ABSTRACT
The transformation in the fortunes of the Korean economy that took place in the 1960s was, on a highly intuitive level, miraculous. The Korea of the early 1960s was, in many respects, a paradigmatic example of ‘Asian despotism’ (Said, 1985). The government was corrupt, the economy was underdeveloped, and no bourgeoisie worthy of the name existed. By the end of the decade Korea clearly had a government both capable of and committed to promoting economic growth. While the country was still relatively poor, a wholesale shift in the structure of economic organisation was clearly underway: industrial and export growth averaged 18.4 per cent and 27.75 per cent, respectively, between 1962 and 1970 (Hart-Landsberg, 1993). Nevertheless, Korea’s economic transformation was clearly not a miracle in the strict sense of the term. As the Collins English Dictionary informs us, a miracle is an ‘event that is contrary to the established laws of nature and attributable to a supernatural cause’. Korea’s rapid growth, on the other hand, clearly had very earthly rather than supernatural origins. It is with the conditions that gave rise to and sustained the long boom of the 1960s and 1970s that this chapter is concerned.
