I Want to Know, What is the Market Economy?

Lectures on the market economy are quickly increasing-

Recent lectures on the market economy are credit lectures, i.e. cultural subjects for students majoring in economy, business, which are different from the one-time ‘special lectures’ held by economic organizations. The instructors in these special lectures are also different as they are not only professors, but CEOs and experts from economic research institutes, and they teach by active ‘team teaching’ methods.

Eight of these lectures were held in last year’s second semester, and have increased to 10 in this year’s first semester and 17 in the second. The universities that will hold the lectures this second semester are Kangnam University, Kyung Hee University (Suwon campus), Dankook University, Dongduk Women’s University, Myonji College, Pukyong National University, Seoul Women’s University, Sunkyunkwan University, Soongsil University, Yonsei University (Main and Wonju campus), University of Incheon, Chonnam National University, Chung-Ang University, Hansung University, Hongik University and the Korean Cyber University.

As students from Sunkyunkwan University’s natural science campus in Suwon have requested such lectures, they are devising a way to have the lecture, which will be held on the Seoul campus, via video. At Soongsil University, applicants for the lecture are overflowing, and as a result the school has broken its rule of holing one lecture in one semester and has offered the lecture for three consecutive semesters.

Kim Jeong-ho, director of the Center for Free Enterprise (CFE), said, “There were 21 applicant universities in the second semester, but because of budget and regional limitations, we could only sponsor 17 universities,” and that “students of schools that will not be holding lectures sent protest e-mails saying ‘why aren’t you holding a lecture at our university?’”

The Outlook on the Market Economy has Changed-

“I applied for the lecture because seniors and juniors have recommended it as a necessary lecture you should listen to without fail,” said We Sung-bum (23), a student attending a market economy and law lecture at Soongsil University, and added, “There are times when students are perturbed by political issues, but generally, the students widely sympathize with the meaning of the market economy and the role of an enterprise.”

The effect of the lecture has been extensive.

The CFE and each University held a questionnaire asking 875 students who have listened to the lecture in the first semester the question: “Does capitalism deepen the gap between the rich and the poor?” At the beginning of the semester, 54 percent answered “yes.” But by the end of the semester, this figure decreased to 26 percent. To the question: “Is labor union behavior beneficial to all laborers?” the percentage of students that answered “yes” decreased from 47 percent to 28 percent, while those who answered “no” increased from 52 percent to 72 percent. There were quite a few students joining the “I Love the Free Market,” a club that researches the market economy system, after they listened to the lecture.

The Government Must Take Charge of Market Economy Education-

Economic experts observe that the phenomenon of market economy education gathering popularity in ‘socialist’ universities is a “happening that could change the current of Korean society.”

Jeon Sam-hyun, a professor of law at Soongsil University, said that “for many students, this is the first time they have received education on the market economy,” and that “even though this lecture was a lecture of strict attendance and credit, there were countless applications, and we could confirm that the thoughts of university students have changed drastically.”

Lee Seung-chul, a manager of the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI), said that “the constitution states that Korea is a market economy; under this circumstance, market economy education is not a issue of ideology, but a way to teach a basic way of life,” and emphasized that “as the demand for market economy education explosively increases, the government should strengthen such contents in middle and high school curriculums and take further active measures.”

Interest in special lectures inside and outside the university is heightening-

Even though they are not official lectures, special lectures on the market economy, inside and outside the university, have gathered interest.

At the “Neo Acropolis – A Democratic Citizen Lecture for Young Leaders”, planned in cooperation by Dong-A Ilbo and www.thinknet.or.kr, on every market economy related lecture, two to three hundred college students and teenagers have showed up. These lectures deal with subjects such as the nature of an enterprise, entrepreneurship, capitalism, market economy law, the Korean economy in the global community, growth and distribution, relationships between employers and workers, economic growth, and the Korean economy.

Also, in the first half of this year, the FKI created a sensation by holding a market economy related lecture at Yonsei University and Ewha Womans University with Samsung Electronics president Hwang Chang-gyu and FKI vice-chairman Hyun Myoung-gwan as instructors.

Joong-Hyun Park sanjuck@donga.com