[Opinion] Reduced to Absurdity

Zenon Ho Elea (B.C. 495? - B.C.430?) was one of the philosophers who enjoyed full-fledged development of philosophy in Ancient Greece. He used to help his pupils find out the truth by asking ambiguous questions such as: do you think an arrow shot towards the sky is moving or has stopped over there?; do you think a rabbit can catch up to a turtle who has departed early? One of ways he adopted to approach the truth was to use reduction to absurdity under which the truth is revealed by proving the opposition of the proposition is false.

Recently, issues of town are, no doubt, creating job opportunities, disputing the regulation of reception expenses and accepting illegal funds delivered by car. If Zenon were alive in Seoul today, how could he approach such circumstances? If we assume that the amount of illegal funds delivered is 15 billion won, the amount can be equivalent to 50 bundles of 300 million won. So, in order to eradicate corruption, if only thousand-won notes are allowed for circulation while a ten thousand-won note is withdrawn, the number of bundles reaches 500, and if a hundred-won note, the number of bundles comes to 5000. In doing so, increasing weight and bulk will prevent any illegal actions from spreading in this country.

It is a quite smart idea to force those who spend above 500 thousand won in treating buyers to inform their resident registration numbers and names. Why just 500 thousand won? How about reducing the amount into increments of 50 thousand or 5 thousand won? The most serious pending issue in the Korean economy is, of course, the creation of job opportunities. In this way, the government seems to encourage the private sector to raise employment opportunities and expand the posts in public sectors as well. In fact, before the collapse of system, socialist countries had zero unemployment rates officially. Maybe we achieve ‘full employment’ in state, if we follow their traces.

A sly old dog, Zenon does not seem to stop here and worse, maybe, suggests a packaged solution by composing above examples such as “switching large denomination bills to small ones. And, in all trading, not only buyers’ address, names, resident registration numbers, but also the numbers of bills which are given by buyers, be should obligatorily notified. Consequently, companies would hire more people whose main jobs are to be counting money and confirming the above information. Until the all unemployed find the jobs, such process is continuously repeated.” What can we get and lose from the outcomes of such solutions; illegal funds trading stops and unemployment ends. Yet, more importantly, we will face a decreasing efficiency in economy and enormous inconvenience in trading. This is teaching from Zenon.

Kim Byung-ju Editorial writer, Sogang University honorary professor in Economies

pjkim@ccs.sogang.ac.kr