On top of that, financial repression and state-controlled credit, which subsidized select companies. Tens of billions of dollars vanished into those that failed: Daewoo alone collapsed in 1999 with debt around $80 billion USD.

Today, Korea has the same labor productivity as Poland: $52 GDP per hour (OECD, constant prices, PPP). But its social indicators are much worse, except for life expectancy: fertility around 0.7, the highest suicide rate in the OECD, poverty among about 40% of seniors, and the largest gender pay gap in the OECD.

Poland reached the same level in a democracy, without authoritarianism and without such enormous social costs.

Is there anything worth learning from Korea? Absolutely: spending on R&D, homegrown technologies, education.