모리배의 탄생 : 해방기 소설에 나타난 ‘빈자(貧者)’의 도덕과 ‘경제적 인간’의 정치학

Abstract

This study aims to inspect various aspects, possibilities of lives and the ways to understand human beings which novels during the liberation era showed. In South Korea during the liberation era, overcoming poverty and distribution of wealth were the most important economic agenda connected to the ideal goal of the building-independent-nation. However, senses about the ideal distribution and the need of survival were divided between official slogan which emphasized ‘the nation’ and private dimension, and were restructured each ways. Systems and decrees which US military government employed in South Korea during the liberation era caused terribly unstable and chaotic economic situation, which was called ‘the state of anarchy’ sometimes. Although the liberation era was represented as the period of political liberation which joyful emotion accompanied, economic chaos during the liberation era made the individual sense the vulnerability of the state. They questioned how to earn a living, how to protect and keep their lives which the state could not take care of. And they answered their own question in private ways. They could not internalize public perspectives about human beings and the world, systems, and regulations any more. New human types, new art of living, and new moral sentiments in contrast to the notion of ‘the nation’ appeared instead. In this respect, the liberation era was an important turning point. The acts that abusing the law, cheating or swindling others were called the act of ‘Mori(謀利)’. ‘Moribae’(the profiteers, 謀利輩) as anti-national actors who pocketed national property and sabotaged the state-building were condemned and thought as main culprit behind economic chaos and difficulties. So-called ‘Moribae’ as anti-national actors were a new human type who appeared on chaos of new econoic-system formed in a dissolution of Japanese empire’s economic area and controlled economic system. The birth of ‘Moribae’ and the criticism to them show that the sense of economic moral and values changed remarkably. To put it concretely, these show a irreconcilable point between the sense of political moral justified in the name of ‘nation’ and the sense of economic moral justified by the need of survival. ‘Moribae’ as opportunistic human type were the heterogeneous beings made by social inequality. And the birth of ‘Moribae’ and the criticism to them formed an archetype of ‘Homo economicus’ which also exist today in South Korea.