South Korea and Austrian Economics

It’s a frustrating day! I wrote a draft yesterday for my next post, but as I checked my documents today, I could not find it. You know the experience of rewriting again a paper that took you some time to organize your thoughts. There is no certainty that I could come up with the same form I did yesterday. I simply decided to start anew.

I remember writing yesterday that I decided not to write further about the remaining four news articles from The Korea Herald, which I stated in my earlier post due to irrelevant content. Instead, I replaced them with three links related to “South Korea, Interventionism, and Austrian Economics”. I dropped “It’s time for Japan and South Korea to go nuclear.”

The first link directs to a Spanish blogger and investor who identified himself as jrv. His article’s title is Thoughts about Austrian Economists in the Present Context and Investing. Jrv’s profile and portfolio are impressive.  I could relate to his learning experience, but his investment successes are still very far from me.  I think the most relevant part in his article for my research is the sixth paragraph where he describes the increasing influence of socialism on many countries especially in the US. He excluded South Korea from that tendency. This is his personal opinion, which awaits confirmation from other more reliable sources.

The article of Lawrence W. Reed appears to me a confirmation of the opinion of the above blogger. It is about “Good News from Korea, China, and Vietnam.” I will just focus on Korea where Reed reports about the progress of Austrian way of thinking in South Korea.

Though written on the same year that global economic crisis took place, I really consider it good news to know that an institution was established in the peninsula to advance the cause of the free market. The establishment of Center for Free Enterprise would serve as a stronghold to frustrate South Korea’s socialistic tendency.

I envy South Korea for having free market thinkers like Dr. Byoung-Ho Gong and Dr. Chung-Ho Kim. Dr. Gong is the founder of CFE and Dr. Kim is the current president. They performed great service both for the future of liberty and their country by translating the books of classic Austrian economists into their language. How I wish that such academic labor would be emulated in our country, the Philippines.

The third link is actually a forum thread. It attempts to answer the question about South Korea’s economic prosperity. The first response contains five additional links. I already wrote my summary on the first article. My next writing task will focus on the four remaining links.