He believes that when labor is no longer the only means of survival, the benefits of technological progress should be shared by all people.
Written by: Wang Chao
South Korea's new president Lee Jae-myung has many labels: soda mayor, 20-day hunger strike, idol, live streaming to break into the National Assembly. In addition to these widely known labels, if you look closely at his political career over the past decade, you will find that he has another important label: he loves to give money. From Seongnam City to Gyeonggi Province, from a 24-year-old youth to farmers and artists, and now to all citizens.
Lee Jae-myung spent ten years turning a seemingly crazy idea into reality step by step. The question he wanted to answer was simple: In the AI era, does everyone have the right to share social wealth unconditionally?
Basic income refers to cash income paid to everyone on a regular basis, on an individual basis, without means testing or work requirements. It is often referred to as universal basic income or unconditional basic income, or UBI for short.
UBI may seem advanced, but it is actually a concept that has been discussed for centuries. As early as the 16th century, Thomas More proposed a similar idea in Utopia. In the 1960s, Nobel Prize winner in economics Milton Friedman proposed the theory of "negative income tax", and Martin Luther King called for the establishment of a "guaranteed income" system in his last book before his death. In the 1970s, the Nixon administration even almost passed a family assistance program similar to UBI. Entering the 21st century, with the development of artificial intelligence, more and more people, from Silicon Valley technology elites to Nobel Prize winners in economics, have begun to seriously discuss the possibility of UBI. Dozens of countries have launched UBI pilot experiments to explore the practical feasibility of this concept.
In South Korea, Lee Jae-myung is the most active advocate and practitioner of UBI.
In January 2016, Lee Jae-myung, then mayor of Seongnam, did something "crazy" - he gave money to all 24-year-olds. Each person received 1 million won, with no conditions attached, and they only had to spend it locally. This policy, which was criticized by the Park Geun-hye government as "populism", was unexpectedly a great success. Young people received tangible cash support, local businesses benefited from increased consumption, and Lee Jae-myung gained widespread political support. This bold experiment became an important step for him to move to a higher political stage.
After being elected governor of Gyeonggi Province in 2018, the population of the area soared from 900,000 to 13 million, accounting for a quarter of South Korea's total population. He quickly expanded the youth basic income program, which was originally limited to Seongnam City, to all 31 cities and counties in Gyeonggi Province. In 2022, he launched a more radical experiment in rural areas: a village was selected by lottery, and all 3,880 residents of the village will receive an unconditional monthly allowance of 150,000 won for five years. This experiment aims to study the impact of basic income on health, local economy, employment, and distribution inequality.
In the 2022 presidential election, Lee Jae-myung proposed a complete and progressive UBI plan. The core content is to provide economic support to all South Korean citizens, with an initial amount set at 250,000 won per person per year, and plans to gradually increase to 1 million won during the term of office. The total annual expenditure of these basic income plans is about 58 trillion won. Lee Jae-myung plans to provide funds mainly through land value-added tax and carbon tax, which has been strongly criticized by his rival Yoon Seok-yeol. During the term of the Moon Jae-in government, the tax rates of the put-in and comprehensive property taxes rose sharply, which also triggered strong public resistance to any increase in real estate-related taxes. Although the land value-added tax proposed by Lee Jae-myung only taxes the value of the land, Lee Jae-myung failed to make the public understand the difference. Polls show that most people disagree with his view that "the land dividend plan will make most of the population net beneficiaries." Against this backdrop, Lee Jae-myung had to back down and said that if the majority of people did not agree, he would not implement universal basic income and land value-added tax, but he still insisted on providing basic income to at least specific groups, such as young people and farmers.
Ultimately, Lee Jae-myung lost the 2022 election by a narrow margin of 0.7%, which may be the political price he paid for his UBI vision.
With the lessons learned from the last time, Lee Jae-myung's position and expression on the UBI issue changed significantly during the 2025 presidential campaign. He deliberately avoided the UBI issue for a long time, and instead emphasized pro-business policies, R&D investment, and the development of artificial intelligence. Despite this, UBI is still an important part of his progressive reform attempt and is deeply imprinted in his political image.
On May 22, only 11 days before voting day, perhaps because his accumulated advantages were too obvious, he was no longer afraid of the controversy that UBI might cause. He once again unveiled a grand vision called "Basic Society". "UBI Uncle" is back.
The "Basic Society" is not a new specific UBI plan, but more like a relatively mild blueprint that embodies strong UBI elements and aims to cover a complete income support system from birth to old age. The name has changed, but the core concept has not changed. Lee Jae-myung believes that in an era dominated by AI and robots, the traditional assumption that "everyone can continue to work" is outdated. The dividends of technology should not be monopolized by a few people, but should be shared by all people.
To understand Lee Jae-myung's UBI vision, we need to explore the deep philosophical thinking and contemporary insights behind it. He sees it as a core solution to deal with social polarization, the impact of the fourth industrial revolution, shrinking consumption, and protecting the rights of the national economy. He believes that modern capitalism is facing a structural crisis, especially in the context of technological innovation, "jobless growth" and the gap between the rich and the poor will widen. UBI stimulates consumption by increasing people's income, forming a virtuous cycle of the economy, and has both welfare and economic stimulus characteristics.
In addition, Lee Jae-myung emphasized that UBI aims to ensure that citizens enjoy "basic economic rights" and live a decent life. He believes that when labor is no longer the only means of survival, the dividends of technological progress should be shared by all people. UBI can redefine labor, help people get rid of "painful labor", and pursue "happy labor" and self-realization.
Extensive discussion and practical challenges of UBI in South Korea
Lee Jae-myung is not the only politician in South Korea who supports UBI. The UBI concept has a broad mass base in Korean society and has even spawned a political organization called the "Basic Income Party." The party was founded in 2020 and mainly develops members through the Internet. Its slogan is "600,000 won per month for everyone," and they actually won a seat in the National Assembly in the subsequent election.
At the same time, other forms of income support trials are also underway. In July 2022, Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon launched a three-year "safe income" randomized double-blind experiment in his district, a household-based negative income tax program. Negative income tax is often regarded as an important variant of UBI. Its core mechanism is: when income exceeds a certain tax line, you need to pay taxes; if it does not exceed, not only do you not have to pay taxes, but you can get subsidies. What is even more surprising is that Lee Jae-myung's political opponent, the People's Power Party, has also included the concept of basic income in its party platform, clearly stating: "The state should support every citizen to live a safe and free life through basic income in order to cope with the upcoming era of the fourth industrial revolution."
All these indicate that UBI has gone from a marginal concept to the mainstream in South Korea. Nevertheless, the widespread implementation of UBI in South Korea and even around the world still faces huge challenges, such as financial sustainability, reaching social consensus, and political and administrative coordination capabilities. The future of Lee Jae-myung's "basic society" is destined to depend not only on the superiority of the concept, but also on whether the various problems in reality can be properly solved. Regardless of the future, Lee Jae-myung's unremitting exploration of UBI has provided valuable experience for the innovation of social policies in South Korea and even the world.
In an era of abundant material production and technology that can replace human labor, what is the ultimate yardstick of social progress? When machines take over the production line, Lee Jae-myung's exploration asks us: Can humans go beyond passive adaptation and actively shape a future society of their own with dignity and value?
This may be the most profound political legacy he can leave behind - not a definite answer, but the eternal question of how human beings can maintain their dignity and values in the torrent of technology.
