A Tale Of Two Koreas: Dystopia On The Half-Shell

“From what I hear, which isn’t much, Iran financed it and North Korea supplied the bombs.” – Jericho

North Korea shows off it’s newly developed portable Internet device.  (All memes as-found)

Imagine living in a Korea where:

  • a small group of corrupt elite wield godlike powers over the government and citizens,
  • kids work in factories at the age of less than 10, or, toil in school for up to 18 hours a day to study for a chance to please that same elite who control the entire country,
  • most non-elite live in drab, gray (or is it grey?) apartments with the main view of . . . other apartments,
  • adults work long hours in a job that mainly serves to feed the elite,
  • the fertility rate is 0.78, meaning life is so awful that parents don’t want to bring babies into it, meaning the population will be cut by more half each generation, and
  • the kids listen to K-Pop.

Yeah.  South Korea.

You know, I know people love to call certain places hellholes while praising others as shiny beacons of progress, mainly due to one being capitalist and one being communist.

I get it.  I hate communism, too.

I had a horrible dream last night that Artificial Intelligence controlled our lives, and then, thankfully, the alarm on my Alexa® went off and woke me up and then Alexa® went through my to-do list.

But what if I told you that sometimes the “better” option of capitalism is just a prettier prison?

In South Korea, a tiny cabal of families runs the show like they’re the Sopranos, but with better electronics, worse haircuts, and no fear of the FBI.  These aren’t your average mafia dons; we’re talking about chaebols.  Chaebols are massive conglomerates that have tentacles that extend all the way through all parts of society, like the corporation you work for owning your fridge, car, and your grandma’s pacemaker.

Take the Lee family at Samsung®:  they’re not just peddling phones with spyware straight from the NSA, nope.  In South Korea, they have fingers in everything from shipbuilding to life insurance to health care to construction to hotels in about 80 different companies that comprise about 22% of the South Korean economy.

Hell, if you sneeze in this country, there’s probably a Samsung tissue waiting to catch it.  And when Daddy Lee gets nabbed for bribery and attempted bribery (again), does the empire crumble?

Nope, Lee Junior slides right in.

Is the guy who does security on Samsung™ phones the guardian of the galaxy?

Then there’s the Chung clan over at Hyundai®. These folks don’t just make cars.  Nope.  Hyundai builds cities, runs banks, and probably have a secret lab cloning K-Pop idols, Gangnam-style.

Power gets handed down generation to generation, and if there’s a whiff of scandal?  Poof, it vanishes faster than a North Korean dissident.

Embezzlement?

Tax evasion?

Those are just another boring Tuesday for these overlords.  They operate above the law, pulling strings in government like K-Y® covered puppet masters at a marionette orgy (I’m sorry I thought of that, but now you have to think of that, too).

I don’t know how to stop a killer sex bot, but I do know how to stop a hand puppet:  disarm it.

These huge conglomerates eternal, sucking up wealth while the average South Korean fights over scraps.  Capitalism is great at building stuff, sure, but when it goes full oligarch, it’s like giving all the Monopoly® money to the banker (drunk Aunt Betty) and listening to her tell everyone else to enjoy passing Go© without collecting $200 and then it’s the Thanksgiving from Hell and Uncle L.T. won’t stop talking about golf.

Excuse me.  Some past-life trauma.

I’m not against wealth concentration when it comes because people created actual wealth in society.  I think people should be rewarded for making the lives of others better.  But South Korea?  The top families make money because they control all the pathways of wealth creation and the government.

I’d bet they’re gonna make a move on religion, next.

Bold statement time: capitalism alone doesn’t equal freedom; and in South Korea it is just feudalism (which, I remind you, was also capitalism) with neon-colored LED lights.

And it gets worse.  What really inspired me to write this one was about the kids.  The South Korean economy is a beast that demands blood sacrifices, starting young.  Kids are out there hustling like they’re in a Dickens novel, but instead of cleaning chimneys, it’s cram schools that make American homework look like recess.

I’d make a joke but I want to be seen as mining my own business.

For the grown-ups, it’s worse: 60-80 hour weeks are the norm, turning humans into zombies shuffling through cubicles.  Monotonous?  Try soul-crushing, like being stuck in the Matrix but without the cool kung fu and hot chicks in skin-tight latex.  Adults are coding, welding, or staring at screens till their eyes cross, all for a paycheck that barely covers rent.  And that’s the lucky ones – the effective unemployment rate flirts on a regular basis with 25%.

And speaking of rent—everyone’s jammed into these towering commie-blocks, gray slabs of despair that make Brutalist architecture look inspiring.  Check it out on Google™ Maps© Streetview®.  It’s like The Sims® but with new Depression Mode enabled: tiny apartments where families stack like cordwood, dreaming of escape but too exhausted to move.

The place where it gets really grim is that they’re working themselves to death.  South Korean birthrates are in the toilet, flushing away the future one non-existent kid at a time.

It takes 2.1 kids per woman to keep a population stable.  In South Korea, it’s 0.78 kids per woman.  In about 100 years, that might mean that instead of 55 million serfs potential employees Samsung® might only have a just a few over 7.5 million left.

This isn’t sustainable; it’s societal suicide by spreadsheet.

You know what jokes about low birthrates aren’t?  Childish.

Everyone thinks it South Korea is all Squid Games and high-speed internet, but peel back the veneer, and it’s a dystopia where families (well, not all families) get ground to dust.  Sure, they’ve got flashy tech, but at what cost?

Their souls, apparently.

Now, let’s cross that fortified border to the hermit kingdom of North Korea, where the dystopia’s got a different flavor but the same aftertaste of oppression. Point by point, because why not?

  • Corrupt Clique in Charge: Instead of chaebol families, it’s the Kim dynasty. Power passes from Kim to Kim like a Habsburg chin.  Voting?  You don’t vote on a living god.  The elite live like it’s a South Korean oligarchy, but make theirs communist, so, uniforms and marching and Soviet-tech.  So, tie.
  • Economic Shackles on Steroids: Child labor? Oh yeah, but it’s “patriotic duty” with Nork kids harvesting crops or building monuments to Stalin instead of studying like their southern counterparts.  The system is a joke, with rations so meager you’d think calories were capitalist spies.  Families toil in state farms or factories, nukes, missiles, and spare MiG parts while the Kim family imports Twix® and Coors™.  The South doesn’t have death camps, but I’m not sure if that’s good or bad at this point, so, tie.

This definitely hurt the North’s score.

  • Soul-Sucking Slog: Just like being at the Democratic National Convention, life in North Korea is a parade of propaganda and forced smiles, living in actual commie-blocks that crumble like the regime’s promises.  Monotonous work?  Try endless marches and indoctrination sessions.  It’s like 1984 but with worse food even than English food.  I’ll give this to the South, since they come here from time to time, and I’ve never had a North Korean visit.

What is this, a school for ants?

  • Birthrates Below Replacement: Around 1.9 kids per woman, much, much better than the South, so eventually there will be more Norks than replaceable Samsung® assets.  Besides, who wants to raise a family when Junior might rat you out for humming the Brady Bunch theme?  This one goes solidly to North Korea.
  • K-Pop Equivalent? Nope, just state anthems praising the Dear Leader.  I’ve got to give this to North Korea.

If black people move there, will they make K-Rap?

Point total?  To the North.

Okay, if I had to pick, I certainly wouldn’t pick the North, but let’s be honest, the South is awful as well.  I’ve been trying to make this point again and again:  capitalism is an economic system, and it’s only a useful economic system if it generates wealth and supports families.  When capitalism captures the systems of government the people begin to look like property, exactly like people look to communists.  In Korea, people are either cogs or convicts.

The Founders didn’t mention capitalism or socialism, they just turned people loose with guns and a few rules and let them figure it out.  In the West today, business wants to import foreigners to become better cogs, and the GloboLeft wants to import hordes of foreigners who are used to their government treating them like convicts.

Though on the bright side, my Samsung™ phone has lasted for years . . .

Author: John

Nobel-Prize Winning, MacArthur Genius Grant Near Recipient writing to you regularly about Fitness, Wealth, and Wisdom - How to be happy and how to be healthy. Oh, and rich.

28 thoughts on “A Tale Of Two Koreas: Dystopia On The Half-Shell”

  1. I worked with some South Korean companies (and engineers) over the years. Greatly preferred them to their Chinese counterparts as they were more ethical and friendly. What you described about the chaebols is spot on, and why many let Korea. They said you had to work for one of the chaebols or you had no career (but if you did work for one you had no life).

    I do expect the Korean economy to crash and burn at some point in the next few years. It’s not just the chaebols, as their entire industrial base is propped up by government subsidization. Their govt can provide those subsidies for the same reason that European countries can spend so much on social welfare…..because Uncle Sam is footing the bill for their national defense. .

    One other side note….Can you name a single product that is solely a Korean invention? It used to be a running joke that before the internet it was common to see small armies of South Koreans in the US Patent office photocopying everything they could get their hand on. I used think it was just that, a joke, until Korean cars starting hitting the US market. Almost every single one looks like a knockoff of a US or European brand. When I started working with them, this tendency to copy became even more apparent.
    JB

    2. If anything, I expect the South Koreans to be replaced by the North, because the North will be there.

    1. I do 60-80 hours a week this time of year but that’s just the nature of construction in the arctic (can’t pave when it’s -40). Of course, I do get all the OT pay I put in. There was a study done during WW2 to see at what point does working more have diminishing returns and IIRC it’s 56 hours a week.

    3. I’ve bought Hyundai cars for other 25 years. GREAT cars, reliable, safe, relatively inexpensive.
      However, in addition to your point about employee treatment, there is another problem.
      I use the Bluelink app. When I bought the latest car, I was told that it would have a subscription fee after 3 years.
      Fair enough. It does remote start and warmup, as well as remote lock.
      However.
      The app will not work after 2026. At all in my model.
      I would have to add an after-market product and pay for it to get the same benefits.
      I won’t sell the car. I keep my cars for 10-12 years.
      But I am unlikely to buy another Hyundai. We previously bought 7 of them.
      Their loss.

  3. If only there was some alternative to the “capitalism”/communism dichotomy. I wonder what would happen to a leader that tried to implement such a system….

  5. I’ve done environmental work at several Korean-Owned C-Stores, and all were immaculate. Generally paid in cold, hard cash when work was completed. My take is that once they escape (literally), they work harder to ensure they’ll not wind up back in Korea.

    Knew it was bad there but bot that bad. BTW, we bought a Samsung washer/dryer combo 6 years ago when we moved. The washer is a POS.

    1. Only have the Samsung phones and a Samsung dryer. We did have a Samsung washer, but it didn’t last long, at all.

    1. I wish the Brits would misspell their words in more obvious ways. I don’t mind it when they use “favourite” instead of favorite as it is easy to keep that one straight. But grey/gray, defense/defence, etc. are harder for me to remember as both spellings look reasonable.

      And if Trump is going to do something silly like rename the Gulf of America, then he might as well go all in and proclaim that the British are speaking “American” instead of English. Then we can make them start spelling everything properly.

      1. They also need to be consistent in which words they use. For instance, the only reason we use “soccer” to refer to soccer is because that is what the British originally called it.

  7. Just wow, JW. First it was blaqqs being blaqq. Then pajeets pouring into the US to do the street-sh!tting that Americans won’t do. Now bagging on Norks and Sporks locked in their own dying countries.

    Is everything ok at home?

    I just did a quick inventory of my appliances, only to find that all but one of them are Samsungs – side-by-side fridge, standalone freezer, microwave, washer and dryer, cellphone, dishwasher, flat screen TV. The very laptop on which I am mashing keys right now. The only Seoul-less holdout is an ancient Kenmore vacuum cleaner that refuses to die and be replaced by something modern…and Korean.

    I don’t doubt that my appliances communicate with one another as well as with Samsung HQ. Sometimes I hear low voices (no, not those voices) but I don’t speak Korean, so I don’t know what they have in mind for me. But if it’s world domination they are after, they’ll have to just get in line. Gates, Bezos, Soros have all called dibs on FUSA and South Korea’s vanishing population does not bode well for their chances.

    1. Harb-

      Thanks for your appliance input. Down home (for me) in Beaufort SC, as noted our /D are Samsung. 6 yr. D is Ok, W sucks, gets out of balance weekly w/ medium loads of clothes. Everything else is Whirlpool or GE; only our GE “Vinny Johnson” (this is for older Piston Fans) Microwave died after 15 years of use.

      Sweetie bought the penthouse unit adjoining hers in Charleston (No, not from a divorce…cum laude MBA/JD & Board Secretariat of the American unit of an European international financial services company). So, two kitchens, bathrooms and laundry rooms. Both ovens and microwaves are GE; one MW’s timer quit last year. Both Whirlpool W/Ds from 2010 are fine. Both Frigidaires (hey Zs – that’s why they are called “Fridges”) had not died after 15 years, until one was replaced with w/ a Whirlpool 2 months ago.

      Computerwise, we’re Mac people. Zero complaints. But after 15 years, we’re going back to HP from Korean Brother printers. But assume HP is made there too.

      Glad to hear Samsung works for you. The general opinion on Samsung at Beaufort’s 5-Star Dive Bar (The Fillin’ Station) is that you don’t buy Samsung appliances. Best dive bar in SC. Unless you’re good, don’t shoot pool there. Upper middle class sharks, seriously.

      1. Lamont, I surely did not mean to imply that Samsung is my jam, or even a top choice. I inherited all of those household appliances a little over a year ago when Beloved Wife and I bought this hacienda and hobby ranch/farm in sizzlin’ South Texas (it’s our ‘weekend place’, but having recently retired, our ‘weekends’ are stretching from Thursday to Monday now, at least for the gardening months.)

        We have the same issue with the #$%!@ Samsung washing machine, which goes out of balance at the drop of a sock and then just recycles indefinitely until we haul everything out and reload. Apparently this is a ‘thing’ with Samsung washers, and I’ll never own another one. The Samsung microwave rattles and hums and the digital time readout is missing segments. The fridge is finicky and tends to freeze things in the main compartment during our weekly 3-day absences back at the ‘city’ house. We have a Frigidaire side-by-side at the city house, but I only bought that brand because I had not heard of it in 40 years and just could not resist the nostalgic lure.

        Phone, TV and laptop are all old, but still serviceable. Until I read JW’s post yesterday, I was unaware of just how many Samsung products we own. They kinda crept in and took up residency in our life.

        1. I’m truly amazed at the power of marketing . That LG appliance that is sold as a high end unit…….well .the LG stands for Lucky Goldstar. Remember them? They were the really crappy brand that were dirt cheap years ago, but you knew when you bought it that it was cheap. Part of the upscaling of their brand image was to change the name to LG as it sounded more sophisticated. The appliances aren’t any better as we bought a few under the LG brand and they are fraught with problems.

          Of course, the one downside to having marketing “upscale” your brand is that you better have product quality to match that image or you will just piss off the consumer. Samsung/LG are rapidly getting a bad reputation with everyone I talk to because the products don’t last. I’m looking for a new washing machine to replace our Samsung (it gets stuck in a wash cycle for 4 to 5 hours) and already seeing the prices on Samsung appliances being much lower than before.

    2. I lived in Seoul in 1996, doing the English teacher shtick. One of my assignments was in a Seoul suburb that consisted almost entirely of massive high rise complexes. Fifteen story, cookie cutter buildings, distinguishable only by having a massive number painted near the top. Penal facilities have more beauty and humanity.

      The Koreans were, and probably still are, an intensely insular and prideful people. They would inform you that Korean cars are the best in the world (in the mid 90’s?), Korean food the most delicious, Korean women the most beautiful. One slightly delusional man told a friend of mine that within our lifetimes Korean would become the international language of business.

      The next year my girlfriend and I moved to Taiwan, and I remember after a couple days we remarked to each other, “these people are normal!” The chaebol/zaibatsu system doesn’t exist in Taiwan or even China. Think about it, can you name a single world-bestriding Taiwanese corporation? All those “Made In Taiwan” gadgets and gewgaws that you bought in the 80’s and 90’s were produced in mom and pop factories that lined Taiwan’s populated west coast. I still return to Formosa every year and you don’t see the stratifcation or latent misery described in this article. In general, life is good in Taiwan amd I can’t help think that one reason is the dearth of feudal economic overlords.

    3. Hahahaha! Yup, all okay – I’m an equal opportunity tool – I make fun of everyone who needs to be made fun of.

  9. >Ok, we tried women’s suffrage and discovered that their primary political concern is killing their own babies.
    >Can we finally call this experiment failed and move on?
    https://x.com/matt_e_cochran/status/1828413966642561499

    So far it’s just a single city in North Korea, but this kind of marital draft is more likely to preserve civilization than letting women do whatever they please.
    https://sigmagame.substack.com/p/north-korea-leads-the-way

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