Jaebeol and government, who’s the problem?
- Abby Lin
- Nov 2, 2018
- 3 min read
Updated: Nov 11, 2018
Corruption between big companies and different authorities is a major issue in Korea, especially with the companies that contributes a large part of Korea’s GDP.
Often times, jaebeol or chaebol are closely related to large scale corruptions. Jaebeol are family-owned business and their power reach across all the diverse industries. However, I would like to argue that the existence of jaebeol is not the core of the corruption, rather, the problem exists because of the mutual benefitting relationship between jaebeol and the government. In other words, jaebeol can bribe government officials without consequences by making account statements cleverly. But without the government’s assistance, jaebeol won’t be able to become what they are now.
Everything started in the 1980s. The economy started to proper when Park Chung Hee created both the powerful bureaucratic organizations and jaebeol to cooperate with the state’s industrialization strategy. (Cheek and Lindau 1998: 106) I believe that the relationship between jaebeol, authorities in different fields, and the government, can be interpreted as a chain reaction. There’s no one to blame for the growth of jaebeol because everyone in the chain must be responsible.
The mistake started when the President gave power to jaebeol. The chain involved too many under-the-table deals and if the government decided to eliminate jaebeol, I believe Korea will be in serious financial crisis. Morally speaking, the government knows that jaebeol is a problem that needs to be addressed. But they also know that, if they try to reduce jaebeol’s power, Korea’s GDP will be in great suffer, since Samsung, Hyundai, LG and Lotte have been leading Korea’s economy by making Korea world’s 5th largest exporter with the 11th largest GDP. (Premack 2017:3)
It would seem like it was all jaebeol’s fault since they are the one that started bribing around, but the fault should actually be on the government. Because the ignorant and greedy nature of government officials, they accepted jaebeol’s bribery and did not take actions against jaebeol. Rather, the officials try to cover the illegal deals for them since the officials have become part of the jaebeol by accepting the bribery. Since bribery works great for jaebeol to get away with anything, it became a common and continuous practice.
Episode 19 has a great example. When CEO Park is facing jail time, he was able to connect with the “old man” who controls everything behind the scenes. He was able to call manager Choi, a “political architect” who can make things look like whatever you want them to, to help CEO Park stay out of trouble by making an employee the scapegoat.
Moreover, I think it is fair to say that Korea got to where it is now from the corruption between jaebeol and the government. Without jaebeol, Korea won’t have the status it has in the world today. Should we penalize jaebeol because they bring sickening trend of bribery? Not necessary, because they are not the only one to blame. Should we blame the government for ignoring the corrupted relationships? Not necessary, because without jaebeol and government working together, Korea would not have had their achievements today.
Word Count: 516
Question:
1. Do you think it was the Korean government who further enhanced corruption by being part of jaebeol?
2. Is there any one side responsible for all the corruption in Korea now?
3. Without the cooperation between jaebeol and government, do you think Korea will be able to be at where it is right now?
Reference
Lindau, Juan David, and Timothy Cheek. Market Economics and Political Change: Comparing China and Mexico. Lanham, MD: Rowman Littlefield, 1998.
Premack, Rachel. "South Korea’s Conglomerates." SAGE Business Researcher (August 21, 2017). http://businessresearcher.sagepub.com/sbr-1863-103804-2830718. doi: 10.1177/237455680324.n1.
Abby,
First it's jaebeol. Please go back and fix the romanization.
Second Lindau and Cheek is too old. It's data from more than 20 years ago, you just can't use it except as historical background. And the Premack does not meet the standards of an academic publication, at least based on what info you've given here.
It is interesting that your conclusion seems to be to absolve the jaebeol and the gov't of any wrongdoing since they developed the economy/country.
Dear team,
I thought that this discussion was a bit better in terms of some members citing real-life scandals (Wendy) and considering ways that the situation might be changing or have opportunities to shift (Tori). In general, though, please don’t speculate, or if it’s something we’ve talked about in class, SAY SO CLEARLY. Don’t make what would be a good argument sound like your speculation using words like “probably”, “likely”, or “maybe”. There is a place for those. But not when you know where your idea comes from and it’s something you’re sure is fact. And vice versa - try to keep it clear, don’t trade facts for your own speculation and pass them off as truth either.
You made a good point, Korea most likely would not be where it's at today if the Jaebeols and the government did not conspire together. There definitely would not be as much corruption, and Korea would not be where it is today in term of ranking. In regards to the second question, I believe there is no way of pushing the responsibility of Korea's corruption to one party, because it takes multiple parties to make a greater impact. One side's participation may not cause as much corruption as what we are still seeing in today's world. The government's teamwork with the Jaebeols definitely made it easier to for them to enhance corruption in Korea. There is nothing stopping them from…
I do believe the Korean government is partially responsible for the corruption in jaebols, however, they do not deserve the full blame. The cooperation of the government and jaebols was instrumental in building up and changing the entire structure of the economy in South Korea. With this cooperation I’m sure there are things that the South Korean government overlooked and saw the actions taken by jaebols as means to an end. At the end of the day, though, it is the jaebols who are committing the crimes. Therefore, the jaebols and the officials who create the corruption and break the laws should be ultimately held responsible. While the relationship between the government and jaebols can lead to corruption, it is…
Whether it is one sided or not, I do think it depends on the situation they are involved with. In the drama, it did look like the jaebol was the most corrupted one, but I do think the drama did try to show the equal of the korean government being on the same level of corruption as the jaebol. But it is hard to say which side is more corrupted due to most have situation on why they ended up doing bad things. For a jaebol’s corruption, I think it has to do with their family’s situation, like maybe the son has committed murder or bribery then normally they would need to cover it up due to not wanting to…