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The Features and The Problems of Korean Modernization : Focusing on Chabol and Educational Enthusiasm

  • Journal of Humanities
  • 2007, (40), pp.107-132
  • Publisher : Institute for Humanities
  • Research Area : Humanities > Other Humanities

yimunho 1

1성균관대학교

Candidate

ABSTRACT

This paper reflects on the process and the problems of Korean modernization by reviewing the cultural characteristics and the historical continuity of the Chaebol and the enthusiasm for education. It is pointed out that the Yangban-Family in Joseon Dynasty was a "small party" which pursued political power and that the development of the Chaebol and the enthusiasm for education reflects a "cultural phenomenon" which is generated by renewing the power-oriented features of the Confucian Yangban-Family in the modernization process. This renewing of the power-orientation has produced a double result; it has functioned as a catalyst for industrialization, having developed entrepreneurship with strong will to invest and to be educated. But on the other hand it has brought out the extremely high level of economic concentration, the cozy relation between politics and business, the hereditary management right, the overenthusiasm for education and the academical cliquism. This means that neither the modernization model of Western ideologues, nor models of Northeast Asia (the theory of "Confucian Capitalism") can properly explain the process and the problems of Korean modernization and that now a new discourse is needed to reflect on the Korea-specific ambivalence of the power- oriented cultural tradition.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.