[Opinion] Conditions of a Developed Nation

“In an American election, there are no losers, because whether or not our candidates are successful, the next morning we all wake up as Americans. We are required now to work together for the good of our country. We must join in common ground without remorse or recrimination, without anger or rancor. I pledge to do my part to try to bridge the partisan divide. I ask all of you to join me in doing that.” This is the concession speech of the Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Not only was I deeply touched upon reading this speech, I also felt envy, thinking, “America is truly a developed nation.”

When we say developed nation, we often think of a rich and powerful nation. However a wealthy nation is not always a developed nation. Economic and military power are the necessary conditions of a developed nation, but not the sufficient conditions. The sufficient conditions of a developed nation are based on the standards of wealth and whether or not we have anything to learn from them. The fact that Kerry promptly admitted to his loss without clinging to the results of the ballot counting in Ohio, and the fact that he conceded to the results and asked all to join him in the cooperative efforts toward the common goal of America; these reflect an advanced political culture and are points we should learn from.

In America, there is a deeply rooted practice of concession even in sports such as baseball. In all fields, including politics, there exists a culture of accepting the results no matter how violent the match has been. Also, although America has a strong history of individualism, it also has an organizational culture in which the members are generous in cooperation. Since concession and cooperation go hand in hand, this country cannot but become a developed nation.

On the contrary, we are good in competition but are weak in cooperation and have no culture of concession. Looking back at our past presidential elections, there has never been a case when the loser has truly admitted to his loss. As a result there were severe after-effects of the presidential elections. In America once a presidential candidate loses in the election he never tries again. “Beautiful loser” and “Graceful retirement” have become generalized. In Korea, however, it is common for a candidate to run for office three or four times and we even refuse to admit the victory of the elected president. In such a situation, perhaps it is a matter of course that dissolution and conflicts continue, and the big leap that we are all looking forward to does not happen.

Lee Soo-hoon, Guest Editorial Writer, professor of International Politics and Economics at Kyungnam University, leesh@kyungnam.ac.kr