The Personalist Ethic and the Market in Korea

The pattern of development that emerged in the early stage of industrialization in South Korea, according to the British sociologist Ronald Dore, is closer to the classical (nineteenth-century) small-scale, individualistic entrepreneurial type than the large-scale bureaucratic type that characterizes development in many other countries embarking upon modernization programs in recent years (Dore 1980:292). This arguably stems from the fact that economic growth accompanied by development of a market (in the broader sense of that term) that created opportunities for individual choices and initiatives.