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Re:A punishing South Korean work culture is gradually being ... by azernik on Wednesday December 02, 2015 @05:00PM (#10666167)
Because the society considers such culture good (working at an old-style company is more approved of); established companies have government, business, and family ties that give them enough advantage to get away with some inefficiency; and people who don't believe in these values (i.e. potential founders of companies that would disrupt these values) are by definition so far outside of the mainstream that they may have trouble accessing social resources like capital and advice.

There are endless reasons why societies and economies converge on non-optimal ways of doing things. The market doesn't fix everything.

Re:A punishing South Korean work culture is gradually being ... by adiabatty on Wednesday December 02, 2015 @05:27PM (#10666318)
"There is a lot of ruin in a nation." — Adam Smith

This seems to be true of all sorts of large, complicated systems. Smith naturally focused on countries, but large organizations like companies and nonprofits can waste resources like this, too. The human body exhibits this behavior, too — imagine how many things that could go wrong with yours that would nevertheless still leave you able to go to work.