ABSTRACT
For more than a generation, the alliance between government and business extended deep into economic policy. The bureaucracy saw to it that Korea’s industrial combines prospered to the detriment of both healthy foreign competition and lesser competitors at home. The police and army would put down striking workers, and the banks would extend financing as directed by the president. Hyundai as a leader among chaebol was a prime beneficiary of this policy. (When Chung fell out with the government in the early 1990s, of course, Samsung hoped to exploit the rift. Koreans likened the Samsung threat to that of the fisherman in the Chinese proverb who found a seagull and clam fighting each other — and killed them both. 1 )
