earticle

영어

Although the polarization of wealth already existed in Korea, the polarization has become more serious in Korea, since the financial crisis. Especially, the scope of polarization has been extended to generation, enterprise, worker, housing, child care and so on. It seems that the growing polarization of problems becomes an obstacle to prevent promoting sustainable growth of Korea. From this point of view, we has grown very attentive to ordoliberalism. Ordo means the market needs an economic order to maintain a healthy level of competition. To do so, the state should be allowed to intervene the market. This is the basic thought and theory of ordoliberalism. Ordoliberalism differs from other schools of liberalism. The state should form an economic order instead of directing economic processes, and two negative examples ordoliberals used to back their theories were socialism and laissez-faire liberalism. For example, even though socialism does not admit the private property and free trade of means of production, ordoliberalism admit those. Ordoliberalism was a major influence of the economic model developed in the post-war West Germany. Ordoliberalism in Germany became known as the social market economy. This paper is to take a general view of ordoliberalism, and then to drew its implications of economic order for Korea in terms of taking care of the polarization of problems. The four implications are as follows. Firstly, ordoliberalism is more preferable than laissez-faire liberalism in these days of Korea. During the period of the rapid economic growth, the Korean economy emphasized on effectiveness ideologically based on laissez-faire liberalism. The results of effectiveness are the polarization of wealth and an increase in hiring irregular workers which prevent the sustainable economic growth. Secondly, the basic principle of the economic order is the market competition. Also, the state takes active measures to foster competition. The economic order helps social integration. The central tenet of ordoliberalism is that government should regulate markets in such a way that market outcomes approximate the theoretical outcome in a perfectly competitive market. In order words, ordoliberalism theory holds that public policy should guided by the imperative of building a competitive market economy through upholding a set of credible rules and institutions. Thirdly, in terms of preventing social friction which is a disincentive of sustainable growth, the policy should be a positive discrimination. It is impossible for someone who does not have an market power to compete with someone who has a market domination power. Therefore, the state based on ordoliberalism has to take care of second-class citizen and enterprise. Lastly, it is significant for all economic players to recognize the important of public interest instead of private interest. If a economic player pursues the private interest and then holds the economic power, the state should not only intervene in the market but also violate personal liberty. Therefore, all economic players agree with that the public interest should connect directly with the private interest.

한국어

한국은 국가주도로 이루어진 급속한 경제성장의 후유증으로 사회의 양극화와 갈등을 겪 고 있다. 따라서 양극화와 갈등을 치유하고 지속성장의 기반을 마련하기 위한 현행 경제체 제의 대안을 찾아야 할 시점이다. 본 논문은 이러한 대안으로서 질서자유주의 사상을 살펴 보았다. 질서자유주의에서 의미하는 질서는 시장에서 자유경쟁 질서를 의미하며, 이러한 질 서의 확립을 위해서 국가의 역할을 중시한다. 질서자유주의는 생산수단의 사적 소유와 자유 로운 거래를 보장한다는 점에서 사회주의와 다르다. 또한 국가는 경제 질서를 설정하고, 시 장 실패의 위험으로부터 경제 질서를 보호 및 유지해야 한다고 주장하는 점에서 고전적 자 유방임주의와 다르다. 한편, 본 논문은 질서자유주의 사상에 기초하여 한국의 경제 질서를 위한 시사점을 몇 가 지 도출하였다. 물론 질서자유주의에 기반하고 있는 독일의 ‘사회적 시장경제’ 체제가 전적 으로 옳다는 것은 아니다. 다만 질서자유주의는 작물이 잘 자라게 하려면 돌봄이 필요하다 는 기본 원칙과 사회 균형을 중요시하는 사상적 배경에서 출발한다. 이러한 원칙과 사상은 현재 사회 양극화와 갈등이 점점 심화되고 있는 한국사회에 사상과 체제의 전환점을 제공 할 수도 있다는 점에서 주목할 만하다.