Man, Economy, and Seoul

[Draggingtree]

Ludwig von Mises Institute :

Man, Economy, and Seoul

Mises Daily:Thursday, April 11, 2013 by Christopher Westley

 

Picture a mono-racial New York metropolitan area with a fraction of the murders, if you can. Add in unreadable signs and buildings and infrastructure completed in 1960 or later. Then you might have a picture of Seoul, the capital of the Republic of Korea and, quite possibly, the new center of global capitalism. At least, that is my conclusion after spending several days there on academic and professional pursuits.

 

Seoul lacks the boroughs and neighborhoods of the Northeast in favor of apartment living, and one gasps at the many hundreds of high rises spread throughout the city. Living in a house with a garage to clean and lawn to care for is as foreign to the average Korean as it is for the average Manhattan-ite. In Seoul’s case, this reflects cultural and historical choices similar to the reasons why people clustered together in Italian city-states in an earlier time. There is safety in numbers, and Seoul-ians—who have been the target of expanding empires for centuries—prefer urban closeness to suburban expanse.

 

From this perspective, there is something downright libertarian about Seoul and Korea in general. For centuries Korea held isolation from the world a virtue considering the various attempts at invasion and colonization by outsiders, particularly the Japanese and the Manchurians. Like Italy, Korea has preserved a culture and language that is unique and maintained a decentralized political system that made its becoming a colonizer practically unthinkable, while producing a military culture historically defensive in a “Don’t Tread On Me” sense. Korea has been called the Hermit Kingdom, content to be closed to the world and hard to find on a map.

[Draggingtree]

Let’s Not be So Eager for War in Korea

 

By

 

Gene Healy

This article appeared in DC Examiner on April 9, 2013.

 

“Welcome to ‘This Week’ — on the edge!”— ABC’s George Stephanopolous practically lunged through my TV screen Sunday morning.

He cut to a clip of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel warning of a “real and clear danger” from North Korea, and returned with “is their puzzling young leader spoiling for war? Can President Obama do anything to stop him?”

 

Then I picked up the Washington Post Outlook section and read “South Korea has already won.” Max Fisher reports that amid the hermit kingdom’s threat to launch a “do-or-die final battle” with the U.S. and South Korea, young South Koreans are more concerned with reality shows, pop girl groups and “bourgeois lifestyle commentary,” including a “month-old debate on regional differences on how to eat sweet and sour pork.”

 

What gives? Is North Korea a threat or not? It’s easy to get confused. But despite Kim Jong Un’s bluster, the regime is only a threat to the U.S.

http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/lets-not-be-so-eager-war-korea