As much as it pointed out the serious inequality issues facing South Korea, the movie also highlighted the fact that the poor in South Korea have access to healthcare free at the point of service.
It also depicted young people who, despite their poverty, had enough access to schooling that they could serve as English tutors to the wealthy (yes, I'm aware that SK's education system has other issues related to it being a pressure cooker).
I'm sure that neither of those systems are perfect, but they do underpin the importance of universal healthcare and high quality education.
“ Mr. Kim owns his place in the building, bought for $30,000 after he sold his house in a better neighborhood 20 years ago to help pay for his late wife’s cancer bills.”
Even in countries like Denmark we’re forced to deny certain cancer treatments because the cost of their medicine is so high it would cripple our entire healthcare system to buy a few patients 6 more months to live.
You can debate the morality of such a discussion, or how the private medicine industry is allowed to charge these prices, but the effect is that some cancer treatments are only available through private insurance or personal wealth, even in Scandinavian countries where we are know for our equal access healthcare.
Yeah, my SO is a nurse in paediatric oncology and has seen people from poorer countries sell everything they have in order to bring their child to Western hospitals in the futile hope of treatment.
It's really sad and seems almost exploitative. They often get ripped off by private clinics in their home countries as well.
At some point we need to say these people aren't in a fit state of mind to make these financial decisions. (Who would be? When the life of their own child seems to be at stake?)
I sincerely hope the European response to medicine prices that are so high that they cripple national economies will to set max prices or to completely nationalise production. Hopefully we’ll find a way to throw some jail time after the people responsible.
Universal healthcare does not mean "free healthcare". What it means is that all people have equal access to healthcare, the kind that would otherwise be provided by everyone having private healthcare insurance, such as what would need to happen in the US. The intent is that this would be more affordable for the average person than not having a universal healthcare system.
Of course, affordability is not a guarantee for all treatments, regardless of which healthcare system you agree with. It seems this is the problem for the Kim family. Even in a universal healthcare system, things like chemotherapy and cancer surgery might still cost too much for people who earn below living-wage.
I'm sorry but that's wrong because that's trying to twist the meaning of words. No money, no healthcare isn't universal obviously. With no single-payer, government-funded, healthcare system, only doctors and patients who have to pay for everything themselves, that is in no way "universal healthcare."
The problem with charging poor people for healthcare is that they get sicker and sicker and then need emergency care, and that's more expensive than giving them free healthcare in the beginning.
It's unethical and classist to pick-and-choose who gets life-saving cancer treatment based on their income. Doctors with integrity would be abhorred at being presented with such a decision because it goes against the fundamental values of their profession.
> It's unethical and classist to pick-and-choose who gets life-saving cancer treatment based on their income.
Since we're talking ethics, do you also think universal healthcare should be provided by wealthy nations to all the world? Otherwise we are just picking and choosing based on where someone happens to be born, aren't we?
That question doesn't matter because national sovereignty would prevent other countries from doing that even if they wanted to. It's not a program it's even possible to consider without some really elaborate treaties that many countries would reject.
At the core of it what you're basically arguing is that nations are unethical because what citizenship someone holds influences things like their access to health care, and the solution to that would probably look a lot like the EU but completely borderless world-wide (with no immigrations or customs departments?)
I think you know how people would react to that. It's a pointless 'gotcha' question
The logistics don't seem difficult at all to me if there's a will. People tend to be pretty accommodating when it comes to letting you give them money. At the very least, countries can offer a "medical visa" option to visitors.
As for national borders being unethical by nature, if that logically follows then why not?
I certainly don't consider ethics a source of "gotcha" questions, but of real conundrums.
As far as I'm aware, the NHS provides free healthcare to people visiting the UK.
As regards providing free healthcare to anyone regardless of country, that seems next to impossible without providing the infrastructure necessary within the country they live, which would indeed be very difficult to work out. It seems like a good goal to work towards - everyone regardless of nation having access to reasonable quality healthcare.
> People tend to be pretty accommodating when it comes to letting you give them money.
Not really. A huge amount of charity money supposedly going to the poor in other countries is actually used to bribe officials in those countries to allow the aid to be delivered. Any attempt to give healthcare to people in those countries would also be seen as foreign interference, and suffer the same problems.
Ethics of some cancer treatments are dubious. (lifespan but not health) Depends on the cancer though.
Others are indeed effective - hormone blockers for certain reproductive system cancers, specific treatments for leukemia, surgeries where applicable and screening, toxic chemotherapy for cancers where it is effective or after surgery.
Advanced biologicals are often expensive because they can be and are not very effective there.
But there are some that are effective for autoimmune problems, those are problematic for our general healthcare in Poland with long conservative treatments with side effects while you're waiting to be qualified.
While I agree with you that universal healthcare should be "free", in most cases it's just "universal" healthcare and there is a marked difference between the two. Universal Healthcare only centralizes the insurance industry into a government managed program and determines cost by public committee rather than behind closed doors in boardrooms. That has been determined to reduce costs but not eliminate them. And the purpose is "access."
"Free Universal Healthcare" on the other hand focuses on delivering all healthcare at no cost for all common illnesses. To be clear, South Korea has Universal Healthcare and Bernie Sanders is proposing Free Universal Healthcare. But even Sanders' program would not guarantee that prescription drugs are free, they'll still be at maximum $200 per year per perscription. So, while I agree with you that it's "unethical and classist" to pick and choose who gets to live based on whether or not they can afford it, Universal Healthcare is not an end-all to this and is just part of the whole solution.
Also, to stay on topic, South Korea has the most consistently highest rated access to healthcare, but the issues presented in the movie Parasite still ring true for many Koreans.
How is it universal care if some people can't get care because they can't afford it? By that logic the US has universal care - any legal treatment your doctor wants to give you and you can afford it, anyone can get.
Universal Healthcare does not guarantee affordability, only access. You must be thinking of "Free Universal Healthcare".
And no, the US does not have it. You can be denied insurance and you won't be able to see most doctors because of it. Some ERs won't even treat you without insurance, especially if it's an expensive procedure.
> Universal Healthcare does not guarantee affordability
I think we have a word for that: affordable health care. Universal Healthcare necessarily covers affordability:
"""Universal health care is a system that provides quality medical services to all citizens. The federal government offers it to everyone regardless of their ability to pay.
"""
-- From https://www.thebalance.com/universal-health-care-4156211
Except your quote is exactly what I am saying. And just because universal healthcare is "provided to everyone regardless of their ability to pay", it doesn't mean that they'll always be able to pay it.
Because even if costs are "affordable" over all, it doesn't guarantee that everyone, including the Kim family in 'Parasite' would be able to afford more expensive treatments without selling their home for 30k.
Some may consider the fact that Korean national health insurance only covers around 55 percent of the total healthcare cost to be problematic. This may be true if one takes the idea of guaranteed socialized medicine seriously. But for fiscal conservatives with some measure of compassion for the plight of the uninsured, this could be an attractive balance. While corruption is definitely still a problem with Korean government, the NHIC is surprisingly efficient and well-run. It does a great job squeezing out maximum value out of the tax it receives.
I live in a country with good free* ($0.25) healthcare, but it's not limitless. The waiting lines can be months long, especially common problems like cancer. Sometimes it's not just the medical bills, but a caretaker might have to quit their job and need money for that, or nearby accommodation if they're out of town.
My mother got full cancer treatment for free*, but the wards were always full, and she stayed at home so someone from out of town could have a place to stay. The hospitals didn't have the right to force patients to go home though; they just asked nicely if they wouldn't mind staying elsewhere.
Universal healthcare means that any required medical treatment is free at the point of use but it does not usually pay for every possible quality of life intervention like a part/full time caregiver. Given the side effects from cancer treatment, I wouldn't be surprised if Mr Kim had to go to work but didn't want to leave his wife at home, weak and helpless, for the duration of his absence. Even if universal healthcare paid for a part time caregiver, they likely would not have been there most of the day, requiring quite a bit of money to pay for a private provider.
Caregiving, in-home nursing care, rehabilitation and long-term care (assisted living/nursing home/hospice) should be provided by a different social safety net department because of it's specialized and complex nature that also requires licensure and auditing (making sure elderly and disabled aren't abused or neglected).
Single-payer, universal healthcare should also include (all but cosmetic and elective procedures):
- prescriptions
- mental care including therapy, psychiatry, rehab and commitment
- dental care
- vision care and prescription glasses
- hearing aids (avg cost is $3000 USD)
- mobility and safety aids for disabled and elderly
- gym memberships for people below a certain income level
- smoking, drinking and substance abuse intervention, counseling and cessation assistance (medications, tools, relocation assistance)
- weight-loss for obesity/significantly overweight with effective, tailored, holistic approaches
> gym memberships for people below a certain income level
why? this is a luxury. You don't need a gym membership - just jog around, it's free. Tax dollars are meant to pay for things that can't be free or have a free substitution.
Jogging around would not provide the same benefits as a proper strength training program. Theoretically bodyweight exercises could but that would require a level of gymnastics training that most people don't have.
> Jogging around would not provide the same benefits as a proper strength training program.
it is not the tax payer's responsibility to provide a proper strength training program for those who cannot afford it themselves. It is the tax payer's social responsibility to provide a service when said service is important (like healthcare) but is difficult for the poor to fund themselves.
Exercising is important, but it's free to do, so should not require a tax burden to provide anything of this nature for the poor. Health care cannot be free (nobody works for free). Therefore, it's important for the tax payer to fund it.
If you know they are overpriced, and assuming you are interested in earning money, why are you not selling hearing aids for cheaper than the incumbents and taking their margin?
If you’re not interested in earning money, then there are quite a few firms that are, so if you release the schematics and details of the hearing aid, surely they will run with it.
> Also, US doctors usually prefer to not get cancer treatment when interviewed, since they know "how the sausage is made."
I would like to ask for a source please. Maybe they don't want cancer treatment in very special circumstances (e.g. cancer with extreme low survival rates, new experimental drug with very painful side effects), but in general and for most cancers? That sounds rather outlandish.
Every system has its point where it no longer can pay for care, especially when the procedures have a questionable ability to provide an extension to life at high quality, even the US system.
The difference is that on the US vast swathes don't have basic healthcare, which can often reduce the rate of complexities that require extreme treatment measures, like treating cancers early before they advance to a terminal state.
Wow, that's cool. I wonder if vision, dental, medical, hospital, prescriptions and mental are all covered without fees?
The very poor in the US only get Medicaid (rarely Medicare, which requires paying into Social Security long enough).
Medicaid:
- It doesn't pay doctors, specialists and dentists enough, so they often treat patients poorly (spend less time, not thorough enough, don't order necessary tests).
- Medication is all paid-for with no co-pays (out-of-pocket expenses), but at a limited number of pharmacy brands and limited selection of medications (formulary).
- Emergency and necessary hospital care is completely paid-for.
- There is a limited selection of doctors and dentists available to choose from. Most, not all, are reviewed very poorly.
- Only one dentist cleaning visit a year is allowed even if the person needs it more frequently because they produce plaque faster.
- There are very few specialists who are assigned by the doctor, often with very, very long waiting lists. Furthermore, some specialties do away with waiting lists and make people call on a certain time at a certain day like animals for very few appointments. They make it a game to play with people's lives and waste their time.
- The choices of insurers who actually provide the Medicaid insurance is usually 1, 2 or maybe 3 in certain counties.
-----
Medicare (similar to typical US convoluted, private insurance):
- Has several confusing options, lots of rules and fine-print.
- Medication isn't covered, it needs Part D insurance or ExtraHelp.
- Hospital insurance requires enough taxes paid or paid Part A private insurance.
- Medical insurance requires enough taxes paid or paid Part B private insurance.
- Medigap private insurance can be needed to pay co-pays, deductibles, coinsurance but it doesn't cover long-term care (no LTC = $$$$), vision/eyeglasses, dental, hearing aids, or private-duty nursing.
----
It's possible to have both Medicare and Medicaid, which means good insurance but with some out-of-pocket expenses.
Maybe Medicare improved without costs, for all, would be far, far better than people dying from cancer having to go to bankruptcy court rather than finish their bucket list?
> Wow, that's cool. I wonder if vision, dental, medical, hospital, prescriptions and mental are all covered without fees?
In Poland they are. With fixed monthly fee proportional to your income, 9%.
7.5% of it you can directly deduct from your income tax. So it's effectively 1.25% of your income.
The only additional money is for drugs (prescription ones too), but if the drug is expensive and you have a prescription you pay vastly reduced price, 50%, 30%, fixed low price, or free.
Of course there are wait times and you don't get top of the line materials so middle class people prefer to do dental and vision privately. No insurance needed there. You just pay 30$ to have your tooth fixed or 50$ for eye exam and new glasses if you pick cheap frames.
Also looking at South Korea and SEA GDP growth (especially compared to most 'developing' countries) they are doing amazing compared or a lot of South American countries who adopted Boliviar style socialism around the same time:
They did this by opening up and adopting a more modern market oriented approach, mixed with limited state run organizations.
They had some rational social programs in place where externalities in the market weren't being appropriately accounted for, or where market forces were simply immoral (high costs for sick people). But notably didn't over commit to some intense socialist movements like a lot South American countries - who went well beyond public health insurance buying into the Bolivar nonsense - countries in the early/mid 2000s who are only now recovering from yrs of "post-capitalist" experiments which only resulted in mass needless poverty for their citizens in countries which should have been the wealthiest in the region. With people lining up for food rations like its the 1930s Russia and having severely reduced variety of products to select from:
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Economy_of_Venezuela [note they were having food shortages and starvation before the oil crisis, the entire system was always unsustainable mirage stirred up with anti-western conspiracy theories of non-existent direct intervention].
The most famous moment on the Ruskies abandoning communism in the late 1980s was that Russians leader visiting an American grocery store and seeing the massive options available, at good prices, to regular middle class citizens. Also note the first thing Venezuela did was claim "access to food was a right" and nationalized a bunch of food industries, quickly resulting in mass starvation and shortages within a few short years.
It would streamline the whole system to just admit Medicare for all is the solution and pushing burderns placed on employers, or worse deterring entrepreneurship by making it super expensive for self-employed people to turn into net job creators - there's tons of pro-market benefits to a state run public insurance policy - especially when the alternative is the current pseudo-private mess they currently have.
Having public health insurance, with some occasional private options, like what we have in Canada is far far more limited than some of the socialist experiments the Bolivars promoted and destroyed multiple countries around them, including Ecuador. So even calling it socialist is probably doing it a disservice. It is state-capitalism, where the state part is the exception to the rule.
Nor did Canada adopt the more heavy-handed approach of the NIH in the UK which nationalized hospitals and a bunch of other pieces of the puzzle which were running perfectly fine independently.
The simplest solutions that are properly tied into incentives is always what works best here.
Even today there are plenty of arguments where the US system is essentially already borerline "socialist" healthcare system but with far fewer of the benefits of either markets or altruistic public run insurance. So 'staying the course' doesn't sound like much of a solution either, besides letting political friends in medicare fleece the government through cronyism.
It won't stop because with the constant local, congressional, and executive meddling to create these "pseudo-markets" which provide few benefits of actual competitive markets nor the central negotiation power of a centralized public insurance program.
And I say that as someone who in most other cases I would learn fiscally conservative.
I was born and raised in Sri Lanka, where the annual GDP per capital just hovers $4,000 now.
We have free and universal health care, free schools, and free universities. There are many things to improve, but it is there for the rush and poor alike. Some schools and pregnant mothers receive rations, and there is always some sort of social benefits in place.
Sure, the poverty exists, but one of the reasons why it is still working is because majority of the population does not live in urban areas. There is a trend of good schools, hospitals, and government offices being located to the capital, where land prices skyrocketed and poor neighborhoods exist. But I think our governments strategy in spreading the resources throughout the island is a great one.
Countries like South Korea, India, Japan, Phillipines, and China has a relatively higher amount of homeless or near-homeless population because of the high urbanization. They systematically bring the costs high for everyone.
For those who watched the movie, I found the ending interesting. I won't spoil it for everyone else, but Bong Joon-ho made his perspective unambiguous: he's not a believer in social mobility in Korea.
6 of the top 10 Forbes list in Korea are self-made; the other 4 inherited their wealth. In contrast, 10 out of top 10 are self-made in the US. There are better metrics to compare social mobility (this one was convenient!), but scanning down the Korea list, it's clear the tech boom provided opportunities for entrepreneurs to build wealth in Korea, but most of the wealth is still held by descendants of the big conglomerates (Samsung, LG, Hyundai, Lotte, etc.).
While Parasite is hit in the US, the perspective that it's impossible for basement dwellers to make it to nice mansions may be true in Korea, but it doesn't seem to be the case in the US.
I think social mobility from poverty to middle class is more relevant to most people than mobility from millionaire to billionaire class. According to The Global Social Mobility Report 2020 [1] South Korea has higher level of social mobility than United States.
As a metric, "social mobility" does not mean what most people intuit it means. Someone who, in real PPP terms from the same base, doubles their income may be wildly "socially mobile" in one country and not in the other, even though their absolute outcome is identical. This is because it is a function of income distribution which varies widely and is partly a function of country size.
Many people who are "socially mobile" in a country with compressed income ranges, like Denmark, will be objectively worse off economically (PPP) than many people who are not "socially mobile" in a country with wide income ranges, like the US. Income distributions need to be similar for social mobility comparisons.
Most people readily prefer a "non-socially mobile" increase in income if it is greater in absolute PPP terms than smaller "socially mobile" income increases. In these comparison cases, which are not uncommon, there is literally no benefit to being "socially mobile" in a country with compressed income ranges.
Bill Gates had rich parents, who bought a computer for his private school (ok maybe that's an urban legend, but Wikipedia says: When he was in the eighth grade, the Mothers' Club at the school used proceeds from Lakeside School's rummage sale to buy a Teletype Model 33 ASR terminal and a block of computer time on a General Electric (GE) computer for the students.).
Lot's of people have rich parents (think, for example about the members of the House of Saud). How many of those raise to Bill Gates' level of excellence? He co-wrote a paper [1] as an undergraduate in a top mathematics journal. The algorithm he co-authored remained the best algorithm for its domain for 30 years.
As I
used to notice this reaction in myself, and I've been trying to avoid it, I find it interesting to reflect on psychological/social function of the "but he had rich parents" reaction that successful children of the well-off get. HNs guidelines ask us "[p]lease don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work", and I wonder if this also applies to Gates.
GP was pointing out that Gates wasn't entirely "self-made", as suggested by GGP. Gates in fact enjoyed opportunities that aren't available to the average American and is therefore not a particularly good example of social mobility. Pointing out that he enjoyed a degree of privilege doesn't diminish his achievements.
Gates probably at least 1000x-ed his parents wealth. By just about any measure that's being self-made, as the GGP correctly pointed out. If 1000x-ing doesn't count as self-made exactly what meaningful measure of self-madeness and social mobility do you propose?
degree of privilege doesn't diminish
Privilege is a vague term that has become a term of political abuse
and has ceased to be analytically useful, I recommend to avoid it. For example, does anyone who uses it bother to quantify privilege,
after all we all stand on the shoulders of giants? How is the modern use of the term privilege useful, given the vastly different outcomes of the children of the rich? As I said, not every child of upper middle class families become Gates/Zuck ...
My inner Nietzsche smells ressentiment here.
His parents had a few million dollars but he started microsoft off of a version of a very optimized version of basic he wrote. He amassed 80 billion dollars and became the richest person on earth. Paul Allen and Steve Balmer became multi billionaires as well. I don't even know that he used all his parents money to do that. How many people are able to start a company. It's the equivalent of putting in 1000 dollars and building a 100 million dollar company. Saying that isn't 'self made' is delusional.
Looking at billionaires who came from well-to-do middle class is not quite the same as looking at social mobility of the poor. I don't think any of the Forbes top 10 started out as Parasite-style basement dwellers. There's undoubtedly some exceptions, but in general poor in the US have very little social mobility. They get stuck in debt and shitty jobs.
Usually mobility doesn't happen in one generation but like 2-3. A poor person managed to get middle class or upper middle class and their children then are in prime position to make another jump.
If you just look at the Top 20% you can see how people drop into and out of it over generations.
So, garbage man to millionaire, is pretty rare if your grand father was a garbage man from Korea in the 70s your life now is probably comparable to most people from the US.
Korea is a highly hierarchical, relationship-driven society on top of the extreme competition. It's increasingly a place where you need the perfect marks + the right family background + some starting money to get anywhere.
In practice, it's almost impossible to really climb in society and unfortunately this situation is describing more and more the US as well...
> the perspective that it's impossible for basement dwellers to make it to nice mansions may be true in Korea, but it doesn't seem to be the case in the US.
None of the top 10 american billionaires came from the basement. They all came from wealthy or upper middle class families with professional parents.
> it's impossible for basement dwellers to make it to nice mansions
Did we watch the same movie? The contrast between two families depicted on screen, their woth ethic and simple human morals is so stark that it seems even more right-wing than I am. I don't believe that there's a social justice to be achieved in society as a whole, but as you watch the movie (especially the later part), I can't imagine how could you possibly sympathize with the poor family.
The director has mentioned that the rich family were also parasites, although you're right, maybe he didn't make their parasitic behavior explicit enough. Although some examples I noticed:
- They got rid of their loyal, long-serving, housekeeper instead of caring that she's sick/supporting her through it.
- They "forced" their helpers to show up on Sunday.
- When the driver (the poor dad) was reluctant to run around as a Native American, the rich dad showed anger and said "You're getting paid extra for this!".
On the topic of work ethic, I didn't really see the rich dad or the mom working hard, the mom doesn't even work! Just like many of us in this forum, the dad probably got lucky to end up in a high-paying position, luck doesn't mean work ethic!
> They got rid of their loyal, long-serving, housekeeper instead of caring that she's sick/supporting her through it.
From their point of view, she hid her very contagious and dangerous sickness from them and knowingly endangered them and their children with tuberculosis just to keep her job. What kind of loyalty is that?
> They "forced" their helpers to show up on Sunday.
I watched the movie in September, so I must admit, I don't remember that part really well, but then you're quote the phrase...
> "You're getting paid extra for this!".
...which means, they're paid overtime - so, while outright forcing someone to come out on a weekend is a bad thing to do, it's not even unpaid overtime (which is so common, unfortunately). And it's certainly not even in the same league as literal murder.
> On the topic of work ethic, I didn't really see the rich dad ... working hard
I think it's obvious he's not in the position where he has to work hard - it's working smart that counts.
> the mom doesn't even work!
That's dad's decision - he earned his money, and he decided (for better or for worse) that he wants to provide for his wife. Many (me included) would not take this decision even if we had the resources, but everyone has the freedom to do whatever with the money they earned.
> Just like many of us in this forum, the dad probably got lucky to end up in a high-paying position, luck doesn't mean work ethic!
I can't judge you personally, but I've seen many other talented software engineers and other tech workers come to the same conclusions after they've been in the bubble too long. They got accustomed to level of intelligence and abstract thinking of their social group and naturally assume that all the other people are basically the same. I don't think that they realize what the "outer world" and people who inhabit it are really like. (I grew up pretty poor in not a particuarly elite neighbourhood of Moscow during a decade-long economic and system crysis, and my opinion of the "proletariat" is based on a very intimate first-hand experience).
> You're probably a believer in the meritocracy
No, not quite - I'm not a believer in any kind of system or a systematic truth about this, not the meritoracy, nor the opposite.
One of the most interesting culture in South korea is that under treated low class people (dirt-spoon class) don't really try disrupt current society model. To elaborate, people put poverty on their own responsibility rather than complaining about structural inequality. The rage towards class inequality is emitted at competition for higher ranked university and the reward of being in a prestigious college.
Always and everywhere the people at the bottom of the class hierarchy have enough problems that complaining about inequality or engaging in politics is not a priority. Social unrest is always about conflict within the elite or wannabe elite. The American Revolution was led by the richest of Americans. The French Revolution was led by the highly educated as was the Russian one. We have one historical example of a successful slave rebellion, in Haiti, and it was led by the most educated, cultured section of the free black population. For less violent examples look at the Labour Party in the UK, whose policy stance has almost always been that of the Fabian Society with some lag. A working class mass movement millions strong and what amounts to a debating/social club with well under a 1,000 truly active and engaged members had at least as big an impact on policy as the entire trade union movement.
I think that you are simplifying those events quite a lot. The willingness of "bottom of the class hierarchy" to join counts for quite a lot. That is involvement and engagement in politics. The actual bottom is despised by everyone and comes with host of social problems. One of massive sparks for these political groups is fear that I will become part of the bottom.
Both French Revolution and Russian one involved quite a lot of sides that fought among themselves and quite a lot of uneducated mobs attacking this or that place - these lost quickly. And yes, they are led by people in position to be leaders with education that gives them advantage. That does not mean the bottom is passive.
Also, counting only successful attempts is probably not good enough. The slaves were running away and were resentful of inequality. What they did not had was the remote option to engage in politics - but they did engaged in it a lot when the opportunity arose. The subsequent suppression of black voting and politics did not happened because they were engaged or passive - it was because they were active.
> The willingness of "bottom of the class hierarchy" to join counts for quite a lot.
If this were true neither the Russian nor the French Revolution would have been a “success”. Both were won by committed minorities in the capital city and they were even less popular outside it.
A small organized minority of people willing to use violence to achieve their goals who are good at it can overcome weak opposition from a much larger number. The Bolsheviks killed the Mensheviks in Russia and all non-Socialist opposition thereafter. They would never, ever have won an election. Outside Paris the Revolution was not popular, thus the need to conquer the Vendée.
The bottom is not passive. It just doesn’t matter because it doesn’t have any power. If it did it wouldn’t be bottom.
You basically count the one victorious group and ignore all the others.
Russian civil war involved 5 armies. It involved mobs attacking local leaders who fled - they were not necessary related to eventual winners.
French revolution was massively complex event too. Probably even more complex then Russian one.
And in each of these events there were more then one side commuting violence - and there were many people having or voicing opinions about what should happen. That they lost does not mean they don't exist.
I’m not ignoring the other groups, they’re irrelevant to my point, that the bottom doesn’t matter politically. All five groups were well educated, rich and cosmopolitan compared to the average Russian during the civil war.
That the French and Russian revolutions were complex doesn’t mean that the competitors for political power were ever in any way representative of the population. They weren’t. They were members of the elite or had been educated to a level that they aspired to that.
They weren’t on the bottom. The people on the bottom do not successfully engage in politics except as the tools of the current elite or of a counter-elite that aims to take over from the current elite.
Average Russian could not write and read. So of course average Russian could not organize anything as leader, writing and reading are necessary. So if you define elite in a way that includes everyone able to read, then it is starting to loose meaning. Plus rich cosmopolitan is not actually correct description.
And regardless of these, average Russians had own gripes and opinions on what is fair and what they want. The periodic explosions of violence, the demonstrations and very real possibility of massacre (and refusal to perform it) and revolutionary attempts all played role in eventual loss of controll of the country, but more importantly do not show average Russian as never complaining opinionless person.
But also, popular sentiment did played massive role in French revolution, the way it started and evolved. You can't write if off from history.
Regardless of who wins power in the end, it is just not true that lower class people don't have opinions and complains. You choosing to ignore them is your choice.
Just like popular sentiment in Syria played massive role in the way war started and evolved - despite endgame being eventually won by Russian support. You can't write those people's actions out of history.
I have tried to make this point often but people absolutely hate it and don't want to listen.
Yes, there is a lot of local action, lots of mobs and mobs going after whatever.
But the political outcome is often not determined by those action.
I would however ague that those who can get the mob to act for them can get an advantage. Controlling the population and the mob matters quite a bit, just not as much as people who love the glorified revolution from the bottom like to think.
There is massive difference between "powerful people shape ends more" and "the people at the bottom of the class hierarchy have enough problems that complaining about inequality or engaging in politics".
The former is about low chance of massive success and low likelyhood of gaining chance. The latter is attempting to frame everyone who complains about inequality as unauthentic and attempt to pretend that lower class people don't complain.
As this has generated some debate, I wanted to recommend The Revolutions Podcast https://www.revolutionspodcast.com/ which I think I first heard about on another HN thread.
In my opinion, S. Korea has less visible rage against inequality because of the Japanese colonialism, Korean War and the fast development of the economy since 1970s.
For 500+ years before Japan occupied Korean peninsula in 1910, Korea had a strict social class system. Class inequality was very firmly in place. But most accepted it as a natural order, as any society with kings in ruling.
All those social classes were broken down with the Japanese colonialism and the Korean War. Especially the Korean War. The Korean war basically wiped out overnight a large chunk of the landed rich. The society was turned upside down. It was a true leveling of the playing field. I'd say from end of the Korean War (or maybe even starting in 1910), those who rose above others in wealth largely did so on their own. The old money/wealth lost wealth and had none for the children to inherit.
Obviously some cheated (or hacked their way in techie term) to get above. Others worked honestly and did well on test and in job to get above.
So there's less decades/centuries old wealthy class passing down their wealth to their kids.
That dream get crushed when universities start increasingly accepting students through connections and children of graduates.
Getting major urban schools is much harder as a rural kid with a 4.0 GPA than a kid from nearby with the same GPA and parents who attended and donated to the school a few times.
I think Americans are more pissed off because there's been more to make people aware of the long term and growing unfairness.
People do seem to forget how much a privileged upbringing can be a factor in terms of what university someone goes to and their job prospects once they have graduated. I've met software engineers who graduated from prestigious universities who were no more smarter than someone who learned programming and graduated from their local community college.
Its more of who you know than what you know unfortunately.
Is it? "Socialism" and "Communism" are used interchangeably in American politcal discourse as a blunt way to distinguish between democracy and capitalism versus dictatorship and collectivism.
South Korea itself was a dictatorship until the late 1980s and received preferential treatment in trade talks in the cold war era with Western economies due to their unique role as a buffer against Communist expansion.
This level of privileged access would not be available to less strategically important countries in a 'free market'. Plus SK already provides a level of socialist services that a failed state like North Korea can only dream of.
I don't want to crap all over Koreans or Korean culture, but there's one element that profoundly bothers me: the abandonment and shunning of the elderly. Many are homeless or live lonely lives in destitution and having to rely on charity food. Also, certain bridges have become notorious for mostly all elderly people committing suicide because they can't take it anymore. Korea has a lot going for it, so I hope it gets better in this regard and inequality.
The US and many other countries also need to address inequality seriously too, if not for moral reasons then for selfish, long-term GDP and consumer purchasing power reasons.
One unrealistic part about the poor family in the movie is that, there is no way a family of four healthy adults can be that poor in S.Korea (unless they have a large debt payment).
If all four of them worked 40hrs/wk doing a minimum wage job ($7/hr in S.Korea), it puts them around $59k/yr, which is above the median household income.
I think the main point is they couldn't get jobs. At one point in the movie they said that every job opening for a security guard draws 500 applicants with college degrees. None of them had college degrees.
I am not sure what the actual job situation in S. Korea is. Perhaps someone that lives there can enlighten us.
Exactly. All of them were qualified for the jobs they did. They did a good job too. The daughter is a bit of an exception.
The daughter is constantly depicted at someone who is exceptionally talented, although has no paper credentials for the job she does. The family makes multiple comments about good she is at things and how she belongs in the wealthy lifestyle. When everyone is wading through the sewage water (motif for poverty) she sits sort of dry on the toilet just barely above the others (incredible scene imo). She does an excellent job. I think it’s to make a point about the lack of meritocracy even within class or something.
Yes, at the start of the film they’re folding pizza boxes as a kind of piecework and pleading with the person picking them up to let one of them have a job opening at one of the stores. They’re all unemployed.
They are smart enough to outsmart anyone but not to get jobs ? As always in Korean movies the protagonists had to be smart. It seems that they are not interested in anyone who's even slightly dumb.
Unemployment/underemployment has been a huge problem in S. Korea for a long time such that a college graduate getting a career track job (any like Police officer, government worker, job in a chaebol, etc) is a cause for celebration.
One thing Americans might fall into thinking is that they poor family in the movie is similar to welfare queens in US. Afaik, there isn't enough support for one to live as a welfare queen in S. Korea.
Another different factor is Jeonse. In S. Korean real estate rental market, monthly rent is rare. Most are rented out as Jeonse. With Jeonse, instead of paying monthly rent, a renter will make a lump-sum deposit on a rental space, at anywhere from 50% to 80% of the market value.
This allow a poor family to have relatively secure housing (although it would be undesirable) while having no money for other essentials.
With interest rates that have been divided by 4-5x in the last 15 years, small deposits and monthly rents aren't that rare anymore.
I'm not sure how it affects the poorest families, I imagine that you can stay in a decrepit "villa" on jeonse alone for many years. More often than not, real-estate loses value and it might not be in the landlord's interest to kick you out.
But in recent years there are definitely a lot of lower-income families that bought property and got out of jeonse, since it makes no sense anymore.
Which they did. The movie mentions an unsuccessful attempt to be a franchisee of a food chain that later turned out to be a scam. That ended up bankrupting the family.
If you can't get any job then you're done. Even if there're jobs but employers want the prices to fall for a specific occupation, then you're don too. This is not specific to South Korea though.
I believe that this situations could get better if HR companies weren't thriving everywhere just cutting down any opportunities for the people with stupid assessments, even universities graduates, and letting the experienced and trained personnel that belong to a business make their calls, but this depends on the business willingness.
What would life be like for 4 people on median wage, though? Did they live in a slummy part of Seoul? Or were they in an expensive part in a crappy house?
If a family of four tried to live in Santa Monica on $59k -- they would only have $39k after taxes. You can't rent even a single shitty room for less than $1k per month. That leaves them $500 a month per person. Health care would take at least $58 (the fine if you don't have health care). That leaves you $440 ($14.50 a day) for everything else. It wouldn't be Parasite bad. But it would be awful.
If you just moved to Compton or San Bernardino, it would be fine.
> If a family of four tried to live in Santa Monica on $59k
I've been watching K-cinema on/off for a few years, old boy really f'd me up even though I thought I got used things like Bijita Q type J-films. But, if you're looking for what that would look like via a Korean-Californian perspective watch Ms. Purple:
It makes the plight of the Korean immigrant, and ultimate success in LA, all the more poignant. I was a SoCal kid during the LA riots when K-town was burned to the ground and many were left destitute and went bankrupt, now K-town is most of DTLA and has expanded into a lot of Orange County displacing a lot of the Japanese and even some of the mainly Chinese influences.
How did you determine the $39k after taxes. Are you considering 2 parents and 2 dependents? They could probably get covered under Covered California also.
I think the dependent has to be a qualified relative and there is a very low income threshold. And with the tax reforms I think there is not much benefits.
So at that point, maybe its 2 parents and 2 single adults so you cannot combine their income for tax purposes. Maybe each makes $15k which is a very low amount for paying any taxes.
Well, yes, that was the point of the movie, to highlight the very real problems. In fact, the resonance that it gained seems to be helping, at least a little bit [0]
China is arguably much worse, because fixed hukou registration creates an official caste system that ensures the migrant worker underclass can never have access to proper schools, housing, etc.
The Chinese middle class is still in its first generation and mobility has stagnated for just a decade so it's still early. It'll be interesting to see whether tolerance for the government survives the upcoming economic slowdown.
The movie reviews well in most countries, because we mostly live in the same country, capitalism. (This is me paraphrasing a quote I saw the director give in an interview.)
I didn’t get the sense it was class strife. The main family was a bunch of scumbags. They lied and cheated constantly. I didn’t get the sense that they represented the lower class because the others around them weren’t like that. It makes it harder to argue this represents class struggle when the main family is so deceitful and undeserving of benefits.
One of the key findings of research done by Robert Sapolsky is that poverty, on a biological level, increases the tendency to prioritize short-term thinking over long-term thinking.
This is not surprising, because people in poverty need to be opportunistic to survive. Cutthroat behavior in poverty is not an example of bad moral character, it's a valid strategy to make it day to day. Being generous is something one has to be able to afford.
This is one of the perversions of poverty and our culture that make the movie so great. it showcases how poverty itself forces people to engage in behaviour that makes others look down on them as undeserving, rather than painting an idealized image of the poor.
It's quite hilarious how much Protestant folk morality was on display in response to the movie in particular among American audiences.
I am not sure that is applicable to the movie scenario. When they go for the housekeeper job, the three of them were already making a huge amount of money, and the housekeeper job was likely not life changing for the family. But they still destroy the life of the current housekeeper. That could have been completely avoided, and would place them in the bottom 5% of a moral scale of people on their pay range if such a hypothetical scale existed.
Off course, poverty is hard and their moral actions should be seen along with their circumstances. But that way, you can find every evil doer to have some reasons for what they do. The family had become 3 jobs by the time they trigger the allergies, showing a complete lack of empathy on their part.
>Cutthroat behavior in poverty is not an example of bad moral character
I can tell that Dick Cheney is a shitty person, even though he donated more money than I'll make in several lifetimes to charity. Likewise, I can tell that the Kim family had poor moral character, even though they were in poverty.
> it showcases how poverty itself forces people to engage in behaviour that makes others look down on them as undeserving
I'm sure that's true to some extent in real life, but I don't see how that is portrayed in the movie. The Kim family isn't "forced" to cheat except in the beginning when they had nothing.
Equally funny as the "Protestant folk morality" is the belief that poor people 100% a product of their environment.
I skipped around, but this basically reinforces my point. The movie doesn't have the clear cut "eat the rich" narrative that people seem to imply. All the families are depicted as parasites. The poor are never excused for fighting amongst themselves.
Had they stopped at the tutoring, nobody would have a problem with it. It's when they started to hurt other (poor) people in order to advance that the situation turned to shit. Of course had the movie stopped at the tutoring, it would have been a boring movie. It's taking the situation to the extreme that makes it an interesting movie. I really hope that in real life, such a family would be happy to have their kids in cushy tutoring jobs and use that windfall to improve their situation.
The point of the film was that poverty forces the poor into ruthless conflict with each other as they battle for the scraps of the rich. It’s pretty blatant. As was the indifference of the rich to the struggles of the poor and their own inhumanity toward them.
In one scene, the poor mother says something like "If I was this rich, I'd be nice too" and then immediately scolds or hits a begging dog. In this scene, the poor woman is relatively rich - she has the house they've taken over for the weekend, plenty of food, and the dog is poor and begging. I interpreted this, as the two events happen one right after the other, as the movie clearly rejecting the woman's claim. Even when she has a lot, she won't share with one who has little and is just fundamentally mean.
Likewise, when the main family meets the hidden family - are they generous? They have much from fleecing the rich family, and the hidden family has, and asks, for very little. Nope, the main family is cruel to the hidden family and by rejecting them they initiate the final conflict.
Other poor people aren't as mean. The original staff at the house are diligent workers. The original driver offers to go above and beyond to drive the sister home. The hidden family are dedicated servants. The first tutor tries to help his friend.
> Other poor people aren't as mean. The original staff at the house are diligent workers. The original driver offers to go above and beyond to drive the sister home. The hidden family are dedicated servants. The first tutor tries to help his friend.
The original housekeeper is literally lying to her employers, keeping her husband in their house in a secret compartment, where he steals food at night and terrifies their children? And as soon as this material security collapses, they become just as cutthroat as the other family.
The case of the original driver is ambiguous. At least to me, it was implied that the daughter concocted the scheme because she felt the driver was trying to find out where she lived because he was attracted to her. Most women I know wouldn’t allow a random guy to drive them directly to their house and especially if he had insisted on it after they asked to be dropped off somewhere else. This doesn’t justify pinning the fake “crime” on him, but to me, that was the subtext.
The family friend/original tutor is not desperately poor like the family. In the beginning of the film, he offers the friend the position because he’s going overseas and states his intention to marry into the wealthy family, both of which would’ve been impossible were he not well-off himself.
The mother doesn’t “have a lot” when she’s cruel to the dog, she’s feasting on some fleeting spoils. But the whole point of the film is that morality follows material stability, not the other way around.
The original housekeeper is lying, yes, but is a diligent servant who, on net, is explicitly said to be worth her cost of extra food. Her husband was once accidentally spotted by the rich son, he's not intentionally terrifying the children. They only become as cutthroat as the family, not because they lost money, but because the family kills the wife and the main son tries to kill the husband.
I would say the moral arc of the hidden family is a rejection of the "morality follows wealth" idea. When they are in debt and danger their solution is to hide and work hard. The wife sacrifices a lot to keep her husband fed and they seem to love each other. What they're doing isn't perfect, but seems like one of their best options. The hidden family only becomes violent after they are held captive and the wife is killed and the husband nearly killed.
I'm not sure how poor the original tutor is. I don't think that's clear at all. He wants to marry rich daughter, but that doesn't mean he's rich. The main son wants to marry rich daughter too.
The he mother does have a lot when she's cruel to the dog. She has more food than she can eat and won't spare it. When she and her family have fully infiltrated the rich household, they don't help the hidden husband.
The fact that your term for the first housekeeper is “diligent servant” should tell you how far your own biases are straining against the intention of the film. The good poor vs. the evil poor is not what it’s about.
She is literally a diligent servant. Her job is to be a servant and she is attentive, hard working, cares about her job and the family and the house. I don't see how accurately describing her as a diligent servant shows any of my biases.
I don't think the film is the good poor versus the evil poor. I think the film is something like a rich person's horror story - the poor hold you in contempt, they're lying to you, they're parasitic off of you, and they're a danger to you and your children. Even worse, they're in your home!
Your interpretation of the film seems explicitly rejected be the film itself as I explained above.
What do you think the rich family would have done to her if they knew what she was actually doing?
What exposes your biases is that you reduce her to the superficial appearance that she puts on for the rich in order to survive. This is not only viewing her through the perspective of the wealthy in the film, but counter to what the movie itself tells you she is forced to do and become, outside this limited perspective. It’s embracing an ignorance of the entirety of her characterization that the film intentionally elaborates.
And this is what Bong Joo Ho himself said about his movie:
“I tried to express a sentiment specific to Korean culture, [but] all the responses from different audiences were pretty much the same. Essentially, we all live in the same country, called Capitalism.”
The film is a depiction of life under Capitalism and all the related tensions, violence, and inequality that comes along with it. At a certain point, refusing to acknowledge this is just being willfully obtuse.
I think if the rich family knew what the hidden family was doing they would have fired her and called the police. I think that's a totally normal and understandable reaction, but it's not the most moral reaction, which would be to help the hidden family. I think this cuts against your argument because the richest people aren't extremely moral, whereas they would be if point was that morality follows wealth. Consider the party scene where the rich father cares more for his fainted son than the stabbed poor daughter.
I think your attempt to perceive and expose my biases is unsound. I called her a diligent servant because she is, and to contrast her with the poor family. The diligent servant works hard, does her job, and earns even the extra she takes for her husband. The poor family don't really know how to do their jobs, consider the father's inattention while driving or the daughter's made up therapy, and they perform their jobs haphazardly.
The diligent servant is doing what she's doing because otherwise loan sharks will kill her husband. The poor family is doing what they're doing to make more money. The point is that the original housekeeper is behaving morally and picking the best of bad options. The poor family is behaving immorally by lying, getting people fired, poisoning the housekeeper, and stealing. Both are poor and only the main family is immoral, which again rebuts your interpretation.
> The point of the film was that poverty forces the poor into ruthless conflict with each other as they battle for the scraps of the rich.
As an empirical matter this isn’t true. If it was civilization would be impossible. Most people are decent human beings working hard to get by. If poverty forced the poor into ruthless competition India or China would have higher rates of violent crime than the US, not lower.
This movie was a plot exaggerated to be interesting. Most cutthroat behaviour exhibited by the poor in real life is not literally killing, but more like selfishness and conniving.
When exactly is the family "forced" into conflict? They freely chose to take away from other working class people in order to boost themselves. Obviously, the rich were depicted as part of the problem. However, the family could have improved their lives if they restrained themselves.
There's definitely a point in the movie where they squander your sympathy. The kids tutoring their kids isn't so bad (though certainly the second one is more a con than honest tutoring), but as soon as they start to push the other employees out of their jobs, they're advancing at the cost of other poor people. Though some of those others are also dishonest, like the lady with her husband living secretly in the basement.
On the one hand, it's easy to dismiss them all as evil people, but on the other hand, people must be pretty desperate to live like that and do things like that. Extreme economic inequality puts a lot of strain on social relationships.
They weren’t scumbags because they were poor. They were poor because they were scumbags. That was what I saw. They were an entire family of cheaters and liars but none of the other characters in the same economic class were like that.
The rich people were never mean or overbearing to less well off people and treated their workers well. The workers were very loyal to them until the family lied and cheated their way into their jobs.
I enjoyed the movie but if the point was to show economic inequality I feel he missed the mark.
What was the difference between the rich and the poor family? Who is the parasite? What is it exactly that the rich family does better or gives to this world that they deserve the exceptionally better lifestyle?
Are they more intelligent? Surely not, since they were duped by the other family. Do they really care about other people and what's going on in their surroundings? Not really, they never bothered to figure out any of it, they are blissfully unaware of the of the less fortunate, untouched by the reality around them until it affects them directly. They don't care who serves them. Are they more virtuous? Not exactly, look at how they behave on the party when the girl gets stabbed. The dad takes his boy who fainted and tries to pick up the car keys, all the while pinching his nose in disgust of the 'poor people smell'. Does he help any of the wounded people? What are their actions?
> The rich people were never mean or overbearing to less well off people and treated their workers well.
How about the part when they act like they own them? One example is dad having to wear a costume for the boy because the boss is paying overtime for his non-working day. The driver dad is not exactly in a position to refuse or he could ruin his position (we saw how easy it is to get replaced), so he has to put up with it, humiliate himself and play the clown. The rich dad doesn't see how this is a problem, money should buy everything after all.
The movie is an allegory and it requires a deeper look and a bit of thinking. Contrast and compare this movie to 'Us', you will find similarities in how it deals with social class.
What struck me is that the main family has a ton of talent. They're excellent actors and planners. In a healthy society, they could use those talents to do something productive, and better society and themselves. But in the face of extreme economic inequality and a lack of honest opportunities, it seems parasitising on a wealthy family is the more attractive option for them.
> What struck me is that the main family has a ton of talent. They're excellent actors and planners. In a healthy society, they could use those talents to do something productive
You got it both right and wrong. In "Parasite", the family did indeed have talents, and they were often morally wrong: for most of the movie, they're bad-guys. But the movie is successful for the questions it raises:
- why should the poor always be "good" and yet if the rich are just a little bit good, they are considered saints.
- why assume that talent has anything to do with it. The poor family seemed smarter than the rich family. But how much of success is really based on "talent" rather than knowing the right people at the right time?
The movie was good because it didn't really take sides on these issues, while throwing the question directly at your face. The very fact that you're asking the question means the effect was successful.
Is it made clear what the rich father does for work? We have no idea how great his contribution to society could be.
He could be more intelligent and productive than the poor family. Just because some people deceive you (in your off time) doesn't mean they're smarter than you in any general sense.
They do care who serves them; that's why they fire their driver for his perceived infractions, and housekeeper for her illness. They're looking out for the safety of their family.
You compare their behavior at the party. The rich guy held his nose. The poor guy stabbed someone to death. You complain about him not helping the wounded people - well who wounded them in the first place?
The poor dad isn't forced to play a clown any more than the rich dad; they're inhabiting equal roles in the playacting. Nobody's humiliated or owned; the dad is quite apologetic about the whole thing.
> He could be more intelligent and productive than the poor family.
If I remember correctly, the ending scenes shows the son dreaming that he would study and work hard so he can finally afford the house and free his father. Do you think this is a realistic goal. How many years would it take him to buy such a mansion?
> What was the difference between the rich and the poor family? Who is the parasite? What is it exactly that the rich family does better or gives to this world that they deserve the exceptionally better lifestyle?
If you're looking for answers, this movie won't answer them. However, if you're asking the questions than the movie already did it's work.
The point was to show you their desperation,not to justify their actions. One thing leads to another.
There's a scene where the Dad wonders if the old driver they slandered out of a job had found a new one and the daughter responds by telling him to focus on them.
I am personally not quick to say I wouldn't do what they did when my whole family is starving.
> They lied and cheated constantly. I didn’t get the sense that they represented the lower class because the others around them weren’t like that. It makes it harder to argue this represents class struggle when the main family is so deceitful and undeserving of benefits.
The Park family was so nice, always honest and considerate of other people! I didn't get the sense they represented the upper class, because frankly, where was the psychopathic ruthlessness of bankers and CEOs?
It makes it harder to argue this represents class struggle when the Park family is so modest, and shows that we can all unite together in peace without brutal day-to-day competition.
Parasite gives one the same degree of insight about Korean culture as Raising Arizona does about American culture.
WTF, HackerNews? All this pretentious pontificating about the deeper meaning of a dark comedy (which could be set in ANY culture or locale with very few changes...) Whats next? A thread about the subtleties of Korean culture revealed in Gangham Style?
It also depicted young people who, despite their poverty, had enough access to schooling that they could serve as English tutors to the wealthy (yes, I'm aware that SK's education system has other issues related to it being a pressure cooker).
I'm sure that neither of those systems are perfect, but they do underpin the importance of universal healthcare and high quality education.