Koreas “chaebol” system isn’t just any kind of conglomerattion, though… it was based on the system the Japanese used to dominate Korea during it’s colonization of that country, which the US simply encouraged after the war. The dictatorships that followed basically ran with it… and now you have these gigantic, government-subsidized “chaebols” that is the epitome of “too big too fail.” South Korea is about as oligarchic as it gets.
It’s utterly hilarious to me when “free market” cultists try to use South Korea as an example of how miraculous their fairy tale economic ideology is.
It’s functionally close enough to a conglomerate though.
I’m not exactly sure what ‘“free market” cultist’ is or if you’re accusing me of being one. Modern economists don’t normally align themselves with simplistic ideologies like “free market”, “communist” or “capitalist”. They’re aware of the historical and modern usage of these terms but they tend to focus on areas that are far to specific for those terms to even make sense.
You won’t find a lot of economists that argue for complete Laissez-faire capitalism any more than you’ll find real economists arguing in favor of classical Marxism.
There is general agreement that conglomeration benefits management more than shareholders. There’s general agreement that they are more likely to arise under some economic conditions and that those conditions usually aren’t associated with socially optimal economic policies.
Koreas “chaebol” system isn’t just any kind of conglomerattion, though… it was based on the system the Japanese used to dominate Korea during it’s colonization of that country, which the US simply encouraged after the war. The dictatorships that followed basically ran with it… and now you have these gigantic, government-subsidized “chaebols” that is the epitome of “too big too fail.” South Korea is about as oligarchic as it gets.
It’s utterly hilarious to me when “free market” cultists try to use South Korea as an example of how miraculous their fairy tale economic ideology is.
It’s functionally close enough to a conglomerate though.
I’m not exactly sure what ‘“free market” cultist’ is or if you’re accusing me of being one. Modern economists don’t normally align themselves with simplistic ideologies like “free market”, “communist” or “capitalist”. They’re aware of the historical and modern usage of these terms but they tend to focus on areas that are far to specific for those terms to even make sense. You won’t find a lot of economists that argue for complete Laissez-faire capitalism any more than you’ll find real economists arguing in favor of classical Marxism.
There is general agreement that conglomeration benefits management more than shareholders. There’s general agreement that they are more likely to arise under some economic conditions and that those conditions usually aren’t associated with socially optimal economic policies.