Gurkhas and Koreans: The wild success of radical meritocracy and its pitfalls

Foreword

Recently, South Korea recorded the lowest birth rate in the world, attracting commentators from Nobel Prize winners to Elon Musk. As someone who spent exactly half his life in South Korea, I feel qualified to weigh in on this issue.

Korea isn't unique in its troubles. Across Asia, more and more young people are giving up on what they see is a futile race to good grades and employment. Dating and marriage falters, and naturally the birth rate follows suit. The pillars of what their parents considered middle class - a family and a home - have now become nearly unattainable. The result is a society that either gives up entirely or devours each other for leftover crumbs. What went so wrong?

1. A Gurkha is born

For the last 100 years, the Gurkha soldiers of Nepal have brought glory to their country and terror to their enemies. There are many natural born fighters in the world, but none have enjoyed such long-term success and renown as the Gurkhas. Why? It’s a story of their institution as much as the individual.

The selection process for Gurkhas is not only grueling, but extreme measures are taken to ensure that it is, above all, fair. All high-stakes exams attract bribes and schemes, especially so in the developing world. To uphold absolute fairness, every score is double-checked by Nepali and British recruiters; there are no exceptions and do-overs. Thousands of boys are sent home packing, some in tears.

To the outside world, this obsession over test metrics looks extreme. But both countries know that the test is meaningless if they cannot convince the public that its winners truly deserved it. The social acceptance of individual talent is what makes Gurkhas’ esprit de corps so powerful. They know they’ve earned it and so does everyone else.

So what do Gurkhas have anything to do with Korea? Because I’ve just described Korean society in a nutshell. Replace the push-ups with math tests and all else is the same: a privately-trained individual, staking his/her life on a standardized test, cheered on by the public that stands behind its fairness. This is what I mean by radical meritocracy - a testing process so competitive and prestigious, that a whole public-private complex is formed around its preparation, result, and legitimacy. The private sector trains, and the public sector legitimizes.

The top-ranked cohorts, chosen this way, are driven, respected, and highly united. Now scale this to a country level and you have the driving force behind Korea’s rise - competitive tests as the great equalizer, and the strong internal cohesion formed among its winners. Because everyone sat on the same test, stories of life-changing social mobility abounded. Farm boys and factory laborers became lawyers, mayors, and presidents, inspiring countless others along the way. When you have a country that can pull this off, economic miracles are almost an afterthought. Those boys had what it takes to sell ice in Alaska.

2. The Korea difference

To the outside world, Japan is a pinnacle of internal cohesion on every level, from school to boardroom. Every year uniformed students compete in a national exam, which decides their eligibility for top universities, which then decides their entry-level jobs in highly integrated keiretsu firms that make and sell everything from “ramen to missiles”.

In Korea the same system developed but with two notable differences: first, the family-owned zaibatsu, banned in postwar Japan, took center stage in Korea. Called chaebol in Korean, they proved to be quicker and more aggressive than keiretsus by being centrally controlled by a chairman rather than a network of subsidiaries. Samsung’s semiconductor arm, for example, chronically lost money in its early days and yet the chairman refused all attempts to shut it down, a risky move only possible in a unilateral command structure.

The second difference was the compulsory draft, as long as 3 years at one point. Unlike Japan, Korea had an enemy at its gates and was forced to militarize its society, teaching basic training to high school students and mandating a nightly curfew until 1982. In the process, the military became Korea’s second great equalizer and a rite of passage for men.

Today in America, veterans are in the minority, down to 7% of the population. Imagine how different society would be if over 80% of men were veterans. In Korea this had the effect of producing highly unified cohorts before they entered the workforce. These men studied for their family, fought for their country, and worked for bosses who’ve been through the same. Generations of motivated cohorts put in 60+ hours of work every week, allowing conglomerates to rapidly close the gap between Japan’s superior products and theirs in mere decades.

3. For whom the schoolbell tolls

So far, I've discussed the strengths of radical meritocracy, and how Korea was able to catch up to Japan so quickly. To a western audience, subjecting kids and young adults to 50+ hours of test prep every week sounds like human rights abuse. But in a developing country full of potential for bribes and cronyism, there was a need to scale talent at speed and uphold fairness. Scale it did, but has it truly been fair?

For Gurkhas and Koreans alike, the test isn’t pay-to-win, but the preparation definitely is. Now a $19 billion industry, private education is as essential to Korean households as food, costing upwards of $350 a month. 40% of students toil 3+ hours a day in such institutions, some of which even have entrance exams and waitlists. Turns out tests are not the great equalizer if you can’t pass them without private tutoring.

The cost of so much studying isn't just financial. The long hours take a heavy toll on teens' body and mind. At 23.5 per 100,000 people, Korea’s high suicide rate is well known. A less known statistic is the astounding 96.5% prevalence of myopia in Korean teens. An entire generation has to either wear glasses or undergo surgery because they spend too much time studying indoors. It shows people are willing to go to extreme lengths so long as there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

Then there were women who, for the first time, entered college on equal footing as men but did not exit the same way. The promise of fairness through academic achievement played out very differently for women. From 1970 to 1990, the percentage of college-educated women increased dramatically from 8% to over 40%. And yet, “separate spheres” of husband and wife were normal as late as the 1990s, when only 15% of households were dual-income, compared to 40% today. This meant that soon after marriage, women had to quit or take up less demanding employment to raise a family.

Today only 8.5% of high-ranking public officials and 5% of corporate executives in Korea are women. Despite their excellence in the meritocratic system, there seems to be an invisible ceiling. Unable to reconcile work and family expectations, more and more women are delaying or deciding against raising a family. Korea’s fertility rate hit a world record of 0.81 this year and shows no sign of rebounding. Babies cost money, time, and work leaves. Young couples don’t have any of these.?

4. Squid Game

By now many of you are familiar with Squid Game(2021). Most critics focused on its extreme portrayal of class and inequality, but that doesn’t explain what sets Squid Game apart from genre mainstays like Hunger Games, Battle Royale, or Kaiji.

The genius of Squid Game is that it’s a parody of the school system. Every game they play is a schoolchildren’s game. It is meant to invoke the brutal competition and radical fairness so familiar to Koreans. Director Hwang stated he intended to show how high-stakes competition forces people to think the games are zero-sum, even when they aren’t.

In such a competitive society, any perception of unfair advantage threatens the entire system. Thus the stage was set for the latest and most divisive conflict in Korea: the gender conflict. For over 4 years, the question of which gender had it worse inflamed online debates and swayed elections.

Males argue they are poorly compensated for 18-21 months of military draft and outcompeted as a result. Females protest the crimes against women, and poor prospects after marriage and childbirth. Both compete for highly coveted public and private roles, where there’s a chance gender can tip the scale if all else are equal. Quotas invite debate in every society, but even more so in a hyper-competitive one where everyone's on edge. Both genders have benefited from Korea's gender equality quota, but there is intense debate regarding "who has it worse".

From kindergarten to civil service, the individual and social support of exams has transformed Korea into the East Asian Tiger of the 90s, led by promising and patriotic cohorts. Only now we realize the long-term effects of this grand experiment. Once upheld as the great equalizer, exams are now unraveling Korea's social fabric. The system, even when it worked well, never seriously accounted for the role of women and the uncontrolled growth of private education. Above all, it neglected individual well-being for too long. There’s no Squid Game for children; they’re already in one.

5. In search of lost time

In the early days of Gurkha recruitment for the British Army, Nepal’s GDP per capita was less than $100. A poor boy who made it into their ranks could transform his life and his entire family’s lives. For Nepal, it gave the youth a fair shot at life with enormous returns. For the British, they had a secure talent pipeline of hardy farm boys with superior cardio and strength. It made perfect sense for both.

Today Gurkha recruitment looks a lot like Korea’s private education sector - the applicants are middle-class urban kids who attend costly private academies. British recruiters maintain private training isn’t necessary, but city boys aren't carrying baskets up the Himalayas on a daily basis and need training. There's not much recruiters can do about it.

The biggest hidden cost of radical meritocracy is probably the collective opportunity cost that’s being transferred into private education. Both Gurkhas and Koreans spend multiple years retaking exams, which are held only once a year. The more time they spend, the more private tutors earn, and the more deadweight loss borne by the society.

In 2021, out of 84,770 entrants of universities in Seoul, 35% were repeat applicants. Some re-attempt their shot at college 2-3 times, spending years in a state of negative income. Combined with the military service, it’s not uncommon for Korean males to start entry-level jobs as late as 26. By the time they hit 30, they're still effectively freshmen and in no shape to get married. The mind-boggling number of hours Koreans collectively spend in preparation for exams, language tests, and certificates are reaching a point where you can’t even call it a grind or hustle. It’s just life.

6. Abandon all hope

A spectre is haunting East Asia — the spectre of defeatism. The latest generations of youth are finally throwing in the towel everywhere. It all began in the early 2000s, when Japanese young men began giving up dating, marriage, and willingness to climb up the ladder. Called “herbivores” by the media, they would renounce worldly desires to live in quiet peace, preferring video games to dating.

By 2010, Korea followed with a neologism: Sampo generation. Young adults had given up on dating, marriage, and kids. Rapidly rising home prices and a lower growth economy had made even the top graduates scrambling for opportunities. The 24/7 grind was starting to look less and less attractive. Today young Koreans are heavily invested in volatile stocks like Tesla and all manner of cryptocurrencies. They eschew conventional means of savings and interest, instead opting for all-or-nothing moonshots. They believe it’s the only way they can catch up.

China's moment arrived in 2020, when students came up with an even better term: Involution. It describes a process of over-elaboration without proportional returns in a wide range of high-stakes environments, from school exams to tech jobs. Because of diminishing marginal returns, all that’s left is a draining rat race over a few points. The infamous 996 - working 9AM-9PM, 6 days a week - culture had run its course. The "Lying Flat" movement took its place, where burnt-out students and professionals vented their stress and refused to keep paddling.

In Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, and Taiwan, similar pushbacks against excessive study and work arose. Usually those buzzwords feature a mix of dark humor and defeatism. Whatever the word, they all point to a tired populace who believe the 24/7 grind will not be worth it. In our parents' generation, East Asia made it to the developed world. In our generation, we are now about to find out at what cost.

Epilogue

Every system that falls, by definition, had to rise in the first place. Instead of asking what went so wrong, we should be asking what went so right about radical meritocracy. And it got many things right: social mobility, fairness, and internal cohesion were achieved all at once through a comprehensive high-stakes exam. Better yet, Japan had already test-driven the system with such amazing results that foreign business partners were learning Japanese. There was little to lose and a lot to gain then.?

Today we find ourselves in a wholly different world compared to the roaring 1970-90s of Asia. A world where over 70% of students, not 30%, go to college; where women attend college in equal numbers and fulfill roles beyond secretaries; where private education has matured to an extent that every parent seeks a consultant. Like the noble knights of France and Poland who saw their generational institutions crumble before gunpowder, we are faced with a decision whether to abandon the very thing that brought us victory.

How will the East Asian legacy go down in history? Will other countries learn from our mistakes or repeat them? What is to be done about the burnt-out youth? These are questions too important to be left to politicians alone.?