Issue Scenario: Worn Anchor

Summary

The Worn Anchor scenario, combining fragmented gridlock with dependent integration, depicts Korea in 2045 as an exhausted giant. Political polarisation was never overcome, each new government scrapped its predecessor's policies, and pension, labour and education reforms stalled against vested interests. Generational, class and ideological conflicts fractured society, while cars and petrochemicals lost competitiveness and semiconductors slid into commodity production. With repeated reform failures, the economy settled into chronic low growth, and jobs appear and vanish according to decisions by major powers. The report calls this the worst future to guard against, yet also the direction current indicators point to most strongly.