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An Evaluation of the Developmental State Model on Inequality: South Korea’s Case

Seokdong Kim 1

1성균관대학교 미디어커뮤니케이션학과

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ABSTRACT

Why have developmental states, such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, suffered from increasing inequality since the 1990s, despite the fact that they maintained long-term low inequality rates during their rapid industrialization periods? In particular, why has the Korean developmental state suffered an increase in inequality since the 1990s, such as an economy centered on large firms as well as local extinction due to unequal development between regions? In developmental states, as inequality increased during the low-growth period since the 1990s, low birth rates emerged as a serious crisis, and the crisis of local extinction intensified in Korea. My mixed-methods approach examines why incomplete redistribution mechanisms of the developmental state model maintained long-term low inequality despite weak welfare regimes with low social expenditures during the rapid industrialization period, and why they led to increasing inequality after that period. This study highlights how developmental states’ narrow, asymmetric alliance with firms but without labor will not promote institutional efficiency in resource allocation to the stage of developed economies. This institutional inefficiency occurs because the exclusion of labor makes developmental states’ redistribution mechanisms incomplete and because the collusion between the state and large firms distorts resource allocations for the potential of economic growth. For sustainable growth, the complete formula of (re)distribution by developmental states is based on economic democratization, which includes not only public land-ownership (or the public concept of land [土地公槪念]), employment, and educational improvement but also a universal welfare state and decentralization between metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas. Therefore, economic democratization and decentralization will enhance state capacities to reduce inequality.

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