ABSTRACT
At the root of debates over the political economy of South Korean development and the possible crystallizing of the lessons of Korean development as a global development policy template are competing analyses of the historical experience both preceding and at the outset of South Korea’s rapid industrialization. In his chapter, “Land Reform and Capitalist Development in Korea”, Sang-Hwan Jang investigates the land reform experience in South Korea. Most analysts agree that land reform is essential to development and that South Korea’s successful land reform played a major role in the country’s rapid industrialization. However, in contrast to most scholars who claim that land reform in Korea was achieved only as a result of the Korean War, this paper argues that Korean landlords sold, at relatively low prices, a significant share of their holdings to their tenants even before the land reform legislation of 1950 was approved. Moreover, most of the remaining land transfer was achieved before the actual start of the Korean War fighting. The paper examines the social and political reasons for this unusual experience and the ways in which it laid the groundwork for South Korea’s later, post-1960 rapid growth.
