In 1948 South Korea had per capita income of $48, a level of earnings that placed its economics below those of sub-Saharan African countries. At the time one U.S. official concluded that “Korea can never attain a high standard of living.” The reason, he observed, was that “there are virtually no Koreans with the technical training and experience required to take advantage of Korea’s resources and effect an improvement over its rice-economy status.”
The present is always a lousy predictor of the future.
Except there’s more. The rise of South Korea from a state of abject poverty is a reminder of the mindless modern embrace of “failed state” theories by conservatives.
One way in which they justify their support for economy-shrinking and excessively inhumane policies of deportation is by hiding behind the “failed state” fallacy. They claim that since this person or those people come from a nation that’s backwards both culturally and economically, it’s ok to expand armed government to make sure they don’t bring the culture and economics of the country exited with them. The rationale is silly, it’s sad, plus it wholly contradicts conservative thought.
Implicit in frequently risking one’s life to leave a failed country is a rejection of that country’s policies and cultures. South Korea instructs. The U.S. was the primary destination of South Koreans leaving its unrelenting poverty behind, particularly after 1965. With little to no education or knowledge of the American culture, they thrived stateside.
Which conservatives of old would have suspected. It’s not just that in coming to the U.S. to fix their poverty that some reject the policies and life of the countries departed, it’s that the freedom and free markets offered in the U.S. are a certain antidote to poverty. Think about it.
What have conservatives always said about failed states, particularly communist ones? The solution was always freedom and free markets. If countries would adopt the basics, they would thrive. And they did. As the 1990s to the present reveal beautifully, the conservative embrace of freedom and free markets was powerfully vindicated as failed, collectivist nations unshackled their people. South Korea once again instructs.
A nation that formerly exemplified poverty is now producing at herculean levels. Freedom works, and markets really work as China’s rise (remember John Lennon’s line “they’re starving back in China, so finish what you got”?) alongside that of South Korea from overwhelming poverty confirms. Normally conservatives would rejoice in this since it was policies they supported throatily that drove the brilliant change, but for this weird belief that present-day failure is a predictor of the future such that “illegals” must be arrested and deported by expanded, armed government. What an inhuman mistake, what an economy-shrinking (for the U.S.) error.
That’s because as with the past, not all country leadership is wise. Which means some people must continue to leave “failed states” of the present to fix their poverty. This is a beautiful thing, and once again an individual rejection of polices that don't correlate with prosperity. Translated, if they’re leaving ailing nations behind they’re signaling their American qualities.
Paraphrasing the late Cato Institute co-founder Ed Crane, people who risk their lives to exit nations with policies inimical to human flourishing have established themselves as American by doing just that. Although Crane was a libertarian, conservatives used to agree with him. Now they don’t, which means they can’t take an obvious win.
