Building a society prizing values over money

Kim Byung-yeon
The author is a chair professor of economics at Seoul National University.

As an assistant professor at a British university in the late 1990s, I earned a pretax annual income of about 20 million won, or $14,868 at the current exchange rate. The money was barely enough for a family of four to live on. It was similar to the salaries of teachers and firefighters my age. Professors vented their discontent to the government. Their union appealed to its members to stop teaching and join its protests. But only a precious few joined. They reluctantly picketed in front of the rear gate of the university demanding a pay hike. When I asked one of my peers why he didn’t participate in the protest, he said, “I chose this profession because I liked it.”

How would Koreans choose their occupation? According to World Values Survey (WVS) — a global research project that has studied social, political, economic, religious and cultural values of people around the world since 1981 — 84 percent of Koreans based that decision on two factors: pay and job security. Among the 47 countries surveyed between 2005 and 2009, only Ethiopia, Egypt and Romania showed higher ratios than Korea. At that time, three countries’ average per capita income was $3,000, but Korea’s was more than $20,000. Nevertheless, only 16 percent of Koreans prioritized “satisfaction” and “friends or peers” over “money” in deciding their profession. In Sweden, by contrast, 76 percent chose “satisfaction” and “friends or peers” over compensation. Even other Asian countries showed higher ratios than Korea — 50 percent in Japan, 35 percent in Taiwan and 26 percent in China.

Korea’s stature advanced, but the power of values retreated. We failed to replace the old mantra of “Let get rich!” with new values. The mantra has morphed into “Let me enrich myself and my family!” The dramatic shift of success standards to money has caused a serious bottleneck in which all are racing to get the trophy without any compassion for those who fail to pass through. Even the winners are not happy, as they are exhausted. This creates social conflict in a highly competitive society. The winners desperately try to defend their hard-won privileges. Such a high-cost society can hardly grow further nor maintain the status quo.

If everything is weighed by the standard of money, values vanish. Korea’s ultralow birthrate is no exception. In the past, the younger generation didn’t consider cost when deciding whether to get married, as it was just a matter of values. Advanced countries show higher fertility rates than Korea because marriage and childbirth still belong to the realm of values.

The ongoing medical crisis from trainee doctors’ collective walkout over the government’s plan to increase the enrollment quota for medical schools can be comprehended in such a context. The doctors basically fear that the quota hike will diminish their income. In advanced societies, the rationality of calculation and the value of rejecting such calculation strike a balance by respecting one another’s domain. But Koreans confront “the scourge of rationality” from their blind adherence to the transformation of all values into money.

It is time to establish community values that can connect us all. The Yoon Suk Yeol administration wants to change our communal values from “nation” to “freedom.” Undoubtedly, freedom is the utmost value of humanity. But it cannot link you and me. Only when you have empathy toward the weak and show trust in others can a sense of solidarity be formed. But the materialistic values embedded in our society have critically impaired that sense. When asked about the values most important for raising children, Korea was among the lowest in terms of respondents who chose “generosity and respect for others” in the survey.

The government must make efforts to foster public trust and compassion. A hawkish approach cannot help build the values of integration. It could be useful to achieve a policy goal in a short period of time, but it definitely weakens civil solidarity based on spontaneity and hospitality. The government must listen to trainee doctors’ complaints about the overbearing burdens of our abnormal medical system and correct the seriously distorted medical insurance coverage of primary care services. The current insurance system critically ignores the efficient distribution of medical resources because it only considers efficiency within the boundaries of total budget. The government must create a new medical category of rarity, bring in social scientists and strike a balance among diverse medical services.

Are our religions really doing their fair share? Paul the Apostle called Christians “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.” In the Vimalakirti Sutra, the revered Bodhisattva said, “As all living things are sick, I am sick, too,” identifying himself with the rest.

Benevolence, a core value of Confucianism, refers to the love for people. Religious faiths often create sublime values by refining the present through the perspective of permanence. The doctors’ strike made me wonder where the salt and light have gone. Where indeed are the values of Buddhism and Confucianism?

Translation by the Korea JoongAng Daily staff.