No, high wages came about as industries absorbed labor. So labor repression worked initially but it didn't later. If my memory serves me right Korean wages were growing at very high rates throughout the 70s and 80s. Further, Jim is right that it wasn't classic Lat Am style ISI, but Korea did have ISI, witness the Heavy Industry and Chemicals Industrialization beginning in 1973, though their steel industry was initiated in 1968. Park Chung Hee, the military man, believed in classic heavy industry for national development. The difference was Korea did not, in fact encouraged, shut out exports.
Cheers, Anthony xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Anthony P. D'Costa Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462 Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718 University of Washington Box Number: 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx On Tue, 5 Mar 2002, Devine, James wrote: > you write: > > ...Isnīt "infant-industry promotion, buttressed by trade restrictions" the > only way any country has ever industrialised ,including all of Southeast > Asia and India, or am I way off here?< > > I don't think S. Korea, Taiwan, or Japan made it as far as they did based on > import substitution, which at least in Latin America meant a nation-centric > effort at development. It's more accurate to say that they used protection > in order to build up the basis for fighting and (at least temporarily) > winning the battle of exporting. (Nation-centric development involves, for > example, high domestic wages to provide a home market. This is much less > important to the East Asian "model.") > > > Also it seems to me that in many ways the import substitution regime in > Latin America, however flawed, seemed to progress at a faster pace than the > current neoliberal model.< > > maybe, but for better or for worse the genie is out of the bottle and it's > hard to reverse the neoliberal move away from import substitution. > > Jim Devine > >
