chaebol

chaebol, any of the more than two dozen family-controlled conglomerates that dominate South Korea’s economy. While the founding families do not necessarily own majority stakes in the companies, the descendents of the founders often retain control by virtue of long association with the businesses. Among the largest chaebols are Samsung, LG, Hyundai, and SK Group. In the early 21st century the chaebols produced about two-thirds of South Korea’s exports and attracted the greater part of the country’s foreign capital inflows.

The relationship between the South Korean government and the chaebols traditionally has been a cooperative one. While that cooperation is credited with having fueled the country’s rapid economic growth and its transformation from a primarily agrarian economy to a technology giant in the late 20th century, critics say it also led to monopolies and the concentration of capital in the hands of a few economic giants. Among the criticisms of the “chaebol culture” are that it has stifled creativity, concentrated political power in the hands of leading families rather than maximizing profits, provided an unfair playing field for small and medium-sized enterprises, and excluded women and divergent voices from management. Chaebol involvement in politics has fostered corruption, including the bribing of prominent South Korean politicians such as former presidents Chun Doo-Hwan and Roh Tae-Woo during their terms in office. The payments made to them were estimated in the hundreds of millions, and perhaps billions, of dollars, and both men were later tried and convicted on corruption charges.

The idea of chaebol reform was frequently discussed in the early 21st century in relation to South Korea’s political and economic future. Promises of changes, such as laws to reduce corruption and restructuring the conglomerates, played a role in presidential election campaigns. A variety of measures were enacted, and a somewhat stricter legal climate led to several high-profile convictions. In 2003 the chairman and CEO of SK Group, Chey Tae-Won, was convicted on fraud charges, and in 2008 Samsung chairman Lee Kun-Hee resigned after he was accused of tax evasion (he was later pardoned by Pres. Lee Myung-Bak). Laws passed in 2004 limited the chaebols’ investments in affiliate companies, required disclosure of shares held by family members of top executives, and permitted the Bank of Korea to investigate the assets of company owners’ family members. Nevertheless, some critics argued that reform was slow, tentative, and incomplete, and it has been hampered by the still massive power of the chaebols and the prospect that massive job losses would result from the closure of loss-making businesses.

Useful studies of the chaebols and their role in South Korea’s economy and politics are Yun Tae Kim, Bureaucrats and Entrepreneurs: The State and the Chaebol in Korea (2008); David Hundt, Korea’s Developmental Alliance: State, Capital and the Politics of Rapid Development (2009); and Stephan Haggard, Wonhyuk Lim, and Euysung Kim (eds.), Economic Crisis and Corporate Restructuring in Korea: Reforming the Chaebol (2003).