hankyoreh

Lee Jae-myung gives a speech at a regional Democratic Party primary in Gangwon Province to elect a new party chairperson held on July 21, 2024. (Yonhap)

By Yoon Hong-sik, professor of social welfare studies at Inha University 

The emergence of ordinary Koreans’ livelihood issues as a key theme in the leadership race of the Democratic Party — the largest party in the National Assembly — is a welcome development.

In his candidacy declaration, Lee Jae-myung asked the question, “What should politicians do now?” He then answered, “There is nothing as important as the people’s livelihoods.”

“The only ideology ought to be ‘livelihood-ism’: solving the problem of making a living for the public,” he stressed, adding that “recovering and sustaining growth is the key to livelihoods and ‘livelihood-ism.’”

His point cannot be emphasized enough. Livelihoods are unquestionably the issue that politicians should be addressing ahead of all else. At the same time, “livelihood-ism” should not be reduced merely to issues of survival. 

In 2023, Korea’s per capita gross national income (GNI) reached US$36,194, putting it ahead of Japan. While there may be some room for debate, various indicators shared by Statistics Korea show that Koreans’ living standards have improved consistently over the past 10 years.

The relative poverty rate, which represents a level of 50% of the median income, dropped from 18.6% in 2011 to 14.9% in 2022. The Gini coefficient for disposable income, which measures income inequality, fell from 0.372 in 2013 to 0.324 in 2022. Indicators for subjective life satisfaction also largely improved.

Despite the visible improvements in the social and economic indicators shared by Statistics Korea, there are still a great many people struggling. Not only that, but we are repeatedly seeing signs all around of Korean society’s unsustainability.

The total fertility rate has continued falling, reaching a level below 0.8 — something that cannot be explained in academic terms. It appears likely to slide even further below the 0.7 mark. The suicide rate remains the highest among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) members.

Some attribute these phenomena to Koreans being “too pessimistic.” But social integration surveys conducted by the Korea Institute of Public Administration found an increasing rate of “positive emotion” responses when respondents were asked over the past 10 years how happy they felt the day before — as well as a decreasing rate of “negative emotion” responses when they were asked if they had felt worried or depressed the day before.

So what is the issue? Is it the low growth rate? Will increasing the growth rate and incomes alleviate the social and economic crises we face?

A recently passed act providing support of 250,000 won to all Koreans may offer a shower amid the drought, but what comes next? Let us consider society from the historical perspective of the period between the 1990s and 2020s.

Most of the aforementioned social and economic crises emerged in the process of Korea becoming a high-income country without falling into the middle-income trap. The increasing trend in the Gini coefficient, the ultra-low total fertility rate, the dramatic increase in the suicide rate, and the beginnings of the school tie-mediated inheritance of wealth and social and economic status all came about during or after the 1990s, when Korea began reaching high-income status.

The authoritarian regimes of Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan used the “importance of livelihoods” as a pretext for suppressing democracy and human rights. The roughly four decades since democratization have thrust Koreans into a fierce state of competition, where success in global rivalries is essential for our survival. This is why “livelihood-ism,” for all its importance, must not be reduced to higher levels of growth.

As Lee Jae-myung stated when declaring his candidacy, the important thing is what questions we are asking. Only by asking the right questions can we truly understand livelihood issues and devise the alternatives we need.

We have to ask the right questions about why the same astonishing growth that has propelled Korea to high-income status has also exacerbated social and economic crises, as exemplified by our ultra-low birth rate, high suicide rate and hereditary transmission of wealth.

Unless we believe that growth through a mere increase in jobs — even bad ones — is enough, we should be asking questions about how we have achieved growth over the past 40 years.

Why is it that the small and mid-sized businesses that employ 90% of Koreans have gradually lost competitiveness even as corporations have grown into global giants? Why do Korean corporations use three times as much automation as manufacturing powers like Germany and Japan, while reducing their hiring of skilled workers? Can we sustain a reliance on overseas demand for growth even as the emphasis on globalization undergoes changes? Who is the growth that Lee described as “livelihood-ism” intended for?

These questions are nowhere to be found in the current debate. If the Democratic Party is serious about “livelihood-ism” it needs to come up with alternatives that might transform our methods of growth.

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