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Christian Ethical Evaluation of Welfare Policy of the Korean Government: Focused on Formation and Change of Welfare Regime

  • The Korean Journal of Chiristian Social Ethics
  • Abbr : 기사윤
  • 2012, (23), pp.7-52
  • Publisher : The Society Of Korean Christian Social Ethics
  • Research Area : Humanities > Christian Theology

Kang, Won Don 1

1한신대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

In this article, I have tried to evaluate the welfare policy of the Korean government from the perspective of Christian ethics. Since government welfare policies and programs are extensive, I have focused only on basic lines of its welfare policy. The welfare regime is closely linked with the development regime in the Korean society. Therefore, I have first analyzed the settlement of the state-initiated development regime and its configuration to the neoliberal development regime. Second, I have analyzed the historical process in which the developmentalist welfare regime came into being and has been changed gradually to the neoliberal welfare regime. Third, in order to evaluate the welfare policy of the Korean government, I have articulated two criteria of evaluation from a Christian ethical perspective: criterion of human dignity and criterion of justice. From the theological concept of human dignity I have drawn the principle that everyone has the right for welfare. Moreover, I have owed to the requirements of justice the principle that the state is obligated to provide every person and citizen with all the goods and opportunities which are essential and indispensable for the life in human dignity. Last, I have indicated the problems of the developmentalist and the neoliberal welfare regime and evaluated the regimes in terms of the above mentioned criteria. The developmentalist welfare regime which abided to the state raison ‘growth prior to distribution’ made welfare dependent on the economic development. From Christian ethical viewpoints, the developmentalist state is criticized for accepting only minimal responsibility for protecting human rights for welfare and fulfilling the requirements of justice. As far as the neoliberal welfare regime is concerned, it is a welfare regime which accommodates to the extreme subjugation of labor to capital under the conditions of economic globalization. The concept of labor obligation which forms the core of the neoliberal welfare regime is inclined to negate human rights for welfare and holds a number of people in the trap of working poverty. Therefore, the neoliberal welfare regime is insufficient for securing the life of the people in dignity and meeting the requirements of justice.

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