hankyoreh

Former President Park Geun-hye (left) on her way to court in May 2016 and former President Lee Myung-bak on his way to court in February 2020. (Kim Jung-hyo, staff photographer)

Now that the judicial proceedings against former President Park Geun-hye and Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong have come to an end, at least for now, South Korean society faces a transition. President Moon Jae-in’s dismissal of speculation about pardoning Park and former President Lee Myung-bak, has also concluded the debate about crime and punishment. It’s time we started thinking about what happens after the guilty have been punished.

Once the storm has passed and entrenched evils have been overcome, what will be the key words for the era to come? Personally speaking, I think they will be equity and unity.

The dominant theme over the past four years, since the candlelit rallies in 2016, has been equity. The campaign to address inequality, end abusive behavior by people in power and make the economy fairer represents the call for moving into an era of equity.

Reflecting on the last four years, we’ve achieved some degree of equity through justice in the courts, but conversely, questions have been raised about what true equity means. Thus far, equity has remained incomplete, and we must now move toward a more mature, and a more advanced, form of equity.

In his latest book “The Tyranny of Merit,” American political scientist Michael Sandel asserts that meritocracy is the greatest enemy of equity. Meritocracy makes people believe their academic achievements and status are the result of their ability and think they deserve everything they have, Sandel says. That stirs up the greed and arrogance of the haves, while kindling the frustration and rage of the have nots.

Simply put, Sandel argues that the masses are deceived by slogans such as “everything is possible if you try” and “education is the door to opportunity,” while in reality, education, jobs and income are inherited. The relative misfortune of those who went to an inferior university or didn’t go at all and those who work in unpleasant factory jobs is blamed on their lack of ability, and they’re stigmatized as losers and failures.

The fusion of equity and meritocracy, Sandel says, has prevented center-left parties of the West — exemplified by Bill Clinton in the US, Tony Blair in the UK and Gerhard Schroder in Germany — from blocking the growth of inequality over the past 40 years and even served to rationalize growing inequality.

What are things like in Korea? In the end, hasn’t the administration of Moon Jae-in followed in the footsteps of the “meritocratic equity” represented by Clinton, Obama, and Blair?

I’m not trying to compare Moon’s Democratic Party to the center-left parties of the West. But broadly speaking, Moon’s policy-based attempts to reduce disparity through moderate market controls and a substantial expansion of welfare seem to have run into similar limitations as those Western parties.

Over the past four years, the Moon administration has striven to achieve equity and overcome inequality, but with little apparent success. Government spending has made a dent in the income gap, but it’s still serious, and the wealth gap has gotten even worse. It’s hard to begin to fathom COVID-19’s asymmetric impact on inequality.

There are even lingering suspicions that equity under the Moon administration reflects the interests of what has been called the “establishment left,” consisting of elites, experts and technocrats. The Cho Kuk scandal hinted at the pervasiveness, in Korean society, of inequity repackaged as meritocracy, unethical attempts to give one’s children a leg up in their academic careers, and back-scratching by members of the establishment determined to protect their own.

So how can we make more qualitative progress toward equity? Some ideas that have been raised are ending credentialism, increasing community solidarity, and reinforcing the dignity of work. Sandel proposes adopting a lottery approach to university admission; having the state subsidize workers’ wages; greatly expanding taxes on consumption, wealth and financial transactions; and pursuing alternative political projects oriented on solidarity and respect. In Korea, we could debate a social solidarity tax and a universal basic income, both ideas that have been raised during the pandemic.

It’s obvious that unity is another key word for this era. The worst problem with Korean politics is the endless cycle of inciting division and hatred. If there was a time for righting wrongs and punishing crimes, there should also be a time for forgiveness and reconciliation.

But just because the punishment has ended doesn’t mean the time for unity has begun. That’s evident from the public’s cool reception of proposals for issuing pardons to Park and Lee, the former presidents. Korean courts seemed set on showing leniency to Lee Jae-yong, but in the end, such leniency wasn’t tolerated by society, with its stern demand for impartiality and justice.

Koreans’ repugnance for perfunctory pardons and forgiveness shows that they still crave equity. In the end, true unity may only be possible after we’ve passed through the painful tunnel of equity. Rather than unity for unity’s sake, or unity as a rite of passage, the zeitgeist seems to demand unity based on equity. To be sure, genuine unity can also speed us down the road to equity.

That’s probably why the Democratic Party leaders who prioritize equity seem to have something of an advantage over those who emphasize unity — if readers will pardon such a rough distinction between the factions.

While such rifts in the ruling party have benefited the opposition People Power Party, it remains weak, precisely because no one in that party speaks with clarity about equity and unity, the key words of our age. What the Korean people still desire is genuine equity and the robust unity that equity can bring.

Back Ki-chul

By Back Ki-chul, executive editor

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