농업인은 경제적으로 약자인가?

Abstract

Governments usually tend to make decision on specific policies toward increasing social welfare, though one or small number of groups lose with the decision. This kind of decision, whether the governments are aware or not, has the philosophical background of Utilitarianism, which focuses on maximum of social welfare. For example, opening agricultural market in Korea has been typically determined in such a way that the social welfare is maximized even with the loss of producers and the decision has been regarded socially desirable. However, the decision is valid only when the Utilitarianism is applied. If the other philosophical criterion is applied, the decision may be not socially desirable. In this paper, we apply the Rawlsianism to judge whether or not the policy decision to open agricultural market in Korea is still socially desirable. The results show that producers belong to the weak group, compared to consumers, so the decision is not socially desirable in terms of the Rawlsianism because the welfare of the weak is decreased.