Why did I consider the interaction between rice, disaster, and the state as the origin of inequality? It's because I believe that the activity of maintaining food supply in the face of recurring disasters lies at the forefront of the evolution of inequality structures.
This book traces the evolution of this unequal structure, from the formation of ancient states on the Korean Peninsula to the present-day COVID-19 pandemic.
[… … ] I will analyze how East Asians and Korean Peninsula residents perceive inequality.
And we will explore how the historical evolution of such unequal structures manifests itself in our modern lives through certain institutions.
By examining the interactions between rice, disaster, and the state around these two axes, we can develop keywords such as collaboration, hierarchy, and competition, ultimately leading to a critique of today's seniority-based pay system.
Through the 'Rice Theory', we aim to unravel the hierarchical and unequal structures of Korean society today - the structure of cooperation and competition, the fervor for education, and the structure of discrimination (against irregular workers and women) in the labor market.

--- p.9~10, from “Introduction”

For Koreans, this hierarchy is a part of everyday life.
Few races are as collaborative as Koreans, but few races are as hierarchical as Koreans.
The structure of the hierarchy is not only strict, but also detailed and tight.
This hierarchy is deeply embedded in every human relationship, every word, and our children learn to adapt and conform to this hierarchy.
[… …] Why have we perpetuated this hierarchical structure so entrenched for so long, and how much longer must we live with it? Why do we so desperately yearn for "equality, justice, and equity," yet simultaneously cherish hierarchy as if it were our very lives? Why do those who champion equality and justice obsess over hierarchies based on academic background, occupation, and seniority? The questions are endless.
This book will not answer all your questions.
But it will touch, sometimes somewhat provocatively.

--- p.23, from "Prologue"

This seniority culture is reborn as the backbone of East Asian corporate organizations—the seniority system.
East Asian companies have created hierarchical structures that divide individuals' lives from entry to retirement into generations sharing the same pay scale, while also creating systems of intergenerational collaboration.
The vertical-horizontal skill tuning system of East Asian village communities is reborn in East Asian corporate organizations through the seniority system.
In a 'family-like company', the manager played the role of a parent, and the seniors played the role of elders in the neighborhood.
My colleagues who joined the company were no different from my cousins ​​and neighborhood friends of the same age.
They rode the treadmill of cooperation and competition within a tightly knit formal and informal network like East Asian village enterprises, and by introducing the cooperative mechanism of East Asian village communities, “standardization,” into production processes and bureaucracy, they created an East Asian enterprise organization that operated “agilely” and “closely.”

--- p.35, from “Prologue”

These three elements—rice (and other plants), the given environment of climate and topography, and the subjects and institutions of rice cultivation—interacted (evolutionarily) to form the early agricultural state system of East Asia.
The question, "Why did East Asians start eating rice?" and the question, "Why on earth did East Asian countries have to create such a powerful bureaucracy (service) system so early on that cannot be found in other regions?" are essentially the same question, with the same "chain link" answer.
Rice, East Asians, and their powerful nations, to borrow Darwin's term, "coevolved."
Rice and a strong and efficient nation are two different, yet mutually compatible, dimensions.
To put it simply, we built a bigger and stronger nation by eating rice, and because we built such a nation, we were able to continue eating rice.
In this respect, even though it may be somewhat awkward, East Asian countries can be called rice states.

--- p.68~69, from “Chapter 1: Origins of East Asian States”

The seniority-based pay system in East Asian companies has transplanted two assumptions from rural communities.
[… … ] These two assumptions made it possible to bypass job evaluations of individuals, regardless of whether they were actually realized in the field.
The assumption that skill levels will level off across individuals, combined with the assumption that individuals' skill levels will grow at the same rate, makes it possible (and justifies) to reward people of the same seniority equally.
Since we work together and achieve the organization's goals, we divide the compensation unequally according to seniority group, and then equally divide it by nth within the same seniority group (therefore, the person with higher seniority buys food and drinks).
Therefore, the seniority system fostered a sense of solidarity among workers who shared their seniority, and served as a stepping stone for collectively improving productivity.
The complaint, “Why are you taking more just because you’re older after working together?” was covered up by a promise about the future, “If you wait, you’ll be rewarded like me.”
In this way, 'delayed compensation' was forced from the older 'generation that had waited long enough' to the 'generation that still had 20 or 30 years to wait'.
In a way, the seniority system is a 'conspiracy' between those who are willing to wait or those who can wait (regular employees).

--- p.149~50, from “Chapter 2: Collaboration in the Rice Farming System - The Birth of Relational Capital”

Ultimately, the main axis of the '(civil) society' developed by East Asians is a system of cooperation and coordination in which people have to interfere with each other and say unpleasant things to each other in order to survive.
We, East Asians, have developed this collaborative system over many years, and during the process of modernization, we transplanted this system into factories and offices.
Are you suffocating from your boss interfering with your work and life in every way?
East Asian society is a place where 'interfering power' operates not only at home but also in the workplace.
Are you getting annoyed by the unpleasant things you hear from the elders in your family during Chuseok?
What is Chuseok? It's a time when the interfering power hierarchy of clan society exposes and evaluates your daily life to the entire household.
East Asia is not an ideal place for individualists to live freely, doing whatever they want without worrying about others.
It is a society where people are closely intertwined with each other, watching, monitoring, copying, nagging, and matching each other's thoughts and actions, and thus becoming more and more similar to each other.

--- p.173~74, from “Chapter 3: The Corona Pandemic and the Rice Farming System”

Perhaps more than the potential spread of the virus due to my deviant behavior, I am more concerned about the resulting barrage of criticism and the resulting loss of face.
The fear of being ostracized from the community for not complying with the 'social coordination system' is the ultimate motivator that drives them to stay home even without testing positive.
So it's not surprising that the vast majority of people are wearing masks and the vast majority are observing the principles of self-quarantine.
Where did this system of social coordination come from? Where did this "culture of looking out for others"—a culture that considers the potential for reputational harm—come from? Was it something the state taught us? Was it something bureaucrats designed? Was it something we learned from other countries, like hiding cotton seeds? No.
I argue that this 'art of social coordination' has its origins in the communal labor system that has been in place in villages for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
From the ‘rice farming system’ that we have been talking about so far.

--- p.177, from “Chapter 3: The Corona Pandemic and the Rice Farming System”

The developmental states of East Asia and Korea, which emerged from the rice farming system, encouraged urban dwellers from small-scale farming backgrounds to secure 'individualized (private) security assets' through real estate, thereby 'abandoning' their obligations as welfare state safety nets and remaining faithful to their traditional duties as organized production states.
Individuals in civil society were engaged in a competition to acquire assets, each aiming to own one or more houses by the time they left work, a competition not much different from the competition among small farmers to reclaim land under the rice farming system.
The product of that competition is the emergence of a three-tiered asset class.
They are the upper 20 percent of the asset-owning class who can generate income based on their assets, the asset-consuming class (many middle class) who must consume their assets as retirement income, and the asset-poor class at the bottom who have insufficient assets to cover their retirement consumption and have nowhere to rely except the state and their children.
And the result of this division is the world's highest elderly poverty rate we see today.
It is an irony that the rice farming system, which respects the elderly and emphasizes hierarchy, has created in the 21st century post-industrial society.
In 2020, 2030, and beyond, when the establishment of a universal welfare state is delayed, this tradition of private welfare based on assets will be further strengthened, and inequality among workers will be maintained and expanded as inequality in old age.

--- p.274~75, from “Chapter 4: Rice Farming System and the Political Psychology of Inequality”

Today, both intra- and inter-generational inequality in Korea is condensed into this seniority-based system.
This is because the seniority-based system creates inequality between generations and ages, and creates a wage gap between regular workers who can enjoy it and non-regular workers who cannot.
The core demand of the irregular workers' movement for regularization is the application of the seniority system.
Young people spend their 20s competing to get into jobs that offer seniority-based benefits and steady pay increases until they are 60 or 65.
At this point, it could be called a seniority-based republic.

--- p.316~17, from “Chapter 5 Seniority System and the Crisis of Fairness”

In the 21st century, we are witnessing the full benefits and harms of the legacy of the rice-farming national system.
In times of disaster, thanks to the country's efficiency, we can quickly return to our daily lives and get back to work.
But today's post-industrial/information society is no longer a village community based on rice farming.
Individualized disasters and welfare demands, such as illness, accidents, unemployment, childcare, and poverty, expose individual citizens to the numerous risks brought about by capitalism.
The rice-based nation is too slow and indifferent to the individual risks of modern society.
The rice farming community that cared for its members as members of the clan and the village no longer exists.
East Asian settlers only see the benefits of the state when a great disaster strikes, and in their peaceful daily lives, they must navigate a globalized market where individual desires and exploitation run rampant.
What should I do?
--- p.334~35, from “Chapter 6: Overcoming the Rice Farming System”

The seniority system is also effective during the coronavirus pandemic.
How can only the upper class of wage earners prosper in 2020, when the national economy is recording negative growth, the lower classes are losing their jobs due to the pandemic-induced recession, and one in four or five infected elderly people are dying helplessly? In the second quarter, when the direct hit of COVID-19 plunged the global economy into recession, the lowest quintile's earned income fell by 18 percent, while the top quintile's income only saw a 4 percent decline (Statistics Korea, Q2, Household Trends Survey).
This is because the seniority system is designed to automatically and endlessly increase the wages of regular workers, regardless of whether the economy or corporate organizations are in crisis.

--- p.365, from “Chapter 6: Overcoming the Rice Farming System”