The Blindfold of Compassion

During JTBC’s New Year debate last year, Yusimin, chairman of the Roh Moo-hyun Foundation, referred to the story of a worker who had been paid the minimum wage for 30 years and said, in effect, “How can you pay someone the minimum wage for 30 years?” adding that “businesses should be more generous.” After that, the video was flooded with comments expressing sympathy for the worker who had received the minimum wage for 30 years and condemning the employer.

Of course, it is true that one naturally feels sympathy, since it is certain that someone who spent 30 years earning the minimum wage must have lived a very difficult life. But sympathy must not prevent us from making rational judgments. In other words, we must not blind the eyes of reason with the blindfold of sympathy.

What struck me most in watching the controversy over the minimum wage is how little people seem to understand the concept of “wages.” Wages are a result. They are the result of one’s effort and the value of one’s labor. Raising someone’s wage does not increase that person’s value.

Seen coldly, a person who has received the minimum wage for 30 years has simply continued doing work worth that much. And continuing in that job was that person’s choice. Under a free market economy, if one properly possesses the necessary abilities, one is free to change jobs. Even so, the fact that the person remained in that job means that, in his or her own judgment, it was the best option.

Against that backdrop, to openly say that “entrepreneurs should be more generous” is absurd. Entrepreneurs are not philanthropists.

These days, it seems that our country is one where emotion rules over reason. Watching us become so absorbed in moral justifications that we give up practical interests reminds me of the Joseon Dynasty, which became entangled in countless disputes over causes and eventually gave up on politics.

If we truly want, in a rational sense, to help that person lead a better life, we should help create opportunities for natural income growth through economic growth. This cannot be achieved simply by squeezing and pressuring entrepreneurs.

In his New Year’s address last year, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that business activity should be supported through tax cuts and cost-saving measures. It pains me that even the top leader of a country that adopted a socialist planned economy naturally understands this, while our own policymakers in a capitalist market economy seem not to.

I hope we will no longer wear the blindfold of sympathy and cover the eyes of reason.

---

Original title: 연민이라는 안대

Author: Jeong-hwan Jo

Date: 2020-01-13

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=free_opinion&pn=16&idx=22282