Everyone knows that monopoly is the most profitable way to do business.

And in South Korea, there are many monopoly chaebols!

Large conglomerates (companies with assets of more than 2 trillion won) are also known as chaebols (ABs) in South Korea, and they are mostly family-owned. In 2012, the total assets of South Korea's top four conglomerates – Samsung, Hyundai Motor, S (Seong-kyung) and LG – were equivalent to 64% of South Korea's P, according to the Korea Chaebol Network, Statistics Korea and the Korea Stock Exchange.

Samsung Electronics, the flagship company of the Samsung Group, had sales of 201 trillion won (about $182.7 billion) in 2012, accounting for 18% of South Korea's P that year. In 2011, Samsung Electronics accounted for 20% of the country's exports, and Samsung Electronics' stock market capitalization accounted for 25% of South Korea's stock market. Samsung's monopoly influence in South Korean society has led many South Koreans to nickname South Korea the "Republic of Samsung".

Samsung can be said to be a microcosm of the monopoly position that South Korea's big chaebols have in South Korea.

South Korea's big chaebol group not only has a monopoly dominant position in its own professional field, but also continues to expand to the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain and even other fields, constantly squeezing the living space of the original Korean small and medium-sized enterprises.

Take Samsung, the number one chaebol, for example, which now has 79 subsidiaries, twice as many as 25 years ago. The company's businesses include electronics, real estate (including hotels and entertainment facilities), construction, finance and insurance, automobiles, aviation, shipbuilding, machinery manufacturing, chemicals (including petrochemicals), textiles, medical equipment manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, electricity, advertising, green technology, etc., and even controls several well-known newspapers and teams.

Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to say that Koreans are inseparable from Samsung from the cradle to the grave.

Moreover, there is sometimes a collusion between the giants to manipulate the price of products in a particular industry. Although the South Korean government has repeatedly issued relevant laws and regulations to restrict the business scope of the chaebols, it is an indisputable fact that the monopoly position of several chaebols in the Korean market is indisputable, and in terms of business scope and monopoly procedures, even many large monopoly state-owned enterprises in China cannot match.

The monopoly chaebol has a very strong influence on South Korean politics.

South Korea has ended authoritarianism since the late eighties of the twentieth century⊙dǐng⊙diǎn⊙小⊙ said, .2≮3.o⊙s_(); After the completion of the democratic reform of the political system, the political system borrowed from the United States began to play a gradual role. Forms of democracy, including political elections and multi-party systems, are themselves enough to influence the relationship between the chaebol and the government, that is, the chaebol can "buy" government support by providing government funds to the president and his ruling party.

The president and his ruling party use the chaebol to withdraw government funds to support and manipulate elections to keep their government alive. This diǎn can be seen especially clearly from the U.S. election, where the presidential candidate who pulls in the most "donations" often wins the final election.

Therefore, "collusion between officials and businessmen" and "black and gold politics" have become a common phenomenon in South Korean politics.

Funding candidates through donations is one of the important means for the chaebol to exert their influence. The donation is not so much a "government fund" as a "policy rebate". If politicians believe that their support for companies has not received "equivalent" government funds, the chaebol will be retaliated against.

In 1983, former South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan set up a fund called A, and when the major chaebols each "donated" $15 million, Fund A continued to ask them for donations, and the companies that refused to donate were soon retaliated against by the government.

South Korea's seventh-largest chaebol conglomerate, the International Business Group, collapsed in a matter of weeks. Roh Tae-woo, Kim Yong-san, Kim Dae-jung, Roh Moo-hyun and other South Korean presidents have all been more or less involved in the scandal of "political donations".

This exchange of interests, while less rampant in South Korea a decade later, would not have had the money to run for office, let alone be elected, without the backing of big business.

In addition to elections, the big chaebols also have considerable influence in government decision-making.

In 1994, the South Korean government decided that S Group would focus on the emerging second-generation mobile communications industry, but after discussion, the government overturned the government's decision and "recommended" companies to the government to participate in the industry.

The head of the South Korean government is often faced with a "choice" at this time, and his political influence can be seen from this. While the South Korean government will recommend retired government officials for leadership positions, the chaebols will be happy to accept these recommendations because they need them to maintain a channel of contact with the heart of policy decision-making.

In addition, the top chaebol also influenced their relationship with the government through guò marriages or direct political participation. The special diǎn of chaebol marriages is that they generally marry their daughters into chaebol families, and marry the daughters of high-ranking government officials for their sons.

For example, Samsung's founder, Lee Byung-cheol, married three sons and four daughters, and all of them established friendships and in-laws with political and business celebrities, which made his position in South Korean society more stable. A typical representative of direct political participation is Chung Joo-yong, the founder of the Hyundai Group, which once founded the "United Kuomintang" (as honorary chairman), so that he can directly participate in the National Assembly and presidential elections in South Korea.

Although the chaebol has an important influence on the political activities of South Korea, it has not yet reached the level of swaying the government, but the government is dominantly influencing the development and survival of the chaebol. The South Korean government can still use various explicit or implicit means to warn and crack down on those "disobedient" chaebols.

For example, in 1995, at the ceremony of his re-election as president, Choi Jong-hyun, president of S Group, criticized the government's measures to stabilize the economy based on economic overheating, and opposed the government's policy of high interest rates and restrictions on the octopus-style expansion of the chaebol through the Guò Trade Fair Act.

However, S Group immediately received a notice from the government about the tax investigation, and when the tax investigation specifically targeting S Group was in full swing, Choi Jong-hyun had to publicly announce that he would cancel his statement and no longer publicly express any dissatisfaction with the government's economic policies.

South Korea's chaebol class is a product of South Korea's authoritarian government and has penetrated into the fabric of South Korean society.

Although Park Geun-hye has proposed to support small and medium-sized enterprises, change policies centered on large enterprises, and even claim to "limit the president's pardon power" to cut off the retreat of illegal chaebols, the actual effect is not yet known in the short term.

Former President Lee Myung-bak, who was born in a chaebol family, continued to loosen restrictions on large companies during his tenure, and even made special decisions against many high-level chaebol executives, including Lee Kun-hee, who was prosecuted for tax evasion. It can be seen that the origin and class attributes of the leaders themselves also affect the relationship between the chaebol and the South Korean government.

Therefore, the close relationship between the South Korean government and the big chaebols has become a well-known "secret". The major chaebols have secret funds that are used to make government donations and accumulate their own contacts in the government. Chaebol families form communities of interest with government officials through various means, such as marriages and alliances. The relationship between the chaebol and the government is no longer a cooperative relationship, but collusion and exploitation of each other, which has become the main reason for the best in South Korean political circles.

Although the Kim Dae-jung government and the Roh Moo-hyun government have imposed various restrictions and reforms on the Korean chaebol, they have not been able to achieve the effect of curing both the symptoms and the root causes. On the contrary, after a round of reforms, including restructuring and equity dilution, the debt ratio of the big chaebol has fallen, and its profitability has increased, and it has become more and more powerful.

South Koreans are scolding the chaebol while trying to find ways to become a member of the chaebol, and the South Korean government is in a similar embarrassing situation.

On the one hand, the government wants to crack down on the erosion of social wealth and the monopoly of the domestic market by the chaebols, but on the other hand, they dare not excessively suppress the development of the chaebols. Because the chaebol is the backbone of South Korea's economic development, the source of income for the middle class, and the country's competitiveness, and the huge influence of the big chaebol in politics will not allow the government to introduce policies that will disrupt the chaebol companies.

Therefore, the symbiotic relationship between the South Korean government and the big chaebols will not only be maintained, but will continue to guarantee and support their development, especially overseas. Perhaps what the South Korean government can do is to limit the excessive expansion and illegal activities of the chaebol at home, and alleviate the dissatisfaction of small and medium-sized enterprises and ordinary people with the chaebol.

ps: This chapter is not water, it is very important, Lu Deshuang will definitely have a time to deal with the Korean chaebol in the future, so let's talk about the status and strength of the Korean chaebol in South Korea in advance, otherwise no matter how awesome I write later, you don't have an intuitive impression, and it took a lot of time and energy to find these materials. (To be continued.) )