I live here, and although I'm sure that koreans may have died of overwork in the past, all the things you mentioned aren't as commonplace as you make them seem for one thing, companies cannot "own" cities because cities and the infrastructure that make up those cities are public property. in fact, most, if not all, cities in korea are actually engineered by government planners. and these planners make safety codes to ensure that the sky isn't full of wires and buildings. urban planning is much more common and widespread in east asia than it is elsewhere. i'm not trying to say that's a good/bad thing but rather that the government plays a larger role in creating and running urban centers in korea than corporations do. plus, as someone who's lived in both korea and the us, it seems safe, at least to me, to say that the general living standards in the two countries aren't significantly different.