Developmental Citizenry Stranded: Jobless Economic Recovery

Abstract

The economic crisis and its emergency rescue measures—in large part recommended by the International Monetary Fund (IMF)—dealt a fatal blow to state-grassroots interactive developmentalism. Labor shedding was the most crucial measure for rescuing South Korean firms, a big part of which were on the verge of bankruptcy. Even during the sustained economic recovery, most of the major firms continued to undertake organizational and technological restructuring in an employment-minimizing manner. The resumed economic growth buttressed by phenomenal increases of export by chaebol firms has not been accompanied by meaningful improvements in grassroots employment and livelihood. Instead, temporary and underpaid jobs have become normal, and on-the-job poverty has increased sharply. Income inequality has kept expanding continuously, and even those under absolute poverty lines have drastically increased in numbers and proportions. Such abrupt erosion of developmental citizenship has induced South Koreans into various actions of exiting or wishing to exit the jobless industrial capitalist system.