Abstract
This paper considers Confucian influence in the economic systems of North and South Korea within the context of the context of the new traditional economy, introduced by the authors initially in 1996. Such an economy seeks to be modern technologically and in other ways, but also is embedded to some extent within a traditional socio-cultural tradition, usually tried to a traditional religion. In the case of the two Koreas, they both come from a strong Confucian tradition even though their current systems are very different, with the North Korean the purest remaining command socialist system in the world, while the much better performing South Korean one is mostly market capitalist, although with a history of considerable amounts of indicative planning. Both officially reject Confucianism as an official ideology, but both show substantial Confucian influence, particularly emphasis on the importance of education and the role of the family, although in South Korea this is more through family leadership in the chaebol corporations whereas in North Korea it is through the dynastic leadership. However, they differ on other aspects, with North Korea emphasizing certain aspects not aiding economic growth such as an anti-mercantile attitude and isolationism with its juche policy of self-reliance.
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Notes
North Korea has substantially relaxed it command central planning system, especially through introducing markets in agricultural goods (Haggard and Noland, 2010), even as its economy remains mostly centrally planned (Noland, 2012). However, other economies have moved further in reducing their command central planning so that North Korea remains closer to the Stalinist model than any other nation in the world, especially given that it also retains a ruthless socialist dictatorship.
‘A Korean is more Confucianist than Confucius himself’ (Whigham, 1904, p. 185). ‘Korea is the paradigmatic Confucian society in East Asia’ (Park and Shin, 2006, p. 342).
One way of considering the economics of civilizations is to consider clusters of characteristics associated together that constitute civilizations, with Pryor (2008) advocating the use of cluster analysis precisely for categorizing nations in civilizational groups, although some nations tend to stand alone with their unique civilizations. Many would argue this for Korea, where a distinct identity has held for thousands of years with much path dependence.
‘Neither Confucius nor Mencius allowed much place for the middle or mercantile class. They regarded merchants as small men because their understanding is focused on what is profitable. Confucius judged them more negatively in this respect. There is not anticipation that the stratum of society made up of small men would produce scholars and gentlemen. Their response to faulty government is never mentioned. Their good conduct does not merit esteem, and their disregard for the Way does not affect the stability, peace, or order of society-at least this is a permissible inference’ (Shils, 1996, p. 59).
Dawson (1915, p. 10) argues that Confucius strongly emphasized the self-development of the superior man and how this extended to the self-sufficiency of farms and local self-governments and finally to universal self-government. In the neo-Confucianism of Chu His (Zhu Xi) this also included an ethnocentric bias, although there was no outright forbidding of foreign trade by Confucius or his followers, more a preference for local self-sufficiency, which increasingly became policy in the Ming and Qing dynasties in China, as well as in Edo Japan and Choson Korea after 1600.
Needless to say elements of this persist even in standard modern market capitalist economies where many firms are family-owned and run, and words associated with families are often used to describe larger firms, such as the frequent use in Britain particularly of ‘House’ in the names for non-family-owned companies.
Sinkyo was long officially suppressed in Korea by Korean governments but especially by the Japanese during their period of rule as it was associated with Korean nationalism. A curious aspect of Sinkyo is that its leading practitioners are usually women shamans, and today it often operates in natural areas concealed by Buddhist temples. Now mostly tolerated in South Korea, it was suppressed during the 1960s–1980s. Apparently it also has followers in North Korea, where it is barely tolerated. Reportedly some of its rituals appear in some Korean Protestant churches as well as in newer Korean religions such as Ch’ŏnogyo.
This susceptibility to Christian influence then can be seen to pre-figure the later relative success of Christian missionaries to convert a substantial portion of the population, although this would be undone and blocked in North Korea.
The matter of alphabets reflects this (Choi, 2008). The current Hangul alphabet was invented shortly after the Choson took power over 600 years ago in its first phase of technological innovativeness, designed for its communicative efficiency to replace the established use of the Chinese alphabet. However, the strongly Confucian yangban elite preferred the Chinese alphabet, and despite support from early Choson kings, the Hangul was not officially adopted and retreated to be preserved by court ladies writing privately for centuries. Only in 1945 with the expulsion of the Japanese was the opposition to the use of the Confucian-affiliated Chinese alphabet finally officially overthrown and replaced by the half-a-millennium old Hangul alphabet.
While this is the most widely held view, many critics exist who see corruption and inequality in the South Korean economy (Clifford, 1994).
We thank a referee for noting this last point to us.
‘Nutgate’ involved public outrage when Cho Hyun-Ah, daughter of Korean Air’s chairman and herself an executive vice president, forced a plane to return to the gate at JFK Airport on 5 December 2014 to remove its chief steward who had served her requested macadamia nuts in a bag rather than in a bowl. She had also forced him to kneel and beg forgiveness while she poked him with a service manual. She was sentenced to a year in jail for violating aviation safety law, obstruction of justice, and assaulting a crew member, with the judge in the case declaring that she had ‘damaged the dignity of the country’. We thank a referee for pointing out this case.
A contrast is Taiwan, where Chiang Kai-Shek officially adopted a pro-Confucian attitude even before his regime moved in defeat to Taiwan in 1949. This was consistent with traditional Chinese culture even as Taiwan and Korea were ruled by Japan during the early 20th century and the Taiwan and the ROK have had similar development paths since the 1950s. Both moved to democracy from dictatorship in recent decades (Pae, 1992).
Surface support for women’s rights in the DPRK is that International Women’s Day (8 March) is an official holiday in the North but not in the South. Haggard and Noland (2013) argue that feminism was an import from the Soviet Union that has been honored more often in the breach.
Some have called the official DPRK doctrine ‘KimIlSungism-KimChongIlism’. Kim Chong-Un has removed official Marxist–Leninist parts of the doctrine, even as the DPRK continues to look very Marxist–Leninist, despite some introduction of private markets (Haggard and Noland, 2010). The initial downplaying of Marxism–Leninism came under Kim Il Sung in 1992 after the fall of the Soviet Union, when juche was officially declared in the Constitution to be the nation’s ideology rather than Marxism–Leninism (Song, 2010). While juche was first introduced in the mid-1950s, it became important as North Korea jockeyed between the USSR and China as their conflicts rose in the 1960s. The DPRK remained out of the CMEA, although it co-founded three of its sub-organizations (Rosser and Rosser, 2005, p. 551), and it kept its long-term planning out of sync with that of either major communist power to avoid strongly linking to either economically, a point we thank a referee for bringing to our attention.
While Confucius emphasized self-reliance that resulted in isolationism under Chinese neo-Confucianism, the degree of isolationism practiced in the later Choson period of Korean neo-Confucianism as well that of juche go well beyond what was practiced in China or clearly advocated by Confucius, although Japan also followed a strongly isolationist policy during the Edo period before the arrival of Perry’s ‘black ships’ in the 1850s.
This included a major importation of portions of the Soviet penal code and practices, including the setting up of gulags that imprison families over multiple generations for an offense, a revival of a practice from the Yi dynasty that may be more traditionally Korean than Confucian (Hawk, 2012).
While Robert Nozick’s opinion of anarchism changed over time, his 1974 book is admired by many anarcho-capitalist economists (Stringham, 2005).
One aspect of Sirhak thought rejected by DPRK authorities was support for commerce against the anti-mercantile views of the established neo-Confucianism, with the ROK following the Sirhak view on this.
A referee notes that some of the imagery and slogans imply a Christian quasi-divinity to Kim Il Sung and his son, Kim Jong Il. They have been, respectively, named ‘President for Eternity’ and ‘Party General Secretary for Eternity’, leaving Kim Jong Un to run the country from the position of Chair of the National Defense Council.
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Acknowledgements
The author thanks Young Bak Choi, Woosik Moon, Hee Jwa Sung, Chong Yoon, and an anonymous referee for useful comments. None of these should be held responsible for remaining errors or misinterpretations.
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Barkley Rosser, J., Rosser, M. The Paradox of New Traditional Confucian Economics in the Two Koreas. Comp Econ Stud 58, 119–138 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1057/ces.2016.1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/ces.2016.1