율곡의 사회복지 사상

Abstract

In order to design a better social welfare system we need to find insights from traditional thoughts. We can gain good ideas on social welfare from the thoughts which Yul-kok, a great Confucian scholar in Chosun-dynasty, had left. Yul-kok thinks that people should be regarded as a Heaven of a state. He also thinks that people regards breads as their heaven. He emphasizes the reduction of taxes and compulsory labors to protect people's production activity for their livelihood. He insists that a state should support vulnerable people such as a widow, a widower, an orphan and an old person who does not have any children. Like other Confucian scholars, Yul-kok regards filial piety as a public matter, and he stresses a family care for the old and weak people. Furthermore, he tries to organize the Confucian community welfare system, which is called 'Hyangyak,' and it is also supported by the state. In contrast to the modern social welfare which directly supply a means of living, the social welfare policy proposed by Yul-kok seems to be negative, because it intends to protect people's production activity and to support only the lonely people. But we cannot say so, as far as we consider the characteristics of traditional society. In the society in which living resources are produced and consumed in a family, and the family care for the elderly and children is taken as a matter of course, protection of people's production activity is to secure their wellbeing. And a supporting program of lonely people which is to complement the dominant family care system, may mean amplification of social welfare. Therefore, we can say that Yul-kok pursues a positive social welfare. When we reflect on recent trends to call a social care, Yul-kok's thoughts on filial piety and family care for the weak may have some problems. But a social care is a symptomatic therapy against the social problems caused in a tendency of family dissolving. That care has a definite limitations. Reinforcing family relationships and encouraging family care may be a long-term fundamental alternatives to solve family problems. Yul-kok's idea on a Confucian community welfare system is still available in a modern society. For example, as Yul-kok insists, family violence can be naturally controlled if neighborhood community is strong. Therefore, there is a sphere of social welfare which is fulfilled well by communities.