FKIs free fall

Chaebol lobby has outlived its raison d’etre

Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee recently made it clear he would not take up the chairmanship of the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI). ``I am too preoccupied with my group’s business and my duty of bringing the 2018 Winter Olympics to PyeongChang,” Lee said.

All the other tycoons leading the nation’s top-10 chaebol have also refused to chair the FKI, a lobby for family-controlled conglomerates. Some say they are too young, some too old, with others citing a lack of experience, the ``smallness” of their groups, and even prosecutorial probes for involvement in corruption and other irregularities.

This is a far cry from as recently as the last decade when owners of the nation’s five biggest chaebol, including such legendary magnates as Chung Ju-yung and Lee Byung-chul, took turns as FKI chair.

It also reflects the waning power of this chaebol lobby as well as its reason for existence ― if not that of the chaebol system itself. Even President Lee Myung-bak, himself a product of the chaebol-led economy, had to chide the family-run business groups for their negligence of duty congruous with their wealth and the benefits they have received under tacit social consent.

The FKI, modeled after Japan’s Keidanren, is a unique business association. Launched in 1961 as a private organization, it represents neither the business community as a whole, like the chamber of commerce, nor even specific industries. It is a group of chaebol, by chaebol and for chaebol.

The FKI for its part might have felt a sense of alienation with today’s trend toward the antipathy of big businesses, as shown by President Lee’s advocating of the ``working people’s era” ― albeit mainly in words.

Only Korea’s undue dependence on chaebol and the Establishment’s adherence to the status quo is why this country lets the weirdest economic system, in which families owning less than 5 percent of equities control dozens of companies through circular shareholding and arbitrarily bequeath their managerial control, forcing the nation to wish for excellent genes in chaebol founders’ children and grandchildren.

The Keidanren is at least trying to wean itself from governmental favors by seeking independent survival strategies and providing future visions for the nation. The FKI, rudderless for months, should use its Japanese counterpart as a benchmark or disband itself.