Prologue: "I can tolerate that, but I can't tolerate this!"·7

Part 1 Formation

Chapter 1: The Past System: The Origin of Korea's Meritocracy? · 27
Chapter 2: Naturalized Meritocracy: Social Darwinism·43
Chapter 3: Socialism and Cultural Materialism·59

Part 2 Modern Korea

Chapter 4: The Strange Relationship Between Academic Credentialism and Meritocracy·75
Chapter 5: How the Elite Became a "Monster" · 95
Chapter 6: Characteristics of Korean Meritocracy·123

Part 3: Values ​​and Democracy

Chapter 7: "What kind of people are we?" 143

Part 4: Criticism of Meritocracy

Chapter 8: Inequality and Ideology·199
Chapter 9: Criticism of "Ideal Meritocracy"·222

Part 5 Alternative

Chapter 10: I Will Find My Way, As Always · 245

Epilogue: The Last Meritocrat · 298

Week 305
References·326

Equal opportunity, fair process, just outcome?

For quite some time, one of the biggest issues in Korean society has been, without a doubt, ‘fairness.’
Many Koreans know this from experience.
This shows how vain fairness has been in Korean society.
Moreover, the issue of fairness was a decisive factor in lighting the candlelight vigils that brought about the current government.
The anger that started from the one word, “being born to good parents is also an ability,” about the unfair admission of Jung Yu-ra, the daughter of Choi Soon-sil (Choi Seo-won), a key figure in the previous administration’s state affairs scandal, to Ewha Womans University, even brought down the government.
So the government that was born from candlelight made a promise.
“Opportunities will be equal, the process will be fair, and the result will be just.”

However, seeing the controversy surrounding the college entrance exams of the children of the Justice Minister nominee and the land speculation by the Korea Land and Housing Corporation, many Koreans are becoming more sensitive and still question the fairness.
It was a natural thing.
But going a step further, they look askance at irregular workers who become regular workers simply because they did not pass the 'test'.


For example, in 2017, Seoul Metro announced that it would convert all contract workers to regular workers.
Then, a post was uploaded saying, “Job seekers who are working hard for regular employment are ignored, and irregular workers who are hired through the back door are given regular employment. Is this the eradication of deep-rooted evils or the creation of deep-rooted evils? Who on earth is the deep-rooted evil?”
This post received numerous comments of agreement and support.
The same was true for the conversion to regular employment at Incheon International Airport Corporation.
It was the so-called 'In-guk Gong incident'.
Since then, 'In-guk-gong' has become a word symbolizing similar cases.
The second and third 'In-guk Gong' issues continued to arise, and each time, similar developments occurred.

Exams, free riding, and reverse discrimination

'The differences in individual abilities are clear.
Therefore, inequality is natural. What's the problem with meritocracy? The book focuses on the fact that meritocracy has long been the dominant ideology among Koreans.
Meritocracy completely attributes the social structural contradiction of inequality to an individual's problem, obscuring the problem of inequality and focusing attention on the problem of unfairness.
If the process is fair, inequality based on ability will not be a problem.
So, it is natural that those who passed the 'public corporation recruitment exam' (fair) for companies like Seoul Transportation Corporation or Incheon International Airport Corporation (capable) and those who did not (incompetent) experience discrimination (inequality).
Going against this is unfair, ‘free riding’ and ‘reverse discrimination.’

So, can "ability" truly be evaluated "fairly"? The book argues that "in reality, it's impossible to accurately measure ability, effort, the social value of work, and an individual's contribution to economic growth," ultimately leading to a "testocracy" where privileges are granted based on passing grades rather than actual contributions.
To support this, the book compares and analyzes, from a social and historical perspective, how various evaluation systems, such as the civil service examination, public examination, and public recruitment, operate in Korea.

The Inconvenient Truth: "We Are For Inequality"

Meanwhile, Korea's particularly severe meritocracy sometimes even leads to hatred.
The book describes the world as “full of bugs” as seen by “the contemptuous meritocrat.”
If your monthly income is less than 2 million won, you are a ‘Lee Baek-chung’, if you go to university through the regional balance admissions process, you are a ‘Ji-gyun-chung’, and if you live in a rental apartment, you are a ‘Rental-chung’.
Alain de Botton, a well-known writer in Korea, says in his book, “In a meritocracy, the pain of poverty is supplemented by the humiliation of shame.”

How did Korea end up in this predicament? One reason can be inferred from the World Values ​​Survey, which was conducted seven times over a 40-year period from 1981 to 2020, with the participation of global social scientists and the results published every four to five years.
According to the results of a survey conducted by Park Kwon-il, the author of this book, “because the difference from other countries was so great that I checked the original data set several times,” “in Korea, the percentage of those in favor of equality was 23.5%, and the percentage of those in favor of inequality was 58.7%” (surveyed from 2010 to 2014, in China, equality 52.7%/inequality 25.8%, in Germany, equality 57.7%/inequality 14.6%), and in the recent 7th survey (2017 to 2020), “64.8% of Koreans were in favor of inequality, and only 12.4% were in favor of equality.”

The author states that “Koreans generally prefer the principle of unequal distribution,” and that “it is essentially the same as the so-called meritocracy principle, which is ‘differential distribution according to effort and ability.’”
However, I emphasize that it is a clear error to generalize that each Korean person is selfish or greedy.
The book analyzes this topic specifically as a problem of democracy and politics, and carefully compares and examines alternatives and preceding models.

1% of 'crop dragons'

“People born in the Republic of Korea struggle for survival from birth until death.
In this desperate war, in order to become the 'predator' rather than the 'subject to be preyed upon', Koreans study excessively hard and fiercely build up their 'specs' and connections.
This fierce survival instinct or fighting spirit, the desire for social advancement that says, "If you're being treated unfairly, get ahead," the collective mentality of modern Koreans like the "hurry, hurry" culture... The system that gives privileges to a tiny minority of "dragons" while using the sense of defeat and injustice of those who fail to become "dragons" as its driving force has already reached its limits.
A society where the lives of 99% are ruined by the rush toward the 'dragon of the stream', which is less than 1%, is neither just nor productive.
In order to transition to a society where people can be happy even without being able to do so, a fundamental reflection on the ideology of meritocracy is necessary.


The alternative to meritocracy is the alternative to inequality.
It is a matter of reviving the inequality itself, not the injustice itself, and turning it into a matter of civic concern.
This converges into a question of politics and democracy.
Given the enormous size and mass of the problem of inequality, it is inevitable that the solution will also become enormous.
Some alternatives may feel like absurd fantasies.
But the dream of a better world must be realized rather than abandoned.
A society where everyone lives as if at war, driven by disparity and inequality, is neither just, happy, nor efficient.
Let's stop this hopeless thing now.
And let us begin the journey toward a truly just society and a better democracy.” This is the message that this book consistently conveys.