Korea: a paradise for the rich and a hell for the poor.

The word "involution" became the hot word of the year in 2020. This word suddenly emerged from the boring life and work atmosphere of the epidemic, as if it was specially tailored for the current social situation, and was used to describe the increasingly fierce competition in various aspects such as study and work within a system. It seems that everyone has reason to complain about the crazy involution.

In fact, when it comes to real involution, our neighbor South Korea has more say in this respect. /kloc-there are 50 million people on the land of 0/00000 square kilometers, and the per capita GDP of 32000 dollars makes it one of the few developed countries in Asia. Many people may question how a country like South Korea can become a representative of involution countries, because it should be as well-fed as Europe and America.

The word "involution" seems to be in the ascendant in China. In fact, the history of this word can be traced back to the 1960s. From 65438 to 0963, American anthropologist Geerds found that the island was different from the capital-intensive development direction of the outer islands, but continued to focus on labor-intensive industries. Due to the lack of funds, limited land and administrative obstacles, agriculture cannot be popularized, which leads to the continuous filling of limited rice production by the labor force.

Geerds summarized this process as "agricultural involution", and later he further explained this concept as: when a certain cultural model reaches a certain form, there is no way to stabilize it or transform it into a new form, and it can only be made more complicated by increasing internal investment.

Through the above research, the outline of "involution" has been initially clear. Since the new century, with the adjustment of industrial structure, involution has appeared in people's field of vision with a new look. Its English word is incidence, which is a technical term of economics. Through word of mouth, it gradually evolved into meaningless competition and investment within the system. In this way, in the face of increasing pressure of life and work competition, involution has become a kind of ridicule and spit of the public.

Life keeps rolling, making people "more and more sad." Since the word comes from abroad, China is by no means the only country facing involution. It is precisely South Korea, a developed country, that understands the crisis of involution better than we do.

When it comes to the involution of South Korea, what we have to say is the college entrance examination system in South Korea. The most important thing in our student days is the college entrance examination. In fact, the college entrance examination is much more important in South Korea than in China, and almost everyone calls it "a great opportunity to create or destroy the future". Since the high-speed economic development in South Korea in the middle of last century, education has been one of the most powerful driving forces for economic growth, and South Korea's "education fever" has been recognized by the whole world.

Behind the complex cultural appearance of college entrance examination, students are the actual bearers of all pressures. There is such a word among Korean students: "four ups and five downs", which means that students can go to college if they sleep for four hours every day, and they will lose the opportunity to go to college if they sleep for one more hour. Statistics show that Korean high school students leave school at 9: 00 every night and participate in extracurricular tutoring for more than 4 hours every week, far exceeding other developed countries in the world.

Although the enrollment of Korean universities does not depend entirely on the candidates' college entrance examination results, it is generally believed that the college entrance examination results will be the key to decide which university to go to and even the future road. Therefore, in addition to the crazy efforts of fresh graduates, 20% of the total candidates take the Korean college entrance examination every year.

In recent years, South Korea's college entrance examination rate has exceeded 80%, but people generally pursue a few famous universities, and only three can really enter, namely National Seoul University, private Yonsei University and private Korea University. The initials of these three schools together are the sky, so people call it "Sky University" figuratively.

Of the 80% students who successfully enter higher education every year, less than 2% can enter higher education through the college entrance examination. This title is not a simple ridicule, but a profound reflection on the current situation of Korean social structure.

Let's take a brief look at Korean political and business celebrities, whether high-level political celebrities like Jin Yongsan, Lee Myung-bak and Ban Ki-moon or business legends like Li Runyu, all graduated from these universities. Moreover, the students in these universities are United internally and form many small groups after graduation. On the one hand, it will strengthen the alliance between groups, on the other hand, it will also intensify the isolation from other classes, leading to the solidification of social structure.

Other students, even after many exams, get tickets to enter the university, and often become mediocre, and unconsciously become migrant workers of high-level people in the highly solidified Korean society.

There is a big gap between the upper and lower classes in Korea. Recently, the soaring housing prices in Seoul have once again become a hot topic in the news. As we all know, South Korea's population growth rate has been declining year after year, but the simple relationship between supply and demand is no longer applicable to this country, especially Seoul. In recent years, house prices have risen instead of falling.

Just four or five years ago, the house price in Seoul was still at the low level of the world metropolis, but after several years of crazy rise, its price has reached 9.22 million won per square meter, about 53,300 yuan, up nearly 50% from four years ago.

If the simple house price can't explain anything, then an empirical social psychological survey can further explain the situation of Korean involution. Recently, a website in South Korea conducted a survey on the status quo of loneliness index among more than 2,000 young Koreans. The results showed that 58.5% of them said they were lonely. The most common reason for feeling lonely is "increasingly fierce social competition", followed by increasingly serious social differentiation and indifferent social atmosphere.

Experts say that loneliness reflects the gap between contemporary youth and society. When loneliness reaches a certain level, it will lead to various psychological diseases and even extreme behaviors such as suicide. A large number of data show that the pressure faced by Korean youth has brought about universal social problems, which is precisely behind the increasingly serious "involution".

If you want to ask why South Korea is so "involuted", you can borrow an induction from Japanese scholar Shuji Nakamura: the crux of South Korea's development lies in the education system. The logic of its argument is simply that, on the one hand, a large number of disciplined and well-trained workers are needed in the take-off stage of industrialization, and the mass education system just meets this demand; On the other hand, the traditional Confucian imperial examination system takes public examination as the competition standard and absorbs talents suitable for government rule into the political system.

The combination of the two will naturally provide a lot of help for the national economic development in a short time. Under the authoritarian development model of South Korea, the state-led economy and education have been unified and played a huge role. However, with the transformation of economic structure, this kind of mass education model similar to factory assembly line will show disadvantages, lack of creativity and excessive competitive pressure, which will become increasingly stagnant with the development of social economy, and can only meet the needs of evolution through continuous "involution".

Of course, the above viewpoints are only based on the analysis of the present situation of involution in Korea from the perspective of education. We should also see the endogenous disadvantages of South Korea in the process of economic development, which has to mention the chaebol problem in the process of South Korea's modernization. The so-called chaebol refers to entrepreneurs who have achieved economic success and expanded their strength to other fields, thus forming a comprehensive group.

The problem of chaebol has appeared in the development history of many capitalist countries in the world. With the development of the times, many chaebol have been replaced by other legitimate political and economic organizations. But in East Asia, this model has been preserved, especially in South Korea, so that when it comes to chaebol, such as Samsung and LG, people will naturally think of South Korea.

These enterprises play an important role in Korea's political and economic life, and even have excessive power expansion. Such as the production activities of various industries; The chaebol and social elite groups are closely combined to form a complex relationship network; The horizontal alliance presents a trend of "super monopoly", and finally the relationship with ordinary people in society is becoming more and more tense.

According to statistics, the top ten consortia in South Korea account for more than 75% of the national GDP, and their tentacles have penetrated into all aspects of residents' lives. They monopolize the most profitable industries, but only employ about 3% employees.

If you want to enter this society, the rich can have thousands of contacts, wealth, family and education in Qian Qian, and there is only one poor person, that is, the college entrance examination. Therefore, the education boom in South Korea reflects this almost solidified social structure. Countless pursuers are pursuing poor goals, and involution is doomed to be inevitable "bad luck."

Another important external factor is the special relationship between South Korea and the United States. Since World War II, South Korea has received a lot of assistance from the United States and developed rapidly after the war. This special relationship naturally brings South Korea into the strategic track of the United States in East Asia. With the rapid growth of economic data, South Korea has paid a huge price. Both the global industrial layout of South Korea and the capital operation of domestic enterprises have been greatly influenced by the United States. The most striking example is that South Korean corporate giant Samsung is controlled by Wall Street Capital.

Other enterprises are no exception, in their annual income, more or less ahead of the United States and other countries. The Korean government has made efforts to this end, but it is still difficult to change these historical ills, so the involution of South Korea today has profound historical reasons.

Looking at the current situation in Korea, although it is called a developed country, people's lives are actually full of various pressures. No wonder many people describe Seoul as "a paradise for the rich and a hell for the poor".

South Korea, which has achieved economic take-off, has touched some invisible ceilings, with great internal and external limitations, which are difficult to break through. Pursuing independence in economy and democracy and equality in politics are still problems that need to be solved in the future development of South Korea. Only in this way can we alleviate the increasingly serious "involution" and embark on a road of free development.