Religion, social structure and economic development in Yi dynasty Korea.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston UniversityThe purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the key variables related to the economy of pre-modern Korean society. Similar studies have been made on China and Japan, but no comparable study has been made on Korea. Our hypothesis is that pre-modern Korea failed to develop the social and cultural bases tor a modern industrial society largely because of its weak polity and its lack of favorable religious elements, and because ot the formidable resistance to change of the Korean family and class system with their stress upon their own integration and solidarity. [TRUNCATED] Korean religion reinforced the primacy of the integrative value through the yangban class. It reinforced the particularistic relations and the family, and emphasized less the universalistic relations or the state. Conversely religion railed to help the efforts of the chungin to emphasize political economic values. These are among the essential factors responsible for the failure of Yi dynasty Korea to develop the bases of a modern industrial society