Inherited wealth more important than education for social standing

By Kang Hyun-kyung

Koreans used to categorize people based on the university they attended or the provinces they came from. These days, however, they do so based on the silver spoon, or inherited wealth. According to experts, inherited wealth is replacing education as a key factor in a person's socioeconomic status.

In Korea, the so-called "spoon theory" categorizes people according to the amount of inherited wealth they have, with the "diamond spoon" being the highest stratum, followed by the gold, silver, bronze and mud spoons. It is unclear when exactly this categorization emerged, but it caused a buzz when it was first posted online a couple of years ago. Those who were born with a diamond spoon in their mouths, for example, are the nation's 0.1 percent richest people, whose inherited wealth enables them to freely enjoy their lives, devoid of financial constraints. This popular theory, which promotes the idea that a person's status is based on the wealth they inherited from their parents and not on their own achievements, has frustrated many from the lower strata.

"We Koreans like to rank people based on their academic accomplishments or their universities' rankings," Kwak Geum-joo, a professor of psychology at Seoul National University, said. "We refer to people with their ranks. We use their job titles instead of their first names. The way we refer to people is a reflection of the social hierarchy based on their accomplishments."

The psychologist said the spoon theory could either help end some bad employment practices, or help spread defeatism.

"It would be good if public interest in the spoon theory leads to a constructive solution to youth employment issues," Kwak said. Many interns and seasonal workers are underpaid, and media reports about their poor working conditions have caused a stir. "The spoon theory can motivate the public to join the online campaign to end such bad practices and put pressure on lawmakers to come up with necessary measures. If their voices are heard and related laws are introduced, we can say the spoon theory is playing a role to end such bad practices," she said.

Kwak said the opposite can also happen. She said some young people may want to take advantage of the popular theory to justify their failures and avoid making efforts to improve their socioeconomic status, instead of putting the blame on society.

The spoon theory also shows changes in social class criteria.

In Korea, education had long been a key factor in socioeconomic standings. It gave those who were born poor a chance to improve their lives through hard work and education. The resulting merit-based society praised these self-made people, people who rose above their humble backgrounds and became highly successful through their own endeavor. These people were called "stream dragons," a term derived from the old Korean saying that a dragon was born in a stream. Old Koreans believed the legendary creatures with reptilian traits lived in the oceans, not streams or lakes, and used the term to refer to big shots.

But experts lament that stream dragons will become extinct sooner or later.

"It's true that it has become tougher for people with humble backgrounds to succeed through education," Kim Ki-chan, a professor of the School of Business Administration at the Catholic University of Korea in Seoul, said. "I think greedy rich people are partly responsible for the reduced chances of children born into poor families to become successful."

'Stream dragons'

Critics say concepts like fair competition and a merit-based society — two key conditions for poor people to succeed on their own, such as through education — have gradually become forgotten as the income gap between the haves and have-nots began to widen following the Asian Financial Crisis in the late 1990s.

The Korean government had implemented reform measures in the public, banking and labor sectors in an attempt to help the economy recover from the crisis. Inadvertently, however, the flexible labor market policy removed job security as permanent jobs were gradually replaced by precarious, seasonal jobs. Meanwhile, the oversupply of labor pushed inexperienced, young workers out of the market, resulting in high youth unemployment. The financial crisis also reduced the middle class, pushing the lower and upper middle income classes even farther apart.

In a 2014 paper about wealth distribution in Korea using income tax data for 2010, Dongkook University Professor Kim Nak-nyeon said the aggregated incomes of the top 10 percent of the richest Koreans account for 48 percent of the national wealth, while the top 1 percent account for 13 percent.

Kwak agreed that in an era of widening income gap, becoming self-made has become tougher.

"The gap has become so deep that poor people no longer believe it's possible for them to improve their social standing," Professor Kwak said. "There was a gap between the haves and have-nots even before the crisis, but it was relatively easier for poor people to narrow the gap or become rich back then because of fair competition and the merit-based system in place. Today it's a different story." Hence the spoon theory, which says people are born into their social class and remain there all their lives, she said.

The spoon theory also shows the Koreans' changing attitudes toward money. In the book "Business Ethics in South Korea" (2014), authors Kim Ki-chan, Park Eun-gyu and Song Chang-seok say unlike in Western societies, rich people had not received due respect in Korea because of the "Cheong-bin-ism" that had influenced old Koreans' ways of life during the Joseon Dynasty. The concept stressed the virtue of a poor but transparent lifestyle, while warning of a wealthy one acquired through illicit activities.

The authors say the influential concept had caused a backlash against greedy rich people who accumulated their wealth through shady business ethics, and later, against wealth accumulation in general.

"Even people who earned money and became rich in a transparent manner were not lauded. The situation was problematic, especially because there were no clear-cut criteria for transparency at that time," the book said.

Professor Kim of the Catholic University of Korea, one of the authors of the book, said that Koreans' past negative attitudes toward money seems to be related to old Korea's view of businesspeople.

"If you look at the social classes during the Joseon Dynasty, you will see that traders and merchants were in the bottom classification," he said, referring to "Sa-Nong-Gong-Sang," a hierarchy of four professions, with scholars on top, followed by peasants and farmers, artisans and craftsmen and women, merchants and traders.