South Korea

In nineteen fifty three, South Korea's GDP per capita was sixty seven dollars. The country was war-ravaged, with no natural resources and a largely illiterate population. The government could have accepted poverty as destiny. Instead, they had a different theory about how nations build wealth. South Korea's government didn't rely on markets to pick winners. They picked industrial sectors and pushed massive capital toward conglomerates willing to build them. Samsung got electronics. Hyundai got automobiles. LG got appliances. Government directed credit, protected domestic markets, and demanded rapid technology acquisition from abroad. The model looked crazy.