> But we are saving the lives of ~3 million people so who’s to say what is bad
Korea’s GDP per capita in 1950 was similar to that of Bangladesh around the same time: https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Economy/GDP-.... In the alternate timeline where there isn’t a capitalist south korea, the Korean peninsula has 100 million+ people living in poverty and squalor, like Bangladesh today. The cost of that is tens of millions of lost lives resulting from higher infant and child mortality rates.
In the altnerate timeline where there isn’t a Nazi Germany, the US might not have been such a powerhouse post-WWII on the account of so many other nations not being a pile of rubble. Really the South Koreans should thank Nazi Germany for saving it from Communism.
The U.S. was already a powerhouse before World War II. It had the highest per-capita GDP in the world (excluding some blips during the gold rush in Australia) by the late 1880s. The gap in per capita GDP between the U.S. and western europe shrunk between then and the late 20th century.
Korea’s GDP per capita in 1950 was similar to that of Bangladesh around the same time: https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Economy/GDP-.... In the alternate timeline where there isn’t a capitalist south korea, the Korean peninsula has 100 million+ people living in poverty and squalor, like Bangladesh today. The cost of that is tens of millions of lost lives resulting from higher infant and child mortality rates.