Jeong Se-gyun and Lee Jae-myung Criticize Basic Income: "Even the Scholars Cited Are Misrepresented"

"260 Trillion Won Budget Allocated to Provide 40,000 Won... Is It Truly Reasonable?"

[Asia Economy Reporter Oh Ju-yeon] Former Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun rebutted Gyeonggi Province Governor Lee Jae-myung's basic income plan, questioning, "Is it really reasonable to allocate 26 trillion won of the national budget to provide 40,000 won per month?" He also pointed out that Lee distorted the claims of scholars he cited to support his basic income argument.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

On this day, former Prime Minister Chung posted on Facebook an article titled 'Governor Lee Jae-myung, you must not distort the purpose of basic income,' criticizing Lee's basic income plan.

He said, "The basic income that Governor Lee talks about is to invest 26 trillion won in the budget to provide 40,000 won per month," and asked, "Is it really reasonable to allocate 26 trillion won of the national budget to provide a mere 40,000 won per month, which is not even at the level of pocket money?"

Former Prime Minister Chung also pointed out that Lee cited Nobel laureate Professor Banerjee to argue the validity of basic income but distorted even that citation.

Chung said, "It is true that Professor Banerjee and his wife Esther Duflo, as Lee claims, advocated the necessity of basic income and received the Nobel Prize in Economics, but the two argued that it could be useful in poor countries lacking welfare administrative capacity," adding, "Professor Duflo says, 'For economically large and developed countries like Korea, it is better to choose selective fiscal support rather than universal basic income.' This is completely opposite to Lee's claim."

He continued, "For Lee's claim to be valid, South Korea would have to be 'a rural-based society lacking the administrative capacity to operate complex programs,'" and said, "While it is possible to cite authoritative scholars' views to support one's policy, selectively extracting only parts that align with one's argument to fit the validity of the claim is not objective logic but distortion of the argument."

He further criticized, "The basic income proposed by Lee does not even meet the basic requirements of basic income, and the scholars' claims he cited as evidence to support his argument were also distorted. In such a critical policy debate about national governance, shouldn't at least the basics of discussion be observed?"

Earlier, Governor Lee defended his basic income plan by citing the contents of the book by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, co-recipients of the Nobel Prize in Economics.

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