Leading economist calls for shared growth for social, economic, regional, gender balance

Former Prime Minister Chung Un-chan, in his inaugural address for the post on Sept. 29, 2009, said Korea has become one of the only seven nations to boast a population of over 50 million and per capita income of over $20,000, following the United States, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy.

Korea increased the individual yearly income to the level of $30,000 nine years later, joining the prestigious but imaginary 50-30 club. Canada is richer than Korea but its population is less than 50 million, whereas China is much bigger but its per capita income is far below $30,000.

“Korea now ranks in the global top seven among all the nations in the world in terms of the population and income levels,” he said in a recent interview with The Korea Times in his office at the Korea Institute for Shared Growth.

“We have gone through tough times over the century under the colonization by Japan, three-year war and ensuing confrontation with Communist aggressors, and global financial crises. We have brought about splendid economic and political achievements in the shortest period in world history,” he said. “We have to go on tougher ways as social disparity and economic disequilibrium have expanded while slow growth and low employment have become the new normal.”

Modern Korean cultural pillars including pop music, television and film have attracted enthusiastic fans around the world, while in Korea the birthrate has been falling and the suicide rate has soared to new records. The sharp contrast symbolizes the brightest and darkest phenomena surrounding Koreans.

Chung argues that the negative phenomena have largely stemmed from fast-paced development and have now become chronic social diseases. “European and American countries spent 300 years or more to become what they are today. We spent 50 years or more to catch up with the most advanced economies,” he noted.

Shared growth as new growth strategy

Chung calls for balanced growth in all economic sectors in a dramatic shift of government policies to repair the ever-deepening economic and social disparity. He got his Ph.D. at Princeton University and taught economics at Columbia University and Seoul National University (SNU). A number of his SNU students have engaged in government policymaking. A greater number of public servants studied his books in the course of preparing for government exams.

“We have to overcome the problems by holding hands all together. The rich have to consider the poor as friends, bigger companies have to treat smaller ones as partners, and we living in capitalist South Korea have to engage the devastated North Korean people as brethren,” he said.

That is why he chaired the Korea Commission for Corporate Partnership, a semi-government agency, shortly after he retired from the No. 2 position in the government. He later established a private institute for “shared growth” several years before the OECD proposed “inclusive growth” to member countries.

“Shared growth is a philosophy that promotes economic growth together. By growing together, shared growth aims to promote fairer distribution without curbing vigorous economic growth,” he explained.

People sometimes misconstrue shared growth as another distribution mechanism that takes away from the rich and gives it to the poor.

“I do not blame them because traditionally growth and distribution were in an ‘or’ relationship; you could either pursue growth ‘or’ distribution in classical economic theories … Shared growth says otherwise; economic growth and distribution of wealth are not at opposite ends of the spectrum. Growth and distribution can be achieved at the same time by growing the economic pie bigger and distributing the bigger fruit of the growth fairly among contributors,” he said.

‘Fathers’ who taught him honesty, social distribution

Chung was born in a rural village in South Chungcheong Province in 1947. His family was poor but full of love and piety. As soon as his mother gave birth to him, his father ran to an old man of knowledge to ask for help naming him. The man told his father to call the newborn “Un-chan” for his life would be “full of luck.”

Actually, Un-chan was very lucky even before being born. His mother, already well-aged and exhausted from nursing four children amid poverty, drank the juice of a poisonous grass to miscarry the embryo every day. She failed and delivered her fifth and last child, all lucky to him.

His father moved to Seoul to find a new job with his six family members, but the war forced him to return to his hometown a year later. One year after the war closed with an armistice in 1953, he succeeded in settling down in central Seoul. A small room annexed to a house was the only space in the vast capital where the seven could dine, study and sleep to dream of a new world.

The father passed away two years later, leaving all the burdens on the shoulders of the widow. The mother did all the menial work to pay the rent for a room in a hilly village.

On the morning table, she would tell her children not to take dishes out of their reach and not to go to a party until invited three times. No one offered the table covered with a variety of dishes or a party, but the younger brother of his father, who had no son, adopted Un-chan as his successor.

The boy could not dare to apply for a middle school till the last days of the decision. His sisters had to get jobs upon finishing elementary school. At that time the parents of his classmate, Lee Byeong-heon, called on him to encourage him to study hard.

“If you pass the exam of Kyunggi Middle School, I’ll arrange a gentleman who wants to help talented boys like you,” he recollects professor Lee Young-so as saying. The gentleman turned up in front of him while his family congratulated him on passing the exam.

“(Frank William) Scholfield was the first foreigner that I met in person and that offered all the significant assistance, not alone financially, that has, I am sure, influenced every crucial corner of my life,” he said.

Schofield, born in the U.K. in 1889 and educated in Canada, was teaching veterinary medicine at SNU, along with professor Lee. He first came to Korea to teach bacteriology at Severance Medical College in 1916.

The scholar engaged in the March 1, 1919 Independence Movement vigorously, taking pictures of the ardent uprising and a series of brutal Japanese crimes setting fire to churches and houses where innocent villagers were gathered by force.

He had to go back to Canada in 1920 as the Japanese refused to extend his stay. In 1958, in recognition of his humanist devotions, then-President Syngman Rhee invited him as a state guest to a ceremony marking the 10th anniversary of the inception of the Korean government.

“Seok Ho-pil, as he renamed himself to be more familiar with Koreans, would say that honesty is the most economical way of living. He repented that the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. The bitter situation has still been more vivid since the rapid economic development,” Chung observed.

Life seems like marathon with no signboard

The fourth “father,” professor Cho Soon, had remained as his mentor through his long academic career. At his recommendation and assistance, Chung could go to the U.S. and study further.

The mentor called his mentee to Seoul from New York. “(Before applying for a faculty test at the SNU,) I hesitated a few years as my research in collaboration with top-notch economists at Columbia was about to nourish in the academia.”

His annual salary was drastically reduced to 6 million won ($4,560) from $25,000, and he was attacked by soldiers who occupied dormitories a day before May 18, 1980 pro-democracy uprising in Gwangju. He braved authoritarian dictatorship and led a faculty campaign to file a petition to change the presidential election system to a direct, popular vote at the risk of arrest and torture by the Chun Doo-hwan government.

These unique experiences, coupled with academic accomplishments and leadership as dean of the Social Science College, helped him become the youngest person elected as president of the university in 2002.

The lucky guy has been eager to return the favors to the benevolent people and society. He has operated the Schofield Memorial Association for more than 10 years to give scholarships to students in a means of serial reciprocity and to get the humanitarian Schofield spirit better known to Koreans.

“Life seems like a marathon. Everyone knows the start line but no one knows when and where the game ends. There are sudden ups and downs but no signboard. We have to get along with even the unknown well with great flexibility,” he said, adding that the business ecology based on competition is evolving into cooperation.

Kim Chang-young worked for The Korea Times for 15 years before he assumed the posts of vice spokesman and spokesman of political parties and later served as deputy minister for public relations at the Prime Minister's Office. He has translated and authored books including Bob Woodward's "Bush at War" and "Plan of Attack."