Modern Korean History Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Modern Korean History - Essay Example This made them to evolve into sharply contrasting societies; with South Korea becoming one of the countable postcolonial developing countries to enter into the world's first rank. This so happened even in the event that the start was seemingly unpromising. On the other hand, North Korea became among the world's most known isolated and totalitarian societies. It could only be described as a nuclear power with a population which was not only impoverished, but also famine-stricken.2 Notwithstanding the above division, the Koreans had for a lengthy period of time lived in social classes. These classes included the king together with the ruling class, the peasants and the landlords. The reasons as to why this society is being painted as inward looking can be better understood form the peasant war. In 1984, the peasant war occurred and this uproar was geared towards doing away with the anti-imperialistic and anti-feudal phenomenon and in their place birth a modern state. This war has so re sulted from two principal issues: the invasion of imperialism and the failure of the feudal system.3 Notably, the Korean medieval society was uniquely characterized by an integration of a centralized power system and an economic system which was based on the concept of the landlord. This special feature furthers that explanation of the Korean society as an inward-looking society. Ordinarily, the central figure in their centralized power system, known as the king, had bureaucratized the aristocracy and the yangban via the examination of the civil service and their subsequent inclusion in the compacted system. Both the nobility and the yangban received economic gain in terms of slaves and land. This benefited them in that, their profits were certain. Nevertheless, this representative economic gain was a threat to the prevalent system of power. Moreover, the king together with his nobility and the yangban has assumed control over the owner- and tenant farmers- who were referred to as t he ruled class. But the reality of the matter is that this relationship was solely was clearly manifested in rent and taxes, that is, a tax relationship existed between the peasants and the state, while on the other hand, a rent relationship existed between the landlords and the tenants. It is crystal clear that the significance of these two kinds of relationships was secondary.4 This, therefore, meant that the only thing that could be done on the feudal problem was its revelation in the landlord-tenant rapport. Similarly, feudal conflicts were present in the state-peasant relationship since the king, the nobility and the yangban were the members of the landlord class while owner and tenant farmers formed the class of the peasants. Tax was the basis on which the state-peasant rapport was rooted. Moreover, the power of the landlord was boosted following the institution of the land tax. This move led to the concealment of the state-peasant in the landlord-tenant rapport thus making th e latter conflict more and more prominent.5 The peasant wars held had destroyed numerous tax records in government offices. Moreover, a number of rich peasants were attacked. During the uprisings, the peasants came to the full knowledge that the conflicts were as a result of land inequality. This made them attack the local gentry and large landlords making land issue to be their