Samsung chair imprisoned and 24 others found guilty in union-busting case

With Korea's current progressive "Moon's" government, Korea is going through a lot of changes (higher minimum wage, a lot of focus on gender equality, stronger labor union, shorter work hours, stronger punishment for corruptions within companies, etc), and traditional "chaebol" companies are having trouble adapting to some of these changes. There are also a lot of eyeballs on past and current shady behaviors by "chaebol" companies. As one of the biggest "chaebol" companies, Samsung is also being affected by the changes, and this article shows one of them.

One question I have is how beneficial these changes would be for GDP of Korea. On paper, these changes sound nice as they would benefit employees and make things "fair". But changing things dramatically can have side effects (ex. higher minimum wage led to many small shops closing). More regulations might limit Samsung's ability to compete internationally, which is bad as Samsung (and Korea in general) rely heavily on export-based economy.

Those kind of changes tend to come when a large percent of the population is fed up with the way things are and start to agitate for changes. At that point, it's unlikely to happen progressively... So it's a bit of a catch 22, as long as the people who benefit from the current state of society are in power (or control those who are in power), change are unlikely to come progressively since it would be disadvantageous to them but, once they lose the reigns (as they inevitably do), change happen so fast that it's both potentially bad for the society at large and worse for the ones who used to be at the top.

I'm not sure there are many examples of enlightened robber barons who allowed progressive changes that were counter to their interests but improved society as a whole.

If anything, such labor policies as well as this kind of prosecution and sentencing for those powerful people would help the long term health of the country and even Samsung itself.

Does GDP matter if a large segment of the population is miserable? Samsung's ability to compete internationally is important but I'd rank that as a second to the health and happiness of it's populace.

> higher minimum wage led to many small shops closing

I don't quite buy this -- higher minimum wages might indeed increase costs for small shops, but this is a shallow assessment:

- A clearer definition of "small shop" is needed -- most really small shops are run by the owner/owner's family, no? If this is not the case, then I'd argue that businesses that are dependent on not paying workers a living wage should not exist (if Korea's people wish it so).

- Higher wages usually means more money spent on goods for all but the upper echelon of the population who may or may not be more interested in amassing wealth for whatever reason

Bill Gates' charitable work comes to mind. I wouldn't call him really a robber baron as the term implies wealth gained unfairly or from others involuntarily. The Fed is printing almost another half trillion in cash to inject, subsidize Wall St., for example. I also don't know if the term applies fairly to Samsung, as while the Korean history of chaebol companies was fueled by crony capitalism, their wealth does primarily come from their export-driven business where they compete globally. It's not like a JP Morgan (the person) or JP Morgan (the Wall St bank today) who really rely on borderline slavery from captive labor markets, or welfare from taxpayers.

Not to say that is an inevitability or even a correct interpretation, but it does lean heavily on the argument that a healthy, educated, rational, and free populace can compete with the export yields of wage slaves overdosing on drugs even if they aren't compelled to do work nobody wants to do for a price nobody wants to take. The question is if people wanting things enough to drive an economy over them needing things.

Historically almost all wealth was built on exploitations - of land, of resources, and of people. What if preventing the exploitation and suffering of your fellows causes everyone to suffer in the long term from economic stagnation? Its a dystopic way to look at the world but given the major economic powerhouses of this and recent eras I just don't see the evidence that its entirely wrong.

I disagree -- France does well in terms of GDP per hour worked[0], and is in relative terms a worker's paradise.

On a more subjective note, I think this analysis misses the fact that automation is about to absolutely destroy the working class (if it's not already). The world's need for brute force blue-collar workers is shrinking and enabling people who might have done that work to aim for higher pursuits (which generally people only feel able to do when times are good) should be the goal of an economy with long term aspirations. There's a reason countries start with the economic zone model, but then seek to upskill their populace -- humans, no matter how little you pay them, cannot compete with efficient robots.

> Not to say that is an inevitability or even a correct interpretation, but it does lean heavily on the argument that a healthy, educated, rational, and free populace can compete with the export yields of wage slaves overdosing on drugs even if they aren't compelled to do work nobody wants to do for a price nobody wants to take. The question is if people wanting things enough to drive an economy over them needing things.

That argument doesn't seem to take into account that exports are varied and valued spectacularly diversely. Entertainment is one of America's largest exports and it is very much not a strictly productive endeavor to be entertained (of course you can argue that entertainment is required for productive work so people don't break down). Healthy, educated, rational, and free populaces are most of the time not competing with t-shirt producing sweat shops -- they are more often designing the t-shirts the sweat shops are making.

In addition to this, functioning purely free-market economies basically don't exist anywhere. The idea of a sanction against countries that exploit their workers would be unheard for a strictly economics-focused mindset but is very much possible today.

> Historically almost all wealth was built on exploitations - of land, of resources, and of people. What if preventing the exploitation and suffering of your fellows causes everyone to suffer in the long term from economic stagnation? Its a dystopic way to look at the world but given the major economic powerhouses of this and recent eras I just don't see the evidence that its entirely wrong.

This is true, but it's a spectrum -- in my opinion, aggressive exploitation simply speeds up growth, it is not necessarily a gating factor. I agree in that I think it's not necessarily wrong but still, if it's a spectrum then why don't we turn the dial back a little bit? There are externalized costs that we're ignoring by normalizing exploitation.

Also this constant worry of "economic stagnation" -- this is missing the forest for the trees again, it's worrying about GDP over the wellness of the people of a nation.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...

It shocked a lot of people, inside and outside South Korea, when Hanjin Shipping was allowed to go bust. Not resold, reorganized, but immediate bankruptcy and liquidation. Management was expecting a bailout right up to the end. Ships were stuck all over the planet, and empty blue Hanjin containers piled up in ports.

That's when the chaebol realized the rules have changed.

Higher min. wage increases costs and disproportionately affects smaller companies, leading to closures in every region, country, state and city where it happens. This is also why giant corporations like Walmart even support it since it clears out small local store competition.

This doesn't mean it doesn't exist -- it's just a social construct, and a useful one depending on where your priorities lie. The salient point is that some societies value this concept and draw the line somewhere. If you believe governmental regulation exists to protect the people (at least a little bit), putting a lower bound on what companies are allowed to pay employees in your country/governed region is important.

> Higher min. wage increases costs and disproportionately affects smaller companies, leading to closures in every region, country, state and city where it happens. This is also why giant corporations like Walmart even support it since it clears out small local store competition.

this is basically the same point rehashed -- I can't say that I added too many facts, but simply implying that min. wage increases hurt small business without discussing the increase in goods purchased is a shallow assessment. When workers who are likely to spend money receive more money in terms of wages, they spend these wages -- this should mean smaller companies will see higher sales as well as big companies.

And again, what the economy is doing aside, if you cannot afford to pay a wage that enables your employees to comfortably live, you likely should not exist, find another business. Businesses that attempt to operate in this space are externalizing their costs to society at large -- people who work at these companies depend on social programs that are paid for the society at large.

Or, from the perspective of a country trying to enact utopian policies: how can they make external intervention more expensive than it's worth?

Even if Bill is sincere, gp made the claim that robber barons don't work against their own interest, and I don't see where in the Gates example a man is working against himself.

> Bill Gates' charitable work comes to mind. I wouldn't call him really a robber baron as the term implies wealth gained unfairly or from others involuntarily.

And yet, even Elizabeth Warren crippled social democratic policies are going too far. Paying taxes should be the litmus test for Bill Gates (and other billionaires), not throwing some scraps into unspecified charity.

Bill Gates is just a smarter Rockefeller that saw the writing on the wall and cashed out early. Call it an "ex-robber baron".

> "if you cannot afford to pay a wage that enables your employees to comfortably live, you likely should not exist, find another business"

What's "comfortable"? Is this the magic and subjective livable wage again? Who are you to tell everyone else what they should be comfortable with?

Regulation isn't that simple. Not everyone agrees that the government controlling pay is "protecting the people" and many would rather have the freedom to make their own choices. It's purely academic thinking that simply raising wages fixes everything. It often does little but raise costs while also removing opportunities. How many goods are purchased when income goes to zero? How many social programs will they need then?

It's easy to say that businesses should close because of your moral attitude about a subjective number, but do you realize it affects the very people you claim to be protecting? Have you ever worked a min wage job or talked to people who do? Affordability and cost of living have nothing to do with wages and are rarely ever fixed with a min wage.

I get it that social media is extremely biased to the left and people agree with this kind of thing, but it's disconcerting that people cannot respond to the discussion which follows from first principles and logical reasoning. For example, by responding to the reasoning I gave. Not just saying "I disagree, and Elizabeth Warren isn't even socialist enough for me." It's so unconvincing.

Employees are the biggest cost, and wages when multiplied by benefits and taxes can have an outsized impact over fixed costs like rent. Sure a business might not fire everyone, but it might start removing some shifts or move some employees to part-time instead. These little changes add up.

The greater point is that it's easy to say "the business model is no longer up to date" when it doesn't affect you. It's much different when your wages go to 0 instead because of other people who think they know better than you about what you need.

* Bill Gates like philanthropy: Taxes always would be way higher than the sum of all philanthropy. All of philanthropy in the US was $400 billion last year. Trump's tax cut for the rich was $1.5 trillion. Only the last tax cut.

* Taxes are spent democratically, which, in a Democracy, is always preferable to a single rich person following his/her personal agenda, because that, by definition, is not democratic.

* JP Morgan et al. are indeed getting welfare from taxpayers: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/10/08/first-tim... If the person fixing your toilet pays more in taxes than a person like Bill Gates, what else would you call that but welfare for the rich?

The official hours worked figures in France are severely underestimated IMO. For all my career everybody I know worked more than the supposed 35, 39 or 40 hours your contract specifies.

All timesheet software I've seen asks you to input your time in fractions of the official work day, not real hours.

My guess is only workers who really are paid hourly and thus have to badge in and out have their work hours counted correctly.

But the quality of your argument was low: You just put chained unsubstantiated opinions together, the majority of which are objectively wrong.

You write that "The Fed is printing almost another half trillion in cash to inject, subsidize Wall St." which a) isn't how QE works, and b) The rate of growth of e.g. S&P500 is the same as before QE started.

You write that "social media is extremely biased to the left" which is an alt right conspiracy with oodles of studies showing that this is wrong.

The philanthropy vs. taxation debate is decades old and the results are clear. You are of course free to reopen it with new arguments, but chose to omit those.

I can tell you from personal experience those are hardly breaking a sweat, and few colleagues who actually live there sometimes end up in proper Catch-22-esque situations with things like taxes or driving license changes. good stories to laugh at but proper nightmare to actually go through.

Another topic might be that nobody wants to hire french manual workers, for things like home renovation, unless you have no other option. Little work, long breaks, often way too narrow specialization and often very high prices makes even french people looking for folks from places like Portugal or even Romania. And the costs themselves are only small part of the reasons.

But same colleagues tell me that in software companies people do often work hard. Long are gone generous 2-hour lunch breaks. Seems like a great divide depending how safe ones work feel.

Edit to add: there's a generational mindset too. Older generations have the advantage of living longer and seeing massive technological change, and have an entrenched mindset of "if I work like a dog and live like shit now, everything deferred will be incredibly rewarded later". Whereas the "proverbial millennial" has not seen as much change and thinks such a mindset is an unbalanced extreme crock of shit, and therefore makes demands of the now, to live a generally fulfilling life; to which older generations think is ungrateful, soft, and demanding, that "because my life was shit, everyone else's should be too, it's only fair". But they'll still tell you they want to leave the world a better place for their kids, which is doublethink. (I'm speaking in very very broad terms)

It is not worth losing over half my income to get these "worker protections" and "social benefits" and it's no wonder that tons of Europeans come to the US to work and very few Americans go to work in Europe.

GDP is what enables society to provide health and happiness to its populace. The problem with Bangladesh, for example, is not income distribution. It's top-line GDP. In Korea, according to the OECD, average household disposable income is $21,000 per year, versus $45,000 per year for the United States: http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/united-states. Korea isn't so rich that more even distribution of income without top line GDP growth would be a panacea. (And it's also worth pointing out that measures to distribute income more evenly will generally reduce GDP.)

What is the point of competing if not for the benefit of the people? Is competing globally an end unto itself? That sounds neo-liberal, not conservative.

I don't care how much vacation and benefits Europeans get.