The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists' Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics by William R. Easterly

Author:William R. Easterly [Easterly, William R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Business & Economics, Development, Economic Development, General, Industries, Political Science, Public Policy, Social Policy, Social Science, Developing & Emerging Countries, Poverty & Homelessness, Business & Money, Economics, Development & Growth, Theory, Economic Policy & Development
ISBN: 9780262272117
Google: SN7mrQEACAAJ
Amazon: B002V1I666
Publisher: The MIT Press
Published: 2002-08-02T06:00:00+00:00

Intermezzo: War and Memory

Jade is a young woman who grew up in Nae-Chon, a village of 240 people fifty miles southeast of Seoul, Korea. Jade was born in 1958, the year after me. Over her lifetime the average income of Koreans increased more than eight times. Over my lifetime, American income has increased less than two times.

The older people in Nae-Chon look back on their youths with a mixture of nostalgia and relief Jade's mother remembers that there was no store in Nae-Chon when she first moved there in the 1950s; residents to walk three or four hours into Suwon to buy sugar, salt, or lamp oil. Mrs. Kwang adds how everyone would carry a load of firewood on their back on an A-frame to sell in Suwon.

Jade's mother had to carry the laundry all the way down to the river to wash. "You'd have to get up at three o'clock in the morning, there was so much to do," says Mrs. Kwang. "But those old clothes were really lovely," she sighed.

"The poorest people just ate the bark of the trees or what herbs and grasses they could find in the spring, " interjects Mrs. Yu. "There was always a time of hunger before the rice harvest. "

The conversation turned somber as they remembered the war. Mrs. Kwang' s husband worked as a slave laborer in a coal mine in the north and returned with his health broken. In the war against the North Koreans, Mrs. Kwang remembered, everyone fled south, hurrying past the bodies lying along the roads.

Jade's father had a law degree, but twenty years of war had kept him from establishing himself in his profession. He stuck to farming and put his hope in the next generation, sending Jade to Seoul University. She finished her studies, got married, and moved to Japan. Her sister now lives in Inchon, in an apartment filled with appliances like "washer, juicer, dryer, blender. " Her mother still lives in Nae-Chon. But now Nae-Chon itself has all the appurtenances of a consumer society. The roads are paved, houses have TV antennas or satellite dishes, electric and telephone wires. Less appealing is the litter of plastic cartons and soda bottles tossed in the ditches. A polyurethane foam factory gives work to villagers. The young no longer talk of war and politics, but of sports, foreign travel, and clothes. Nutrition has improved so much over recent decades that this generation is four and a half inches taller than their grandparents. 1

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