This paper has two key purposes. The first is to bring competition and power/politics directly into analyses of economic development in East Asia. In other words, the intention of this paper is to establish competition — defined as a historically constituted force — as integral part of the market process, the dynamics of which must be thoroughly analyzed and appreciated in order to adequately explain capitalist development in East Asia or anywhere else. My second, closely connected, purpose is to show just how and why a specific pattern of competition emerged and became embedded in South Korea's political economy. Briefly put, I contend that South Korea's rapid economic growth after the coup in 1961 was based — not on the establishment of a strong, developmental state per se — but on the emergence of an intense, but highly exclusionary form of competition, which I dub competition in closure.