Collapse Is Good for You

The Chosun Ilbo is talking about heeding the dangers spotlighted in a recent OECD report on the long-term prospects for the Korean economy. The main dangers highlighted are shortages of labor and capital (and neglects another to which the OEDC gently alluded, mainly Korea’s lingering xenophobia). It seems to me that the answer to all but the latter is unification. Unification, if done peacefully or semi-peacefully–and what I’m talking about here is a sudden regime collapse in the North–would suddenly mean a dramatic infusion of cheap, hard-working labor, a dramatic reduction in political risk after the alleviation of short-term instability, and an overwhelming need for foreign investment that would be drawn magnetically toward the North’s decrepit roads, rails, and power grid.