[Labor Column] Policies That Ignore the Ability to Predict the Future

In their book "Homo Prospectus," psychologist Martin Seligman and others identified "the ability to predict the future" as a defining human trait. Humans are not beings trapped only by memories of the past. They are the only species on Earth that constantly simulates the future and adjusts present behavior accordingly. By that logic, the social institutions, laws, and economic policies created by humans should be the most advanced products of future forecasting that humanity can produce. Yet the reality in our society today runs counter to that evolutionary asset.
The biggest concern over the so-called Yellow Envelope Act pushed through by the ruling bloc was that its ambiguity would paralyze industrial sites. The fear was that the term "substantial control" would endlessly expand the scope of prime contractor-subcontractor relations, while "management decisions affecting working conditions" would endlessly broaden the scope of labor disputes. Labor-management disputes from January to May this year totaled 16,797 cases, up 40.7% from 11,936 in the same period last year. Even so, the government only moved after the possibility of disruptions emerged at Honam Semiconductor and elsewhere. In July, the Samsung Electronics union announced that it would treat the Honam plant as an agenda item for wage negotiations in 2027, arguing that it affects members' working conditions. President Lee Jae-myung said, "Honam Semiconductor is not subject to labor disputes," and ordered that the scope of disputes be clearly defined in law. But changing a clear legal provision through a presidential decree or guideline would invite union backlash, which called it "an abuse of government authority," as well as constitutional controversy. The expansion from labor-management issues into labor-government confrontation was a foreseeable outcome when union-biased legislation was forced through.
The recent revision of the Criminal Procedure Act of the Republic of Korea, which the ruling party celebrated, is an overreach that even within the ruling camp is being described as a trigger for defeat in the 2028 general election and the 2030 presidential election. The immediate side effects of abolishing prosecutors' supplementary investigative authority are "investigation delays" and a "judicial vacuum." Cases have been taking far longer to resolve amid a ping-pong battle between the police and the Prosecutors' Office. Victims of sex crimes, jeonse fraud, voice phishing, and other livelihood-related crimes are suffering because investigations are delayed. A form of "privatization of justice" has also emerged, in which victims must hire lawyers themselves just to ensure their cases are properly handled by the police. This is the result of a lack of conviction, as policymakers failed to foresee the grim future in which ordinary citizens would not be protected from crime while they tried to appease hardline supporters.
The investigation into Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Kim Byung-gi, which has dragged on for nearly a year, is a glimpse of how the police may lose their way in the future when dealing with powerful figures such as politicians and senior officials. The so-called Jang Yoon-gi case shows that, without checks from the Prosecutors' Office, it is easy for a case to be buried when "police family" members collude among themselves. The scene in which more than 40 investigators raided Starbucks headquarters for the "tank day case" investigation serves as a preview of how hard the police will work to satisfy those in power.
The abrupt introduction of a leveraged exchange-traded fund focused on a single semiconductor stock increased volatility to world-leading levels and at one point pushed the South Korean stock market down to investment-unworthy territory. Regulation then made trading effectively dormant, yet no one has taken responsibility for the massive losses suffered by investors. It is the result of policies shaped by incompetence and a lack of conviction. A series of real estate policies and tax reforms is a textbook example of how ideology-driven policymaking can undermine housing stability for the public. Expectations that restrictions on multi-homeowners and heavier property and capital gains taxes would curb speculative demand and stabilize home prices have repeatedly proven wrong. The housing ladder for ordinary people has been broken, and the disappearance of rental listings has deepened the pain for working-class households. This is the tragedy created by short-sighted policies that failed to simulate how citizens would change their behavior in response to punitive taxation.
The core of the problem is that policymakers assumed only the outcomes they wanted, while blocking any consideration of the "unintended side effects" that human selfishness and market reactions would create. Underneath it all was a political and collective ideology, along with prejudice, that turned capitalists, entrepreneurs, prosecutors, multi-homeowners, and owners of high-priced homes into windmills to be attacked. Another major source of distortion is the double standard that treats other people's capital gains as unearned income while viewing one's own gains as legitimate profit.
To forecast the future, we need to combine historical data with the principles of current human behavior, not rely on wishful thinking. Every piece of legislation and every policy should institutionalize a worst-case scenario review process, or "Red Teaming." Humans became the masters of the Earth because they had the ability to see approaching risks and prepare for them in advance. What we need most now is to strip away the veil of politics and ideology and recover the human capacity to look ahead. The ruling party's national convention, which had long been a black hole of policy distortion, is now over. It is time to calmly discuss revisions to policies and laws with the public and livelihoods at the center. "Only humans are beings that do Nexting. In other words, they think about the future. Without that ability, humans are nothing more than animals."
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