Did you guarantee everyone an annual salary of 100 million won?
We were simply told to provide the minimum safety measures to prevent anyone from falling in a crisis situation, but our society failed to do so.
The society created by those who were indifferent to reducing the extent of inequality, claiming that this was not a utopia, was turned upside down by a single shock.
The world, which shines its bright lights only on those who pass through the eye of a needle, is indifferent to everyone else.
We don't pay attention to those who lose their jobs just from two weeks of quarantine.
As the fragile society is shaken, the weak are falling first, but those who want to see society only in a positive light turn a blind eye to this.
To live as a good citizen, you need to be able to see the world from various perspectives. However, Korea is accustomed to covering up the harsh realities faced by the majority with beautiful stories that only a few can tell.

---From the "Prologue"

“Do you patent the sun?” This is the answer given by Dr. Jonas Salk, the developer of the polio vaccine, to a reporter’s question about who would own the patent.
The implication was that a vaccine that saves humanity should have the value of a public good, like the sun that provides light unconditionally.
Thanks to Dr. Salk, who gave up commercial interests and made the manufacturing method free, the world was freed from the fear of polio.
The fact that the sun is a public good means that all humans are equal before this immense natural entity.
But does the sun, a public good, affect all humanity equally, regardless of individual circumstances? … Are we truly equal before the environment? Even taking fine dust as an example, we know that some people "create" it, while others "drink" it.
It is clear that air is a public good that cannot be privately owned by any individual, but not everyone breathes the same amount of bad air.
Socioeconomic indicators show that people living in poor areas die more from fine dust.

---From "Environment - Is everyone truly equal in front of the environment?"

I found the cause in the excessive abundance of self-help discourse such as, "If you study hard, you can succeed."
When self-improvement goes beyond motivating individuals and becomes a standard for judging others, problems arise.
In particular, the likelihood of blaming those who are suffering due to a flawed social structure increases, saying it is their own fault.

Why would there be a problem with the desire to go to a prestigious university and then become a professional and live a stable life?
But a society that insists that everyone should have this kind of combative sense of purpose and refuses to properly understand the world's inequalities is problematic.
What about a community where the majority of people attribute poverty to individual responsibility and the poor treatment of irregular workers to "not studying hard"? If those who support discrimination because they studied hard become politicians and educators, social polarization will simply be accepted as an inevitable fact of life.
This way, the size of inequality cannot be reduced.
The stereotype that considers discrimination as not discrimination is making the world sick.

---From "Education - Is Fair Testing Possible?"

What is clear is that the vast majority of the economically active population in any society is made up of ordinary wage workers.
It has been like that in the past and it will be like that in the future.
A world where everyone is a venture capitalist and everyone is a YouTuber cannot exist, and it should not exist.
A society where many people walk on thin ice, where success is a jackpot and failure is a ruined life, can never be healthy.
The determination to take a gamble on life and the spirit of adventure should be respected as a personal choice, but no one should be forced to live life with clenched fists and risk taking.
How can a challenging life be a common mission when the circumstances are different?
Wouldn't a good society be one in which human dignity is guaranteed even if one lives an ordinary life?

In a society that focuses on the "majority" of ordinary people, rather than the "exceptions" who succeed, we constantly strive to understand labor without preconceived notions.
At school, you learn how to write an employment contract, gain an unbiased understanding of the need for labor unions, and experience collective bargaining between labor and management.
Starting in middle school, students receive training to become union representatives and negotiate wages with companies.
This is an unfamiliar story in our country, where workers are not systematically taught the right to live with dignity.
---From "Workers - Is it okay for a society to treat ordinary labor like this?"

There are two fathers in their forties, A and B.
I first moved into the same apartment complex 10 years ago.
The only difference is that A 'bought' a house and B 'lives' as a tenant in an apartment complex.
A used his parents' support as seed money to buy a house, and B saved up money on his own to pay the deposit.
Time passed.
B saved diligently for 10 years and saved money frugally, paying the deposit increase.
…The two who were quite close are now awkward with each other.
It's because their perspectives on the world are so different.
When B complains about the skyrocketing housing prices in South Korea, A responds coldly.
"But what if house prices fall now? People who own only one house can't go bankrupt, right?" The strange thing is, B wants to argue, "I worked hard too!" but there's a cosmic force preventing him from doing so.
When A bought a house, and when the price of A's house went up, people celebrated enthusiastically, saying, "There's joy after hardship!"
In this atmosphere, it seemed that the only thing that could be done to resent it was jealousy.
B mutters to himself, feeling dirty about being a 'loser'.
“Oh my, my life is so unfair.”
---From "Real Estate - Is this world where people risk their lives to buy a home okay?"

Does class exist in modern society? Unless you live in a country with a strict caste system, class is an unfamiliar concept.
In theory, classes cannot exist in Korean society.
In the world we live in, there is no bone rank system and no differences in social status based on scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants.
This is not the era of secret deals to buy the genealogy of noblemen.
As can be seen from the fact that the value of equality, which states that “all human beings are born with dignity,” is included in the preamble to the Constitution, we live in a world where anyone can achieve success if they work hard.
The biographies I read in elementary school are full of stories of people who were poor when they were young but gained money and fame through hard work.

But can the world be explained by theory alone?
Stories of inequality are heard everywhere.
Many social critics express concern that class still exists today.
This is because there are many cases where it is difficult for a poor person to overcome poverty.
They are more likely to live in poverty because they do not receive enough support from their parents, which prevents them from focusing on their studies and, as a result, from being unable to secure stable jobs.

---From "Income Inequality - Has 'Class' Really Disappeared?"

Politics may not change everything, but we cannot deny that it has the power to change many things.
There are many people who say they are too busy trying to make a living to be interested in politics.
But my minimum wage is determined by politics.
Politics also determines whether people receive "holiday pay" for resting on weekends, or whether they receive "overtime pay" for working on public holidays or at night.
Politics also enabled blind hiring, which prohibits attaching photos or listing one's hometown on resumes.
After someone protested, demonstrated, and collected signatures from strangers to raise the issue, a 'rule' was created.
In other words, politics is a window that expands the scope of individual rights and a shield that prevents violations of rights.
Of course, there are also bad policies that lead to the opposite result.
The important thing is that politics has a huge impact on my life.
---From "Politics - Can there be individuals who are not involved in politics?"

The story of one side of the dice that we don't usually see is not unfamiliar, but it's not wrong.
But people who are only familiar with the other side say this because it is not familiar to them.
Radical, biased, violent, harsh, excessive, not moderate, etc.
When stereotypes become truth, talk of 'breaking stereotypes' becomes a cold meal.
Those who ignore the social structure often offer shallow prescriptions and consolation to struggling individuals.
The saying, "Happiness is in the mind," may be a good way to encourage people to love themselves as they are without comparing themselves to others, but it is not a panacea for solving all of their problems.
If there were a social system that guaranteed human dignity, wouldn't we be happy without much effort?
The proverb, "If you work hard, luck will follow," is intended to encourage us to grow quietly without being intimidated by the world, but as more and more people endlessly spit out such sorcery, the violence of the social structure that gradually reduces our luck is concealed.

---From the "Epilogue"