Ahn Cheol-soo lays out possible platform in new book

Posted on : 2012-07-20 11:44 KST Modified on : 2012-07-20 11:44 KST
Software mogul still hasn’t announced if he will enter politics or remain outside
 the new book by the software mogul
the new book by the software mogul

By Song Chae Kyung-hwa and Kim Oi-hyun, staff reporters

Ahn Cheol-soo’s new book “Ahn Cheol-soo’s Thoughts” reads like a presidential platform. The book, which was officially released on July 19, shares similarities with the Democratic United Party platform in its perspective and suggestions on social issues, but differs in the specifics of its prescription.

[Three themes: Welfare, justice, and peace]

Ahn said the biggest problem faced by South Koreans today is “anxiety.”

“People are suffering from widespread anxiety in basic areas of public welfare including housing, child care, education, health, and retirement,” he wrote. “It is crucial that we devise a solution for this anxiety.”

The solution Ahn suggested centered on three themes: welfare, justice, and peace. For welfare, he stressed the need for a “strategic mixture” of universal and selective social services, a system that would involve making a priority of increasing social services for the disabled and extremely poor, while also allowing members of the middle class to benefit.

As nice as it would be to have universal welfare that benefits everyone, he wrote, the financial costs would be too great. Universal welfare is one of the goals of the DUP.

Ahn also addressed last year’s free school meal debate. Responding to critics’ claims that it would involve giving free food even to children from wealthy families, Ahn wrote, “It is hardly a free lunch. The children of the wealthy are merely enjoying the benefits of all the taxes that their parents and grandparents paid in the past.”

He went on to say that school meals “should obviously be mandatory, as part of our compulsory education system for elementary and middle school students.” 

For this to happen, Ahn said, taxes would need to be increased. He stressed the need to raise the corporate tax rate by eliminating various exemptions and tax breaks, and then consider an incremental adjustment of brackets, raising the maximum tax rate.

His plans for achieving justice involved reforms to the country’s conglomerate laws and strict law enforcement.

“We need chaebol reforms and to do away with preferential treatment for large corporations, moving toward an economic framework where we focus on fostering SMEs,” he wrote.

He also called for a conglomerate law that would both keep the competitiveness of the chaebol system and address its disadvantages and negative impact, while taking stern action against chaebol internal transactions and gaming the system to pass wealth between generations.

In reference to a ban on circular equity investment by chaebol, the revival of the total equity investment ceiling, and steps to increase the separation between financial and industry, Ahn wrote, “I feel they are, on the whole, necessary.”

“Certainly, we need to increase separation of finance and industries, and getting rid of circular equity investment is the right way to go,” he wrote. “As far as the equity investment ceiling is concerned, instead of something [like abolitions and revivals] that can easily be changed, we should be looking at something that can operate consistently.”

On the third category of peace, Ahn said neither a welfare state nor justice would be possible as long as the country’s security was uncertain and peace had not been established.

“We need to resume the inter-Korean dialogue and economic cooperation that was suspended,” he wrote. “We have to restart over with the tourism ventures at Mt. Kumkang and Kaesong and gradually expand cooperation models like the Kaesong Industrial Complex into other regions.”

[Ahn’s solutions: From youth unemployment to the Yongsan tragedy and news media strikes]

Ahn gave clear opinions on all sorts of pressing issues in South Korean society. The situation at Ssangyong Motors and the tragedy that took six lives at a Yongsan redevelopment site in 2009, he wrote, are “symbolic incidents that show how much danger workers and the working class can end up facing in this day and age.”

Regarding the Ssangyong layoffs and 3-year strike, Ahn wrote, “We need to examine whether the layoffs were really justified, and hold the company accountable for not keeping its promise to rehire the workers, leaving them in despair.”

He also said, “Tragedies like Yongsan are what happens when you merely follow the logic of development at all costs without thinking about the residents. In future urban redevelopment efforts, people need to show more concern for the position of the tenants and other socially vulnerable groups.”

Ahn offered his opinion on Samsung Electronics’ refusal to take responsibility for a string of leukemia cases among workers at its semiconductor factories. “If there are symptoms in the workers and potential in the work environment for occupational disease, then it seems to me that the company should take responsibility even if no scientific causal relationship is clearly established,” he wrote.

“In institutional terms, the burden of proof on industrial accidents and causality needs to be greater for the company than for workers,” he added.

Ahn also sided with the citizenry on the issue of demonstrations, including the 2008 candlelight vigils against US beef imports, and the aggressive response by police.

“I have always thought that when people gather in Korea, it is a kind of festival, something great,” he wrote about demonstrations. “The reason the government is so afraid of people gathering these days is because it lacks confidence in its authenticity and legitimacy. We need a government that is willing to open its mind to the voices of citizens.”

Addressing the harsh tactics of police, Ahn wrote, “The police don’t seem to be supplying the necessary personnel for public welfare and security at a time when the crime rate in this country has been on the rise.”

“Instead of working on other matters like cracking down on demonstrations, they should be focusing on rooting out crimes that have a direct bearing on public welfare, such as illegal predatory lending,” he advised.

Ahn expressed skepticism about the South Korea-United States Free Trade agreement. Prefacing his remarks by saying that “opinions naturally vary before and after the agreement takes effect,” he wrote that he had “doubts about claims that we must sign FTAs because we’re a country that relies on exports. There are research reports that show the job creation effects from FTAs decreasing over time.”

Now that the agreement has gone into effect, however, he advised “scrutinizing it closely and actively re-renegotiating the areas that need revision rather than throwing out the whole thing. And in the future, relevant information needs to be shared by the government as transparently as possible, with expert examination through the National Assembly.”

On the issue of the planned Gangjeong naval base on Jeju Island, Ahn tentatively sided with the administration. “Four administrations with very different perspectives, from Kim Young-sam to Kim Dae-jung, Roh Moo-hyun, and Lee Myung-bak, all looked at the matter and came to the same conclusion,” he wrote. “If all these administrations with their different approaches to foreign policy came to the same conclusion that a naval base was necessary, then in the absence of other information we should accept their judgment.”

He did point to one problem with the effort, namely the question of “whether every effort was made to win over the residents and the public.” On this, he advised seeking consent by disclosing all necessary information for residents to make a decision, as well as public bidding details and return benefits.

On the Four Major Rivers Restoration Project, Ahn wrote, “Questions of effectiveness aside, I have doubts as to whether this was so high a priority for the country as to warrant all the state resources poured into it over a very short time.”

“Instead of proceeding without a strong enough social consensus, they should have opted for an approach of trying it out in a limited area, and then expanding it if it was successful,” he suggested.

Ahn also spoke out against the privatization of the KTX high-speed rail service and Incheon International Airport. “I don’t think it’s desirable to privatize all public enterprises,” he wrote. “In particular, I disagree with privatizing things like railroads and airports that are a kind of public asset.”

 

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]

 

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