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In China, too, the state draws up long-term plans, funnels cash to industries it deems strategic and works hand-in-glove with national champions, like Huawei and Haier (see article). Some of Beijing’s planners would love to think that state intervention is the route to world-beating innovation. No doubt inadvertently, Samsung feeds this delusion.
For delusion it is, on three levels. Most broadly, South Korea’s prosperity owes less to dirigisme than China’s dirigistes believe, and nothing to dictatorship—South Korea is now a democracy, and much happier for it. Second, the chaebol system has been less beneficial for South Korea than Samsung’s success might imply. Some of the state-directed cheap credit that powered the chaebol produced superb companies, such as Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motors. But it yielded some costly failures, too. During the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, half of the top 30 chaebol went bust because they had expanded recklessly. Daewoo, the Great Universe, is no more.
Defenders of the chaebol say that the crisis spurred reforms, curbing the tendency of the chaebol to overborrow and overexpand. They don’t hog credit as much as before—Samsung Electronics now generates oceans of cash to finance its expansion plans. But in general the giants still crowd out small entrepreneurial firms: a former boss of Samsung Electronics has warned that South Korea has too many eggs in too few baskets. And despite a decade of political reform, the ties between the chaebol and the state are still too cosy. President Lee Myung-bak (the ex-boss of a Hyundai firm) has pardoned dozens of chaebol bosses convicted of corporate crimes.

A. 어휘
draws up 작성하다. funnel 집중하다, 좁은 통로로 흐르게 하다.
deem 생각하다. intervention 개입, 조정. innovation 혁신.
inadvertently 본의 아니게. delusion 환상, 迷惑(미혹).
prosperity 번영. dirigisme 통제 경제정책. dirigistes 통제 경제정책주의자.
a democracy 민주주의 국가. beneficial 유익한. imply 암시하다.
superb 최고의, 훌륭한. yield 생산하다. costly 값 비싼.
financial crisis 금융위기. bust 파산하다. recklessly 無謀(무모)하게.
spur 拍車(박차)를 가하다. hog 탐내어 먹다.
generate 생성하다. crowd out 밀어 내다.
entrepreneurial firms 모험기업적 회사(창업회사). cosy 친한, 포근한.
pardon 용서하다. convict 유죄선고를 하다.