1950~60년대 주석균의 농업정책론과 농정 관계 활동

Chu Sok-Kyun’s Agricultural Policy Theory and Activities Related to Agricultural Administration in the 1950s and 1960s

주석균은 식민지 관료 출신으로서, 그 경력을 바탕으로 해방 후 수리조합연합회 회장과 농림부 차관을 지냈으나, 다른 한편으로는 그 경험으로부터 관료정치 타파론을 도출하였다. 이에 기초해 그는 1950년대에 민주·자유·자립의 세축으로 농업정책론을 정리하는 한편, 농업문제연구회를 결성하여 정부 농정에비판론을 펼쳤다. 그는 농촌 민주화를 농촌 부흥의 선결과제로 생각하였고, 이를 위해 농민들을 협동조합으로 조직해야 한다고 보았으며, 협동조합의 민주적 운영 원칙을 중시했다. 그는 또한 식량정책 난맥상의 원인을 양곡시장의 미성숙에서 찾았고, 도매상을 육성하고 유통질서를 확립하는 등 자유경제 원칙에 기초해 이를 해결해야 한다고 보았다. 한편 그의 자립경제 지향은 초기의 ‘자립정신에 기초한 원조 수용’ 입장에서 1950년대 중반에는 원조의 부작용 심화에 따라외곡도입 비판론으로 옮아갔다. 4·19 이후 민주당 정부 농정에 참여했던 그는5·16 이후 군사정부 농정 입안에도 참여했지만, 농촌민주화와 양곡시장 육성및 외곡도입 감축과 같은 근본적인 지점은 수용되지 않았고, 그는 박정희 정부농정에 비판론을 펴나갔다.

Chu Sok-Kyun was a former colonial bureaucrat, and based on his career, he served as the president of the Irrigation Association and the vice minister of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry after liberation. Also from this experience, he acquired a distaste for administrative control of the economy and a conviction of the unworkability of controls. Based on this, in the 1950s, he organized the theory of agricultural policy into the three axes of democracy, free economy, and self-sustaining economy, while organizing the Agricultural Problem Research Group to criticize the government's agricultural policy. He considered rural democratization as a prerequisite for rural rehabilitation, saw that farmers should be organized into cooperatives for this purpose, and emphasized the principle of democratic operation of cooperatives. He also found the cause of the food policy confusion in the immaturity of the grain market, and saw that it should be resolved based on the principles of free economy, such as fostering wholesalers and establishing distribution order. On the other hand, his orientation toward self-sustaining economy moved from the position of ‘acceptance of aid based on the spirit of self-reliance’ in the early 1950s to the criticism of importing foreign grains as the side effects of aid deepened. He participated in the agricultural policy of the Democratic Party government after 4·19, and also participated in the agricultural policy formulation of the military government after 5·16. However, his fundamental points such as rural democratization, fostering of the grain market, and reduction of importing foreign grains were not accepted, so he criticized the Park Chung-hee government’s agricultural policies.