How did East Asia Get Rich? Dr Oliver Kim
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- Опубликовано: 16 сен 2024
- Dr Oliver Kim has completed his PhD at Berkeley, recently appointed at Open Phil. He does awesome research, carefully examining the drivers of structural transformation. We discussed:
Why do you think East Asia is the only world region to have converged with the West?
How have big data and computational tools changed our understanding of structural transformation?
Oliver Kim's website is here: oliverwkim.com/
Incredible & informative
Emphasis on education: I can remember I was in the "top" of three sixth grade classes at my school in 1968. I was sitting in the front next to the number 1 student. It is quite a shock when you move to a bigger place, and you have to start off again, not near the top.
In college, someone jumped off the top of the psychology building -- an ironic choice.
Also, S Korea, Japan, etc. had other advantages
1) majority ethnic group & language
2) various national institutions.
This was amazing! Seldom do we have the privilege of such articulate erudition and passionate engagement from both host and guest. At the end though I am saddened by the limitations of the liberal progressive mindset that both function in. The weakness and relative absence of the China experience in this was to me indicative of that. The focus on American vassals as exemplars of the east Asian story is unfortunate. The underplaying of the grotesque nature of Japanese Fascism domestically and regionally was particularly grating. Still, you have an enthusiastic new subscriber who is rushing to check out your other stuff.
I really love this video but I’d appreciate it even more if you didn’t interrupt his train of thought
I also get a bit passionate at times & dominate the convo but I feel like he couldn’t get his thought out Like OMG
The meritocratic civil service exam system also helped the West develop and thrive. The Northcote-Trevelyan Proposal, which prescribed a civil service exam system for determining official appointments, was inspired by Trevelyan's travels in the Far East. Other European countries then copied Britain's meritocratic civil service structure, which eventually made its way across the Atlantic to the US which soon adapted the concept for university admissions.
I don't think the reason the meritocracy/exam system was effective for state building was because of homogenization; I think its impact was more basic: It produced literate, numerate, motivated candidates for government positions who had high initiative. Contrast this to other societies in the world where such positions were filled through birthright and nepotism.
Singapore is further evidence that homogeny or long history are not primary reasons for the success of these societies. Here is an ethnically, religiously, and racially diverse country which only came into being 60 years ago, whose history goes back just 200 years when the British founded it as a labor colony. And yet, in many ways it has surpassed Taiwan, South Korea and Japan in most economic and human development indicators.
What a load of bullshit. These societies have had historical civilisations going back thousands of years.