This study tries to explore the possibility that rent-seeking behaviors are so extensively generalized and, therefore, have become a conceptually systemized daily phenomenon in Korea. To reveal this phenomenon, this study examined two issues: First, this study collected diverse cases of rent-seeking behavior to show the degree of generalization. Second, this study examined daily words that refer to rent-seeking to observe the chance whether people developed conceptual scheme to recognize generalized rent-seeking.
Research result shows two significant findings. First, Rent-seeking behaviors are generalized extensively not only among government policy but also within the economic and social realms. Diverse methods have been employed to acquire rent such as limiting competition, rent-exploitation by superior position, and intentional rent extraction within economic and social trade relations. Second, this study revealed the fact that wide spread rent-seeking behaviors resulted in the development of conceptual scheme of daily life words that refer to the rent-seeking behaviors. We are understanding rent-seeking behaviors intuitively through the metaphorical words like ‘iron rice bowl’, ‘battle to get or to keep the iron rice bowl’.
If the members of a society have the daily languages to signify the rent-seeking behaviors, its impact can be unimaginably huge. Considering the perspective of Wittgenstein's claims on language, this language determines the inter-subjective being of the world which is referred to by the words. According to Heidegger, furthermore, this daily language can function as the preconception or prejudice that need to be employed to interpret human experience. Hermeneutic circle of the ‘iron rice bowl’ preconception may well result in the continuous expansion of rent-seeking behaviors.