[Viewpoint] Broken Traffic Lights

Choi Jun-seon, Honorary Professor at Sungkyunkwan University School of Law

The example of the "commuting traffic queue" is quite appropriate to explain Adam Smith's concept of the "invisible hand." On the main city roads during the morning commute, countless cars rush toward their individual destinations. Drivers demonstrate skills akin to a feat. They stop just 1 or 2 seconds before a collision and squeeze into adjacent lanes whenever a small gap appears. There was no prior agreement among drivers before starting. They simply focus on driving, adjusting their actions moment by moment by anticipating traffic signals, road conditions, and other drivers' behaviors. The only thing drivers must pay attention to is traffic laws. Within those laws, they fiercely compete to gain even a second ahead. Yet, from the perspective of the traffic control center, the orderly flow looks even beautiful.

Traffic laws and signals do not aim to guide drivers to specific locations. Their purpose is to provide the maximum possible options to ensure safe and reliable arrival at any destination while protecting the safety of other drivers.

Various laws and signals also exist in economic life. These appear as regulations. Since regulations directly restrict citizens' lives, they must be limited to the minimum necessary to prevent individuals from infringing on others' property rights and freedoms. Problems arise when the government excessively exercises regulatory power?for example, not just installing traffic lights but designating lanes for each car or claiming to "take responsibility for citizens' lives" and even offering to drive for them.

At his presidential inauguration on January 20, 1961, Kennedy said, "Ask not what your country can do for you?ask what you can do for your country." In contrast, on September 6, 2018, the Korean president introduced a new slogan called the "Inclusive Nation," asserting, "Now the state must take responsibility for citizens' lives throughout their entire life cycle for a sustainable society." It is beyond the state's fundamental role to demand something from citizens when it is not their master or to promise to take responsibility for citizens' lives when it is not a patriarch. One must take responsibility for their own destiny, and a true free person is someone who knows how to accept that destiny. In his 1990 book, Choice Freedom, Milton Friedman asserted that a true free person neither asks what the country will do for them nor what they can do for the country. Instead, a free person must ask themselves how they can uphold freedom, realize social justice, and fulfill personal responsibilities through the organization called government.

The traffic lights of the Korean economy are broken. More precisely, the wrong beliefs of politicians have broken the traffic lights. Polarization has worsened compared to four years ago, and unskilled unemployment has greatly increased. Young people can no longer afford to own a home in Seoul on their own. It has become a country where working hard is meaningless. This is because pseudo-economists and politicians conspired to break the traffic lights. No country can prosper if it denies property rights and goes against market principles. Everyone should be allowed to drive according to their own judgment. The more the state tries to designate lanes and even take people to their destinations, the longer it takes to reach those destinations.

Choi Jun-seon, Professor Emeritus, School of Law, Sungkyunkwan University