Left Flank

Take these two quotes to understand the difference between the younger and the older generations in ROK:

"Most people believed or suspected this sort of thing was always going on and took it for granted," says Lee Ji-soo of the Center for Good Corporate Governance in Seoul. "The difference this time is that someone has come forward to speak out against it, and there are more people prepared to say that this is not acceptable.

"There is a generational divide in Korea," Lee says. "And the younger generation is saying that Korea can't move forward unless we overcome that old way of thinking to become a more transparent society."

(...)

The whistleblower himself has sought sanctuary. Mr Kim is housed and fed by the CPAJ. Meanwhile a whispering campaign against him is making its way around Seoul. Father Kim In-kook of the CPAJ defends him: «He spent a lot of time thinking what he should do; and he has concluded that uncovering these actions by Samsung will benefit society.» But Father Kim declined to meet The Economist, saying his group had made a collective decision not to talk to foreign reporters about the Samsung allegations. «We don't want to air Korea's dirty laundry to the world,» he said. They have that, at least, in common with Samsung.

And, if either article can't satisfy the urge to see dirt, here's another scandal brewing.

What might the presidential candidates do about the corrupt business sector itself? Not much, but not surprising for the older guys. One wants to coddle the indebted; another college grads. And, Lee Hoi-chang wants tax breaks for small businesses. How a corrupt culture could exist in ROK barely needs explaining.

"Competition for survival has become ruthless and morality disregarded," says Kim Mun-cho, a Korea University sociologist. "In the competition to be ahead of others, people resort to any means available, resulting in corruption."

Some blame the tendency to shave corners on a cutthroat mentality that developed in the wake of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, which shook Koreans' faith in an ever-expanding economy. Others contend that South Korea has never shaken off the mutual back-scratching culture of a small society, where the establishment has tight personal connections forged by blood, school or regional ties.

And some suggest that Korean society simply has an unhealthy obsession with success. "Living an ordinary life is not regarded as being successful, and staying still economically is seen as an unbearable retrogression," Kim says. "Korean society demands overachievement."

They forgot those cute white envelopes stuffed full of cash children receive on New Year's. And, William Pesek stumbles over another solution, but doesn't take a good point about legal rights for whistleblowers (via TMH) far enough. ROK needs to evolve from a republic by laws into a republic of laws.

(Actually, was antebellum America any less eager to cut corners?)