The word “efficiency” occurs 203 times in SOUTH KOREA: THE PRICE OF EFFICIENCY AND SUCCESS, while “competitive” appears 100 times in this 442-page book. This is the thesis presented by education administrator Dr. John Gonzalez and his Korean collaborator Young Lee: that efficiency is the guiding value in Korean culture and explains, not only the country’s economic success, but also the downsides of this same success, such as industrial accidents and student depression. Gonzalez began visiting Korea in the 1990s, then lived there for five years after his retirement, working at an International School. Because of his background, a lot of the book is about the South Korean education system, but he is also an acute observer of the social mores and behavior, in addition to backing up his arguments with research and data. While he gives full marks to the Korean people and government for the country’s resounding success since the 1950s, moving from a poor and backward nation to the 12th largest economy and one of the most technologically advanced, he is not hesitant about highlighting the steep social costs of this progress.

Gonzalez starts with the students, who have a punishing study schedule since, after attending public schools during the day, nearly all of them have to go to private institutions (hagwons) for additional work, especially test-taking preparation. This, he explains, is because getting into a top university is crucial for financial success and, according to him, Koreans are obsessive about material achievements and the accompanying status. One outcome is that Korean children rate among the least happy with their lives in international surveys. Nor is Gonzalez overly impressed with their academic achievements, since he argues that they are taught to pass tests rather than think (which explains their top scores in cross-country tests like PISA and PIRLS.) Adult Koreans also suffer from this obsession with educational scores. Not only do parents make immense financial sacrifices to ensure their children get an education, but the resulting oversupply of university graduates has created a phenomenon where people in their 40s and 50s are often fired and younger, cheaper employees hired. As a consequence, South Korea has a 25 percent self-employment rate (mostly small businesses) as compared to an entrepreneurial nation like the United States, where that rate is just over six percent. And many people also work in unsafe conditions due to cost-cutting efficiency, with Gonzalez devoting two chapters to public disasters and industrial accidents.

Although they sometimes let their liberal and Western biases color their arguments, John Gonzalez and Young Lee present a thorough portrait of Korean society and their warnings about the price of success are worth attending, both for other nations and for individuals in SOUTH KOREA: The Price of Efficiency and Success.

~Kevin Baldeosingh for IndieReader