June 9, 2025

An open letter from Basic Income Korean Network

To the BI friends across the world,

First of all, thank you all for your concern and interest over these past six months of political uncertainty. As the outflanking force of the Korean people seeking to defend democracy and push for progressive change, we at BIKN are grateful to all of you who have supported the basic income movement in Korea.

As you well know, Lee Jae-myung won the 2025 Korean presidential election held on June 3rd, closing a chapter of this political crisis. With his election comes the burgeoning expectation and responsibility for the suppression of the insurrectionary elements that led the coup attempt in last December, and for further progressive and democratic reforms. Of course, among the latter is the introduction of basic income.

However, the introduction of a universal basic income is unlikely given the current situation in Korea. A lot has happened in three years, and other issues have taken political priority, given the crisis of these past six months. Three years ago, we asked ourselves with bated breath, “Will Korea be the first country to introduce universal basic income?” But now the more appropriate questions to ask are: What are the factors hindering the introduction of basic income in Korea? And wherein lies the possibilities despite these factors?

This letter is therefore a brief attempt at answering these questions for the supporters of basic income worldwide. A deeper analysis and a vision for practice purposes would, unfortunately, have to wait another day.

The high political feasibility of basic income in Korea was tied to Lee Jae-myung. He, on BIKN’s advice, introduced a youth dividend program as the mayor of Seongnam, and as the governor of Gyeonggi province, implemented a youth basic income. During the 2022 presidential election, one of his major policy platforms was universal basic income.  (Though the policy faded in prominence as he and his team tacked to the centre and their concern about the “fiscal difficulties.”) But he was defeated in the 2022 election, and the prospect of basic income had receded.

Not only that, in the past three years democratic backsliding continued apace, social polarization only intensified, with no possibility of change in sight. The previous Yoon administration seemed to embody all the neoliberal assault on democracy and far-right radicalization that we have seen around the world in the past few decades. Tax cuts and austerity, the entry of far-right figures into the halls of government, red scare, assaults on trade unions, attacking women and minorities, intimidating civil societies (and supporting far-right activists), the muzzling of the press, and lawfare and political attacks against opposition figures. The list goes on and on.

Moreover, social polarization led to far-right radicalization exploiting the anxiety of the younger generation about the present and future. This radicalization threatens to undo what little progress that has been made, and weakens the social base that is fighting for a better future. The weakening of the reformist base allows a lifeline for the incompetent and corrupt crony political ruling class, leading to their flirtation with the far-right.

On the one hand, Lee Jae-myung has further refined his political ideas and policies in the wake of his defeat in the 2022 election under the slogan of Basic Society, despite the continued attacks, physical and political, against him. From a policy perspective Basic Society is the combination of basic income and universal basic services, and from the underlying principle it expresses that state is responsible for the realization of its citizens’ rights. Lee Jae-myung ran on the platform of realizing ‘Basic Society’ this election and has announced a plan to set up the Committee for Basic Society to coordinate and implement the basic society policies.

‘Basic Society’ may be an appealing framework with its all-encompassing outlook, but could have to effect of putting basic income on the backburner. Fiscal prioritization would provide a convenient cover to delay basic income and instead go for the usual fare of service provisions and allowances. A worrying indicator of this is the fact that basic income did not feature as a stand-alone policy for Lee during this presidential election.

Within this political current, the attempted coup via martial law last December was a significant turning point. More to the point, the world where we lived appeared and it laid bare the depravities and desires of our ruling class. Not content with making a mockery of our democratic system with the usual slide towards post-democracy, they attempted to establish authoritarian rule through a forceful seizure of power. Bending the existing system to their benefits was not enough, the system itself had to be destroyed and made anew in their image. Therefore, the resistance against this coup inevitably coalesced around protecting the status quo, despite knowing well the violence and iniquities of that status quo.

Exacerbating this situation was the move towards deglobalization with Trump’s tariff wars, and the attendant economic slowdown. Of course, the political uncertainties from the coup attempt and subsequent impeachment did not help the matter. An economic crisis is double-edged for progressive change – the perception that the present economic difficulties come from the contradictions within the existing system opens up the possibility of progressive reforms. But what we have actually witnessed in the past few decades in response to a series of economic crises were tinkering at the edges, and they merely resulted in ‘upward redistribution’ and further social polarization.

President Lee Jae-myung ran on the slogan on “Unity of the People through recovery, growth, and happiness” with 15 policy tasks (and detailed policies) during the campaign. ‘Recovery’ refers to that of our democratic system, so it requires no further explanation, but the keyword here is ‘growth’.

Lee’s ‘growth’ includes five policy tasks of fostering high-tech industries such as AI, building a foundation for growth, a fair economy, balanced regional development, and responding to the climate crisis. This ‘growth’ goal is inspired by expansionary Keynesianism, state-led mission economy, and just transition, but mainly by ‘green capitalism’. Of course, it is early parse the economic direction of the new administration, but Lee’s choice of personnel is hardly encouraging.

The problem is twofold. Is this growth model even feasible? If so, can this growth model provide for a more equitable and sustainable world? There are no easy answers to these questions, but we as supporters of basic income would tentatively answer that a better world is possible when all are free from economic insecurity.

But President Lee Jae-myung and the ruling Democratic Party see the (quasi) basic income policies 1) as a supporting pillar of economic growth, or 2) as a supplement to the existing welfare state. There are a few basic income-inspired policies in Lee’s pledges – rural resident allowances, shared-profit renewable projects (solar pension, wind pension), the expansion of child benefits (increasing the age limit from 7 to 18). Stimulus check to boost economic activities is also on the table. In addition, during the campaign, President Lee Jae-myung brought up the idea of a national dividend from companies receiving public funding. The stimulus check as the extension of the disaster relief fund (emergency basic income) during the COVID pandemic, and the national dividend from public investment may be important stepping stones towards universal basic income. But the other quasi basic income policies may just remain supplements to the existing system, or remain merely isolated “good” policies.

President Lee’s embrace of these pseudo-basic income policies, not universal basic income, was driven by the primacy of growth as well as the nature of the Democratic Party he leads. The Democratic Party of Korea can be described as a liberal party similar to the US Democrats. During the authoritarian rule, the Democratic Party formed a (lukewarm) opposition calling for liberal democracy, and absorbed more reformist elements to form a big tent party ranging from the centre-left and centre-right after we achieve the democratic system in 1987. While the post-1987 Democratic Party made important strides in the establishment of the welfare state when it gained power, it was hardly progressive when it came to economics.

But from 2010 onwards, the Democratic Party began to embrace for progressive elements and policies, which paved the way for the rise of Lee Jae-myung within the party and his eventual rise to the presidency. It goes without saying that this was due to the social pressure for progressive change being directed towards the Democratic Party in the absence or weakness of the left and progressive parties.

Given this background, it is unlikely that a Democratic administration will push for a policy like basic income. But how our movement can capitalize on President Lee Jae-myung’s commitment to basic income in the upcoming political jockeying will be an important touchstone.

From the political perspective, unity in the name of restoring democracy and suppressing the insurrectionary elements can get in the way of implementing progressive policies like basic income. Politically, unity would mean incorporating not only the centrists, but also the ‘respectable conservatives’ in a bid to isolate the far-right. During the campaign, President Lee Jae-myung consistently moved in this direction, and is likely to continue this path of unity in his administration. In that case, this so-called unity will more likely be a straitjacket against any kind of move towards progressivism.

But there are also hopeful signs, many local governments, especially those in Jeollanam-do and Jeollabuk-do provinces are implementing, or trying to implement, basic income. Given their fiscal limitations, it can hardly be called universal basic income, but policies like renewable energy transition basic income, rural basic income, and student basic income provide cash in local currencies without conditions. This trend is expected to continue in the runup to the local elections next year. While these policies may not form a straight road towards basic income, they can nonetheless expand support for it.

Next is the direction of the aforementioned Committee for Basic Society. We think that this committee can be useful on two fronts. First is as a political forum for the introduction of basic income. Second is as a platform to push for policies based on the basic income principle in performing urgent tasks such as ‘carbon tax-carbon dividend’.

To conclude from the perspective of the basic income movement, this is an important turning point. In the past decade or so, the basic income movement in Korea grew and came on the cusp of introducing universal basic income here, as some within the existing political and social progressive movements saw it as a feasible alternative to the existing system. Though our movement was in retreat after the defeat in the 2022 presidential election, just as the tide does not wash away all that it has brought, the foundation of basic income remained. What remains is what is to be done with this foundation. So these past years, in many ways, were not unlike ‘the Autumn of the Middle Ages’, but it may also be ‘the dawn of everything.’

Finally, if basic income is to be more than just slotting into the existing system, if it is to change the system it interacts with, then the inevitable question arises regarding its political feasibility: what exactly are we hoping to achieve via basic income? How would the world with basic income work?

Thank you all for your concern and support. And we hope that the experience and perception in Korea could be helpful in the road to the world with basic income, the world where we take care of each other.

Unconditionally,

Hyosang Ahn
Chair of Basic Income Korean Network