Agriculture in Taiwan and South Korea

Abstract

US economic and political policies and interventions supported materially beneficial development in Taiwan and South Korea. They were intended to serve as models of noncommunist, politically stable and economically successful societies operating with freemarket institutions within the US sphere of influence. The generalization of their actual experience as a model of foreign-assisted, state-led development would, if replicated currently, be quite costly: politically, socially and economically. The following chapter will show that the actual model East Asian countries followed contrasts with the ‘free-market’ model that is currently touted by the US and international agencies. The East Asian model involves high direct costs associated with significant changes in class relations and extensive economic aid as well as high indirect costs associated with providing access to developed country (especially US) markets. In the geopolitical context of post-WWII East Asia, the US was willing and able to pay these costs to demonstrate the superiority of freemarket institutions within the sphere of US influence.KeywordsCredit UnionKorean GovernmentLand ReformPeasant AgricultureHigh Direct CostThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.