Power and Class
- Abby Lin
- Nov 10, 2018
- 2 min read
Updated: Nov 12, 2018
Upper class seems to be so desirable as “class” is important in Korea because it defines who you are, where you belong to and how much power you hold.
The scene in the beginning when Seo Yul joined TQ Group clearly illustrate the statement. He knew it was the only way to join the upper class because being a successful prosecutor and winning lawsuits would never get him there. So, he offered TQ Group his talent in tax law and in return, the company offered him a top management position. Moreover, in EP10, since Seo Yul constantly helped the company get away with tax evasion lawsuits, the company even offered him TQ Retail, a subsidiary of TQ Group. What Seo Yul wanted was not the high salary, but the title and power of being a part of TQ Group.
What makes being in the upper class so desirable are the privileges that come with it. “Privilege is measured by the extent to which one is an exception to the rules” (Kang 2002:21). And how exceptions to the rules are made? From bribery and corruption. Bribery and privilege come in different forms and levels. There are two ranks of people in the drama. CEO Park, his assistant and Seo Yul represent the upper class because they have the power to control majority of people and they have connections with the authorities in different professional fields. The rest of the corrupted management employees are classified as middle class since they need to follow orders and do not have the power nor the connections.
For the upper class, since everyone is rich and affluent, wealth is only the basic prerequisite. They value power over money, so for them, money would not be their first choice as bribery, but rather a promise for a favor or more power. These favors are usually things that money cannot solve. As we can see from the drama, when the CEO was bribing, there was no money involved because the people he was trying to bribe are in the same class who do him favors. He knows that they can't be satisfied by money anymore because he is the same kind of person as them.
However, when the CEO or his assistant was demanding things from the management level employees, they always use money as a medium for bribery. Because the upper class knows, people below them can easily be satisfied with money.
From the above cases, it is obvious that when you are in different classes, with different social groups and the amount of power you hold, the bribery medium depends. When money is no longer attractive, congratulations, maybe that's a sign of entering upper class successfully.
Question:
1. Do you think privilege is the only thing that makes upper class so desirable? Or is it power? money? Or something else?
2. Seo Yul joined TQ Group as a former prosecutor in order to become upper class. Can his decision be justified?
Reference:
Kang, David C. Crony Capitalism: Corruption and Development in South Korea and the Philippines. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2009.
I agree with what Wendy said in terms of money leading to privilege and privilege leading to power. It is one of the most prevalent concepts that we can see evidently within our daily lives. From real estate to the food we eat, everything people do has its own privilege /power scale to it. However, at the same time Edwards comment also is quite relevant in our lives where we are able to make the decisions ourselves to break the barrier through our choices we make in life. For instance, we are all in school right now trying to achieve greater achievements than our minds could fathom. For the wealthy and powerful, if they don't have knowledge and experience the…
I agree with Wendy that earning respect is somewhat important because that's the most basic human interactions between people. However, I wonder, if earning respect from others is important in upper class world? Is getting people to respect them something so important that they want to spend time on building their own images? Or is it the social group that they are willing to spend time on connecting and building? If one is a influential person like TQ's CEO, I think he cares more about what people say in front of him. As long as people don't say something that make him loose his face in front of other people, he doesn't care about what people actually think. As his…
When you have an in-text citation it goes -before- the final . at the end of the sentence. If it goes after, it's technically the start of the next sentence!
I think that this essay talks more about the world than about Korea. Not to say that you're wrong, just that... it's not bringing back the things we're learning in lecture and reading and bringing them to bear on the drama.
I believe it's definitely the combined benefits that makes being in the upper class such a desirable group to be in. I agree with Wendy's idea, it's a chain reaction of money leading to privilege and thus being able to attain power over others. I don't think you can attribute it to one factor as it tends to work as a whole. To several, money is a great motivator in society. Everyone needs it to survive in this world, thus it acts as an incentive for many. Money could be seen as an evil because it lead people to commit degrading acts, because of greediness as the main motive. Many people in society have a desire to move up in…
I think all these traits: Privilege, Power, and Money, that makes upper class so desirable. All these are suppose to be connecting one or another. As in privilege makes someone so powerful and they tend to earn more due to being special. Power is where people fear you and thus making you privilege and earn more. Money is the same way as how privilege and power works. Being in the upper class makes up all these three so thus making the position itself so desirable. With all these, you can do pretty much more than most people who are in the middle class and lower class. Giving a better education to your children, living in a comfy house, eatin…