한국의 소득보장제도

Limits of the Telescoped Growth and Income Security Policies in Korea

석유위기를 계기로 시작된 세계경제의 침체는 강대국들의 경제민족주의와 지역화를 키워왔으며, 이제 지난 30년간 한국의 고도성장을 가능하게 했던, GATT를 주축으로 하는 국제 경제여건은 더 이상 존재하지 않는다. 국내적으로는 우리의 이른바 압축성장을 주도해 온 군사정부의 권위주의시대가 막을 내리고, 30년만에 문민정부의 출범을 보게 되었다. 이 글에서는 이같은 대내외적 환경의 질적인 변화는 무엇보다도 압출성장의 제도적 취약성을 보상할 수 있는 사회통합의 기반의 확충을 필요로 하며, 따라서 그동안 한국 소득보장제도가 지녀온 통치도구적이고 선언적이며, 행정편의주의적인 속성을 과감하게 버리는 것이, 정치적 민주주의의 정착은 물론, 공정한 경쟁, 국제경쟁력의 강화의 기본적인 전제임을 논의한다.

This paper addresses to the question of the new directions for the income security poliecies in Korea to take. Ever since the Oil Crisis in 1973 which set in the chronic world economic recession, stability of the world economic order has been encroached by the economic nationalism and regionalism among the World Powers. Now GATT having been replaced by WTO, there does no longer exist the favorable international trade conditions that have made the extraordinary economic performance of a few third world countries including Korea possible during last thirty years. This unfavorable changes in world economic order came with the very important domestic political changes. In thirty years, the authoritarian military government has been replaced by the new democratic “reform-oriented” civilian government. This paper reexamines the basic function and nature of the income security policies and programs in an market economy: as Polanyi points out, welfare is construed as the “precondition of the market economy. The more difficult the economic conditions are, the more badly needed is the national and social solidarity. Realignment of the income security programs is in order, not as a means of legitimation of the unlegitimate regimes, but as a bona fide means of social integration and humanization of inhuman assumptions of the market system. Without such efforts, it is impossible to make up the entrenched institutional weaknesses of the telescoped economic growth of last thirty years, and to develop political democracy, and strengthen the international competitiveness.