals and bourgeois economic worries have convinced the Koreans that their is anything that the company "fair" that he has promoted.

Some Koreans, Lee included, describing fairness as a prerequisite for achieving democratic maturity. But the value also contradicts the winner-takes-all ethos which drove the postwar boom of the South Korea, with the emergence of dominant conglomerates, an ultra-competitive education system and social safety nets to help the non-elite.

In a fair society, Lee said, "the winner takes all."

The Boost for fairness has created some unconventional test cases. Several months ago, Lotte Mart, a conglomerate department store began selling buckets of fried chicken — so cheap that they sold within hours every day. But small and medium-sized chicken shacks could not compete with the prices and protested the injustice of it all. After five days, that lotte Mart surrendered, saying that would fry chicken cheap is no longer, in deference to the ideals of the society.

But a year from the speech of Lee's Fair society, Koreans came to see fairness as elusive ideal. While the increase in food prices and contributions of the University, the 20 percent of the Fund has seen his income Plummet 35 percent over the last decade. As arms Seoul, distant provinces complain of neglect and struggle to attract businesses. Although the country's growth has been fueled by Tiger-strong "chaebol" — subsidiaries family as Hyundai and Samsung — these companies now squeeze the middle and small companies that they subcontract.

"In Korea, people get all strong," said Kwak Seung-jun, President of a Council that advises the President. "We are used to competition. ... Right now, large companies are eating small businesses. "

Lee's advisers predict a growth process of cooperation: the elite gives more and earn social responsibility, benefits trickle down and South Korea becomes a nation. But all the time, Lee's administration was distressed by corruption, with illicit favors Incall and corruption, undermining the judicial system, the financial regulation and big business.

Some ministries have lately tried to cut away the corruption, limiting or banning expensive dinners or golf rounds with associates. In a radio address this month, Lee said that corruption in many parts of the company remained "rampant". Some experts suggest that such corruption is the legacy of rapid political change of Korea, as the country rose to power as an authoritarian State in the 1960s and 1970s, then the transition to democracy in 1987.

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