Issue The plan judges past policy discourses inadequate and sets growth plus reduced inequality as Korea's twin tasks

Summary

The plan argues that Korea stands on the verge of a new era beyond the industrialisation and democratisation periods. It contends that both the conservative discourse of advancement and the progressive discourse of the welfare state have limits in addressing AI-driven job insecurity, low growth and inequality, the demographic crisis and super-ageing, and accelerating climate change. It adds that society faces economic fear summed up as Peak Korea, social anxiety about an ageing country and a political crisis that it attributes to the martial law episode. According to the plan, easing both macro and micro insecurity requires economic growth to solve livelihood problems together with action on inequality and polarisation that feed winner-take-all competition. It also calls for recovering the stagnant economy through innovation, building a fair economic structure and pursuing a socio-economic transition that softens entrenched inequality.