The colonial origins of Korea’s market economy*

Rudimentary markets ‘embedded’ in social relations have long existed in Korea, but it has been only during the last 100 years that markets came to the fore to encompass social relations. How did this ‘great transformation’ come about?1 This paper argues that South Korea’s contemporary market economy has its origin in the colonial period (1910-45). Not only did goods and labour markets become integrated in this period, but also a repressed and dual capital market first appeared in the final years of Japanese rule.