[The Editors' Verdict] Yoon's Pro-Business Experiment

Is President-elect Yoon Seok-yeol pro-business or not? Although the inauguration is imminent, the market has yet to clearly define the new president's stance on business. Being affiliated with a conservative party and emphasizing deregulation led to expectations of a pro-business president, but there is also ample room for opposite interpretations.

The concern among the business community is the possibility of all-out corporate investigations based on a strong grip on investigative agencies. An interesting point appears in the report “The 20th Presidential Election: Its Results and Impact” prepared by the law firm Sejong. It suggests that economic crime investigations may be actively conducted in line with the initial government's anti-corruption drive. Recent sudden raids on Samsung Electronics and Wellstory, as well as moves to introduce special judicial police officers to the Fair Trade Commission, serve as clues supporting this outlook.

Yoon’s perception of business and the market is relatively clearly summarized in his inaugural speech as Prosecutor General. It is encapsulated as the “establishment of a fair competitive order,” and he declared that any cheating that undermines this must be “firmly dealt with without the slightest hesitation.” The phrase “economic strongman’s manipulation” in his speech reflects Yoon’s belief that strictly punishing corporate misconduct is essential to preserving the essence of liberal democracy and the market economy order.

The prospect of expanded investigations into economic crimes is predictable as an extension of such values, which poses a burden from the corporate perspective. The more Yoon emphasizes economic order, the more arguments will arise that it is difficult to view him as a pro-business conservative president, accompanied by warnings (or cautions) that this may conflict with pro-market policy directions such as deregulation.

However, if one questions whether lenient treatment of corporate misconduct truly constitutes a ‘pro-business’ attitude, the story changes. Yoon’s judgment that firmly responding to market order violations guarantees corporate freedom of activity is not mistaken. There is no doubt in his belief that this will make our capitalism and democracy more complete. The two values Yoon aims to pursue are neither conflicting nor contradictory, but it is also clear that perfectly coexisting and highlighting only their advantages is a difficult challenge that no government has successfully achieved.

Ultimately, our focus should not be on inducing the new government to fold one of the two wings but on asking what the conditions for success in this difficult task are. Undoubtedly, they are principles, predictability, and sincerity. Criticism of “turning right while signaling left” was intensively raised during the latter part of the Lee Myung-bak administration, which abruptly changed its governance direction. The Park Geun-hye administration also claimed to be pro-business, leading with deregulation, but it was merely insincere pro-business policy embedded with the outdated value of collusion between politics and business.

Will the Yoon Seok-yeol administration’s experiment succeed? If the establishment of a fair competitive order is merely a pretext to pressure the political and business circles to secure control over state affairs, this experiment will ultimately fail. The result will be the same if it succumbs to the temptation of reaching out to businesses or to public opinion that defends a market rife with misconduct, abandoning principles. Yoon’s experiment is so challenging as to be almost unrealistic, but that is also what makes it great. Conversely, its failure will be recorded as the most futile rhetoric in history. We wish good fortune to the Yoon Seok-yeol administration, which starts with both left and right turn signals on simultaneously.

Shin Beom-su, Industry Managing Editor

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.