[Opinion] Unidentified Policies of DJ Administration

Controversies have continued on the policies of the DJ Administration. The Grand National Party denounced the DJ policies as `policies of the outdated socialism and populism,` but the New Millennium Democratic Party criticized that GNP cannot even distinguish the social welfare policies from the socialism. Theoretically, it seems excessive to criticize the policies of the current administration as socialistic.

GNP interprets the excessive intervention of the government into the market and the unreasonable pursuit of equality as socialistic. However, if the economy controlled by the government were the issue, all of our economic policies in the past would be considered as socialistic. The unreasonable pursuit of equality could be pointed out for its populism rather than socialism. Considering the content of the policies, the current administration is `an unidentified government,` mixed with the `neo-liberalism,` `government-controlled-economy,` and `populism.` The characteristics of the populism has been strengthening since it is the `style` of the policy implementation of this government.

The current government was born with two difficulties. The first one is the economic crisis caused by the foreign exchange crisis and the other is its destiny as a minority government. To overcome those difficulties, the DJ government has moved forward with the reform policies in the fields of Chaebol, Finance, Public area, and Labor from the launch of the government. Three years after, however, the achievement of the reform policies seems meager. Despite the business restructuring that emphasized the debt ratio and investment limitation, the most listed companies still suffer to pay their interests with the operating profits.

The restructuring of the finance market by pouring twice tremendous government funds now faces the problems of the government-controlled market. The reformation of the public area by revising the government organization law three times ended up with a larger government. The restructuring process of the state-owned business has been delayed. In terms of the reformation of the Labor, while the liquidation of the labor market has improved but the government still has to resolve the problem of unemployment and the protests of the strong labor unions.

In this circumstance, the reform policies of the government are attacked from both sides. The right wings, or the market supremacists, complains that the government should deregulate more and do it quickly. They consider the government policies as the typical government-controlled management, such as the investment and the debt ratio limitation and the `big deal,` administrative recommendations to prevent the lay-offs.

On the contrary, the social movement organizations criticize that if the government does not destroy the Chaebol system, the burdens of the restructure would be attributed to the grass-root class. They complain that the current reformation policies are of the neo-liberalism, forcing the restructuring of the labor side without establishing a social security system. As a result, the reform policies of the government is criticized as too small of a market from the right wings but at the same time, too large of a market from the left wings, without any distinctive achievement.

In the midst of the cross fires, the support from the low-income class, which has been the traditional support group to the DJ government, has stayed low. Then the government started scattering pork-barreling policies to attract the support from its traditional support group, including the national standard living security plan, expansion of the national pension, the pharmacy-clinic separation policy, 5 working day system, promoting plans for teachers, and various tax reductions. However, all of those policies were carried out by the rough-and-ready methods and increased the discomforts of the people, causing the national protests and the criticisms as the policies of populism that did not consider the economic situation.

Furthermore, the current government mobilized the powers outside the National Assembly to implement its policies rather than discussing and negotiating the policies in the National Assembly. The way of the policy implementation of this government defines it as the government based on the populism. The current government should have found a measure to establish its leadership and the negotiation capability in the National Assembly. By going astray, the government policies that must be accepted as the core social welfare policies are also criticized as the pork-barreling policies based on the populism.

The most serious failure of the current government originates in the wandering in the middle of the neo-liberalism, government-controlled economy, and the populism, without establishing its own firm identity. For the future of the nation, the government has to recover its identity and consistency.

Kim Il-Young (Professor of Politics, Sungkeunkwan University)