When Will We Ever Learn ? > IDEAS & IDEALS

본문 바로가기

  IDEAS & IDEALS

When Will We Ever Learn ?

페이지 정보

본문

 I hear everybody around me say that our economy is bad. Very bad. Wages are too high, but good workers are hard to find. The quality of our goods is not high, and they don't sell well in the foreign markets as before. The imports has exceeded the exports by far, and the trade deficit is deepening day by day. The prospect of catching up with the advanced nations armed with the highly sophisticated technology is not that bright, while the late-starters are surpassing us with their hard work and improved skills. It is no wonder that there are many doomsayers about our economy.

      What makes me puzzled more is the news that even some rich, very rich countries in the world - The United States, Germany, and even Japan - are also suffering from bad economy, and people of those countries are not only much worried; they are frustrated and even very angry with their governments for being so inept at handling that all important affair of state.

      Political leaders are well aware that bad economy can cost their job, and they become desperate to do something about it. That was why, for example, President George Bush of The United States rushed to Japan and collapsed during the state dinner several months ago. He must be under terrible stress and pressure. The great victory in the Gulf War a year ago had been completely forgotten by his people, and he has become a butt of criticism in the civil war of economy. The case of Helmut Kohl, Prime Minister of Germany, is another example that clearly demonstrates how people are selfish, capricious and ungrateful before money. Until yesterday, he had been lionized, loved and praised as the very man who achieved the long-awaited German reunification, but today the adulation, the ecstasy and the jubilation have all gone, and the whole country went on strike for more money. Of all enemies bad economy is the worst and most ferocious one for the leader of a country.

      However, the strange but good thing with the bad economy in our country and anywhere in the world is that I cannot feel the real pain or pinch of it. Although they talk so much about it, I can't find any person around me really suffering from it. Of course, there are many poor people, I know, but there they always were and will there be, even in an economic boom. I only see people eat well, wear well and live well enjoying all the luxuries in life. Stores and markets are flooding with all kinds of foods, fruits, meats, vegetables, clothes and wares - everything needed in living. I often feel giddy before the mountain and sea of goods spread and piled up in the markets and at department stores. What makes me worried is not so much the poverty or scarcity inevitably associated with the bad economy as the affluence or luxury to which I am not well accustomed. Now I realize slowly that so-called the bad economy anywhere in the world is not so bad as to scare us to death. Worrying about bad economy, I conclude, is like worrying about bad weather sitting in a cozy living room.

      Then, what is all the fuss about it? Is it much ado about nothing? Shouting blue murder for a scratch? Crying wolf for a mouse? You may find an answer to this question, if you go to a big sale of clothes at any department store. You cannot but ask these questions : Who made them all? Who buy them all? On all counts, it is obvious that they cannot sell them all, simply because we cannot consume them all so quickly. You may well, then, conclude that bad economy is nothing but the situation in which people make too much or too many to sell, but are unable to sell them all at home or abroad. Therefore, in capitalims, the real pinch of bad economy comes first and most painfully to the business, not so acutely to the individuals.

      This nonsensical, absurd and even morbid, but incorrigibly optimistic economic theory of mine originates in the real experience I made during the Korean War and after, when there was absolute shortage of the basic necessities of living, and when we could not buy anything we needed with money though. Imagine that you go to a store and they don't have the things. This situation has nothing to do with good economy or bad economy. It is simply a panic. A terror. A horror. From the expressionless, resigned and indifferent faces of the people making a long queue to wait for his or her turn before a store whose shelves are almost empty, and whose meager stock is running short, minute by minute, you can read the real pain and terror of socialism or communism.

      To our great relief, we have gone through the stage of absolute poverty, and I dare say there is no reason for us to be constantly haunted by the bogeyman of bad economy. It will ever be bad and worse. Some business will make money and some will lose. The Bank of Korea will print more money, prices will ever go up, and the buying power of money will ever decrease. But, as long as we have something we need somewhere, our life, our everyday life, will go on, as it went on from time immemorial.

      But, there is something that bugs me, me who is an evergreen optimist in the matter of economy. It is the undeniable fact that there are too many poor people around me indeed. I see and know many people who have jobs and live in fairly large apartments. They watch large color TV sets, larger than mine, use large refrigerators, and drive cars. They are financially able to send their children to college. But they say, think and believe they are poor. When a certain level of living standard have been achieved, I think, to have or to have not is mostly relative, and grievance and discontentment is also quite comparative. Therefore, if they think they are poor, then they are.

      What worries me is not the bad economy they talk so much about. It is the human nature itself that does not know satiety nor contentment. The more we have, the more we want. Greed in us is the fuel that moves the engine of economy, but I often see in it the seed of all our woe and curse at the same time. Recently we have witnessed an unsuccessful effort to eradicate it from human nature through political engineering, only causing disastrous consequences. However, the failure of socialism cannot or should not justify the rampage of raw greed in capitalism. Battling with bad economy is futile and endless, if we do not battle successfully with the monster of greed in us at the same time. When will we ever learn to live truly well?
                 (May 29, 1992) 
 

댓글목록

등록된 댓글이 없습니다.

회원로그인

회원가입

설문조사

결과보기

새로운 홈-페이지에 대한 평가 !!??


사이트 정보

LEEWELL.COM
서울특별시 강남구 대치동 123-45
02-123-4567
[email protected]
개인정보관리 책임자 : 김인배
오늘
1,041
어제
1,638
최대
5,833
전체
2,691,586
Copyright © '2006 LEEWELL.COM All rights reserved.   Designed by  IN-BEST