ABSTRACT
South Korea's economic collapse of 1997 was no less dramatic than her earlier economic success for three and a half decades. Obviously, South Koreans overstretched their economic ambitions in the 1990s, so that suicidal investment in heavy industries using short-term foreign loans was destined to cause a major balance-of-payment crisis. The economic - and, for that matter, social - crisis, however, seems rooted in many more ills of the South Korean model of development. Particularly menacing are social problems emanating from the psychological bubble concerning material betterment, the welfare-suppressive accumulation strategy, and the authoritarian treatment of labour. These practices and habits were often considered instrumental to achieving rapid industrialization and economic growth, but their social costs remained unpaid. Incidentally, various risky social conditions which had been built up under the South Korean development strategy began to hurt South Koreans at the grassroots level, with the IMF programme working as a crucial catalyst. In this sense, the IMF could (and should) have been much more careful about the local social contexts in which its economic restructuring programme would take effects (and sideeffects). Does Kim Dae:Jung think differently or better than IMF supervisors? What have been alluded to by Kim and his staff concerning labour, poverty, education, housing, and other social concerns resemble Western social democracy closely. At the saIne time, he has not hesitated to accept and implement those programmes suggested by Western neoliberals as conservative reactions to their own social democratic past. It remains to be seen whether such inconsistencies reflect his indecisiveness or constitute a truly inventive doctrine for national development.
