Not a Generalization About Korea — But Worth Reading

Korea is not an advanced country, but a serf society dressed up as one.

Korea has acquired only the outward form of an advanced country; its people’s spirit remains in a premodern society of serfs.

The buildings grew taller, the smartphones faster, and the national income rose.

But the way people treat people has hardly changed in centuries.

To those above, they submit without asking why.

Upon those below, they repeat the very violence they once suffered.

Age is worshiped over ability, rank is followed over logic, and the appearance of suffering is prized over results.

More authority goes to the one who held the seat longest than to the one who solves the problem best.

Rather than trust one capable person, they attach ten incompetent ones and call it “a system.”

Because what this society wants is not results but obedience.

Finish fast, and they say you lack sincerity.

Solve it easily, and they think it has no value.

Do it alone, and they judge you deficient in team spirit.

Hold ten meetings instead, pass through five layers of approval, produce a hundred pages of reports no one will read — and you are recognized as a hard worker.

The stupider the organization, the more money it burns.

Lacking judgment, it adds people; lacking the courage to take responsibility, it adds procedure; failing to understand the problem, it adds meetings. And the cost of all that inefficiency is dumped onto the working level and the customer.

In such a society, the capable are forced into one of two choices:

live on the permission of the incompetent,

or leave the organization entirely and build their own work.

The rising number of young Koreans weighing startups and emigration is not simply about money. They are sick of a life that requires constant permission from people with worse judgment than their own.

Korean society’s power and resources are still held by generations and organizations that think in hierarchies.

They say “respect authority,” but what they actually want is obedience.

They say “mind your manners,” but show none to those weaker than themselves.

They say “think of the organization,” but care more about keeping their seats than about the organization’s future.

And the most horrifying part is that this does not end as one generation’s problem.

Young people, if they survive long enough inside that structure, become the same.

At first they rage at the absurdity — but the moment they gain a little power, they repeat on their juniors what was done to them.

The serf, instead of abolishing the caste system, chooses to become the overseer.

That is why simple education or campaigns cannot easily change this culture.

“Let us respect one another.”

“Let us communicate horizontally.”

“Let us build an innovative organization.”

Pinning such phrases to the wall changes nothing.

Unless the people who hold power actually step down from their seats, unless the structure in which obedience yields profit collapses, the culture keeps reproducing itself.

In the end, it is a problem that ends only when a few generations actually exit the center of society.

Exit here does not mean merely biological death.

It means those with the old way of thinking relinquishing decision-making power and control over resources.

Those who monopolize judgment merely because they are older,

who freely spend others’ time merely because their rank is higher,

who mistake paying money for having purchased even a person’s dignity — such people must no longer be able to stand at the center.

Korea is not backward because it is poor.

If anything, there is plenty of money.

The problem is where that money goes.

Stingy with skill, lavish with formality.

An expert’s hour is beaten down, while hundreds of millions are spent on an incompetent organization’s month of meetings.

To those who create value they say “too expensive,” while the salaries of managers who destroy value are paid without question.

This is why Korea keeps burning money while productivity never rises.

An advanced country is not one with clean subways and fast internet.

It is one where people without power are treated as human beings.

Where the more accurate person can decide, even with fewer years of service.

Where expertise is recognized and paid its fair price.

Where doing nothing is a greater shame than a failed attempt.

Korea has not yet arrived there.

Inside the buildings of an advanced country, it repeats premodern human relations,

and uses cutting-edge technology to maintain the old hierarchy more efficiently.

Perhaps our generation, too, will never live as citizens of a fully advanced country.

What we can do, at the least, is refuse to hand this serf mentality intact to the next generation.

Not submitting unconditionally to those above,

not repeating on those below the violence we suffered,

looking at judgment and results rather than a person’s age and title,

and paying a fair price for others’ time and expertise.

The moment Korea becomes a true advanced country is not the day its GDP climbs higher.

It is the day when people who do not obey like serfs,

do not lord like masters,

and treat one another as independent citizens become the center of society.

Until that day comes, Korea is not an advanced country.

It is merely a serf society that looks like one.