ed Populism and statism

Politicians should attend an economics 100 class before running in parliamentary and presidential elections. The pledges the political parties have churned out so far would cost more than $300 billion, one-third of the gross domestic product. They have publicized election commitments without any budget calculations.

The Ministry of Strategy and Finance made public the costs involving their dizzy array of campaign commitments. If its estimates are accurate, the government should raise taxes, issue additional bonds or sustain debts.

Neither the governing nor the opposition party has done cost analysis before announcing their pledges. They have become topics of Sunday night comedy programs.

The Korean Economic Association will also scrutinize the pledges. Other non-political parties should play a watchdog role to discourage them from unveiling money-guzzling and unrealizable plans.

The parties should stop seeking to outsmart the rivals through pork-barrel promises. They should know voters are wiser than politicians.

The government should issue regular reports on the fallacies of political commitments. Parties should not commit the sin of bequeathing debt to posterity. The nation needs professional politicians who know better than the people and make wise decisions on their behalf.

Korea is seeing the wildest populism in the nation’s political history. Populism is not always bad as it tries to represent the interest of ordinary people’s wishes and needs but responsible populism is necessary. As irresponsible populism is dangerous, so the government-knows-best statism is also risky. The nation badly needs to balance between populism and statism.