Abstract

Chu Sok-Kyun was a former colonial bureaucrat, and based on his career, he served as the president of the Irrigation Association and the vice minister of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry after liberation. Also from this experience, he acquired a distaste for administrative control of the economy and a conviction of the unworkability of controls. Based on this, in the 1950s, he organized the theory of agricultural policy into the three axes of democracy, free economy, and self-sustaining economy, while organizing the Agricultural Problem Research Group to criticize the government's agricultural policy. He considered rural democratization as a prerequisite for rural rehabilitation, saw that farmers should be organized into cooperatives for this purpose, and emphasized the principle of democratic operation of cooperatives. He also found the cause of the food policy confusion in the immaturity of the grain market, and saw that it should be resolved based on the principles of free economy, such as fostering wholesalers and establishing distribution order. On the other hand, his orientation toward self-sustaining economy moved from the position of ‘acceptance of aid based on the spirit of self-reliance’ in the early 1950s to the criticism of importing foreign grains as the side effects of aid deepened. He participated in the agricultural policy of the Democratic Party government after 4·19, and also participated in the agricultural policy formulation of the military government after 5·16. However, his fundamental points such as rural democratization, fostering of the grain market, and reduction of importing foreign grains were not accepted, so he criticized the Park Chung-hee government’s agricultural policies.

Full Text
Published version (Free)

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call