Although I do find the vulgarity used above repulsive, I generally agree to the idea.
China and Korea share the culture of Confucianism which lays stronger emphasis on the values of groups than those of individuals. As expressed in the word ‘滅私奉公’, you have to sacrifice your interest to achieve the goal of larger groups, whether it be family, community, society or country. If you behave in a way that seems ‘erratic’ to others, you will be singled out and reprimanded. As a result, you would keep comparing your internal, individual values to the outer ones of society, finding your own little satisfaction in conformity. This is not a type of culture where individual freedom can be fostered to its full potential.
This has a direct relationship with individual economic activities. People will not take a chance, they will not dare create a niche in the competitive market which can produce jobs and money. Rather than realizing their creativity and ventures, they will be satisfied with their lives as long as they can earn a living for them and their family. Not only people ‘have a stomachache when your cousin buys a plot of land’, they will try to figure out a way to make a living dependent on their rich relatives. Everyone knows of a person who could get a job in a company where they have a family member in the executive staff. This tendency can be extended to a larger scale. Most of the young people in Korea nowadays want to have government jobs. They are not interested in creating more wealth, they only want to live off the wealth that we have accumulated so far.
What is exacerbating this cultural environment is current political tendency. It is undeniable that Korean people’s internal wish to maintain a minimal standard of living(if there is such a thing) without taking any risks is reflected in the election of their government. If you provide incentive to people for not taking risks and trying new things, then they will not. In a current economic environment that is ever-changing so rapidly, social diversity is the only way in which we can promptly adapt and make progress, and social diversity can only be achieved by individual freedom, but never by government intervention. More retarded our country becomes in the world as a result of planned, rigid economy, more dependent we will be on the countries which buy our exported products, such as China. Our government that is so occupied with collectivist agenda, which they of course believe is for ‘common good’, is already looking more like China than any other liberal countries.
