Who Needs a Strong State

In his "Korea and Dependency Theory" (MR October 1985), Aidan Foster-Carter states that "[d]ependency theorists, for their part, point to the alleged costs of the Seoul way [of industrialization]. These include: an enormous foreign debt burden ($40 billion, and growing); the longest average working week of any that the ILO records...and rule by a military dictator. So Seoul-style growth is said to be growth without development, oriented toward the outside rather than the inside, unable to raise living standards and meet basic needs" (p. 28; emphasis added).This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website

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