Son, I want you to be big thief!
By Oh Young-jin
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Shin Dong-bin
Kim Young-ran
Who should get punished more severely, a small thief or a big thief?
The principle of proportionality says the bigger the crime is, the more severe the punishment should be.
If you shake your head, you must know that it is not always the case. Often the unwritten law of “too big to fail” prevails: if one commits a big crime, he or she has a better chance of staying out of jail.
Before tackling one recent such case -- alleged corruption involving Lotte Group’s owner family and the Kim Young-ran law -- let’s ponder whether we are accomplices to crimes by keeping silent or not
calling “thief.” The chance is that we may not just be victims of the skewed plutocratic world but accessories to those oligarchs’ claims by looking away from the crime in progress -- and worse, wishing to be like them. Is it a case of Stockholm syndrome?
The system looks and feels so rigged in the big thieves’ favor that no matter how big a din we may make, they are bound to get away. When they are out of grasp anyway, why bother to try to catch them -- a failure of justice by choice and a sign of the societal fabric bursting at the seams.
Shin Dong-bin, winner of the long-running power struggle at the conglomerate, is still free because the court rejected the prosecutor’s arrest warrant for allegedly embezzling 50 billion won and breach of trust involving 125 billion won.
The court’s decision came amid rising concern in the business community and the media that Shin’s arrest would jeopardize the management of the group that employs tens of thousands of workers. They also claimed Lotte would be put under the control of Japanese shareholders if Shin is thrown behind bars. Lotte started in Japan and has grown to be a multinational firm, with most of its operations moved to Korea. Then, there has been talk of the breach of trust being too broadly used against chaebol and the reduction of its application is pushed by some legal experts. They know that it would be like giving chaebol owners a key to the jail’s lock just in case they spend time there.
Lotte’s rap sheet runs long: Shin’s father and founder of the firm, Shin Kyuk-ho, for his share of suspected wrongdoing; his brother for receiving 40 billion won in wages for not doing any work; and his sister in jail for embezzlement. The Shins are like the Corleones from the “Godfather,” except for their different “collar of crime.” As far as chaebol’s behavior is concerned, Lotte is not an exception but the rule.
By dint of the proven facts, the arrest of chaebol heads doesn’t necessarily mean a dent on their firms. In some cases, the companies work better without them. Still, society falls for this lame line of defense -- chaebol pivotal to the success of their business.
The Kim Young-ran law is an effort to clean up our society from bottom up while running the risk of becoming an attempt to cover up our inability to catch the big ones by rounding up the small ones. It is a typical case of wishful thinking, with the sum of parts exceeding the whole.
This anti-graft law, named after the judge who proposed it, boils down to the 3/5/10 rule. This rule makes it illegal for public servants, journalists, and teachers to receive a meal worth over 30,000 won, a gift over 50,000 won and 100,000 won for cash payments at funerals and weddings. Bear in mind that if one receives anything of monetary value from another who is in a relationship with a conflict of interest, it would amount to a crime punishable by a fine or a trip to jail. There have been a couple of tip-offs about a student giving canned coffee worth about 1,000 won to a professor. Since its Sept. 28 inception, only a handful of cases have been reported, with virtually everybody taking precautions. Few disagree that Kim’s law will help clean up our society that has long been tainted with the culture of corruption.
But imagine that five or six months from now, the Shins -- the wealthy and powerful -- still get away with murder -- “heinous” white-collar crimes, while those who give more than the 100,000-won limit to their best friends as wedding gifts are caught, ordered to pay a fine, face disadvantage in promotions and undergo a public dress-down. Then, there are professors and teachers in hot water for taking 1,000-won canned coffees.
Can we declare we have won our fight against corruption by pointing out the trophy cases of small fries? No, but we can pretend that the success of Kim’s law has solved this big-thief problem. Inside, we would wish to become big thieves in the next life. Don’t worry about your kids, they will inherit your big-thief DNA by subliminal transmission. The end result is a society that is only inhabited by the big thieves and their wannabes.
Or we can shout at the top of our lungs, “Thief!” until everybody gathers together and decides to confront the issue. We can show the power of the bottom 99 percent.
Oh Young-jin is The Korea Times’ chief editorial writer. Contact him at foolsdie5@ktimes.com and foolsdie@gmail.com.