In the 1950s, South Korea was one of the poorest countries in Asia. Today it is one of the wealthiest in the world.
This turnaround was brought about by the rise of a handful of families who created conglomerates like Samsung, LG and Hyundai and were favored by the military dictators who led the country from the 1960s into the 1980s. These family-controlled conglomerates, known as chaebol, thrived through tax benefits, special loans, anti-labor policies and other government subsidies.
In South Korea virtually all of your wants and needs can be met by Samsung, the most dominant conglomerate. You can be born in the renowned Samsung Medical Center, attend a prestigious Samsung-owned university, live in Samsung housing complexes — even buy life insurance from a Samsung subsidiary and go for vacation to the Samsung-owned Everland amusement park.
It is possible to use virtually only Samsung electronic devices in daily life. And, if you ace the widely taken GSAT — Global Samsung Aptitude Test — you can land a prized job at one of its subsidiaries. No wonder that Samsung is so large that it is responsible for a fifth of South Korea’s exports and about 17 percent of the annual gross domestic product.
When the photographer Romain Champalaune arrived in South Korea in 2013, he was struck by the role Samsung played in the country, both financially and politically. He found that many South Koreans were proud of the economic growth driven by the chaebol, which made the country a financial powerhouse. But others had mixed feelings.
“Samsung is at the heart of the South Korean economy’s success story,” he said. “But there is also a darker side to it. Many people have a love-hate relationship with the chaebol, including Samsung.”
Mr. Champalaune, on assignment for the French newspaper Le Monde, documented many of Samsung’s successful businesses and even photographed the company’s marriage bureau, where employees can have reasonably priced wedding ceremonies at the corporate headquarters.
But he also covered the story of former employees with rare diseases they said were caused by conditions at a Samsung Electronics factory. For decades, Samsung resisted the formation of independent workers’ unions. Last year, protests by workers grappling with illness led the company to agree to provide compensation, although it did not acknowledge responsibility.
Chaebol executives have been convicted of bribing politicians and embezzlement. The former chairman of Samsung, Lee Kun-hee, was convicted of tax evasion and breach of trust in 2009, but he received a presidential pardon and returned to the chairmanship.
Mr. Champalaune, 26, said he was particularly interested in the continuing links between the state and Samsung. He plans to pursue the relationships of large corporations and governments in other parts of the world. South Korea and Samsung, he said, provide interesting comparisons for successful modern economies.
“The whole South Korean economy relies on Samsung’s health,” he said. “If Samsung collapsed, the whole Korean economy would collapse. It creates a situation where Samsung is above the law because it is to too large to fail.”
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