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The legacy of former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, who died Tuesday, will be hotly debated for years. But already several key themes are coming into focus. He will be remembered for forging Korea into a vibrant democracy, as well as for his courageous personal stand against an unfree regime. And his views on issues like South-North relations on the Korean peninsula will continue to be relevant for policy makers today.

To Koreans, one of Kim's most important accomplishments is that South Korea today is an industrialized democracy. In the early part of Korea's post-war history, conventional wisdom held that the country would be dependent on an authoritarian government for its prosperity. And it is true that authoritarian rule, especially under Park Chung-hee, played a...