A Lifetime Devoted to Free-Market Conviction…The Next Generation Will Carry It On

Park Dong-un (1941–2020)

On a November morning when the weather had suddenly turned chilly, at a time when the free market economy and liberal democracy are under more serious threat than ever, I heard truly heartbreaking news.

When word suddenly arrived of Professor Park Dong-un’s passing, his students and junior scholars were so shocked that their hands and feet trembled. Even now, I can still hear in my ears the professor’s resonant voice, as he spent his entire life in academia teaching the true principles of economics and nurturing future generations, and even after retirement continued without wavering to emphasize that the free market economy is the path to South Korea’s prosperity. How could there be anything more devastating than knowing we can no longer hear those conviction-filled teachings?

Professor Park often said that he became devoted to the free market economy after reading Milton Friedman’s *Free to Choose*. After completing his Ph.D. in economics in the United States and returning to Korea, he taught future generations at Chonnam National University and Dankook University, among others, even opening “market economy” courses at universities to help establish the free market economy. He continued to work tirelessly for the free market economy even after retirement. In particular, he was deeply concerned about the current situation in South Korea, where attempts are being made to shackle the free market economy, and he devoted himself to ensuring that the country would not go down the wrong path by drawing on examples from around the world.

In the process, he published more than 30 books. Among them, *Thatcherism: The Great Victory of the Free Market Economy*, which tells the story of how Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher revived Britain, and *Labor Market Reform Like Schröder, Like Thatcher*, which examines German Social Democratic Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s Hartz labor reforms and Prime Minister Thatcher’s worker-centered labor reforms, are books containing lessons that South Korea should treasure as guiding principles if it is to return to the path of prosperity.

Among Professor Park’s many research achievements, his work on the labor market stands out the most. He consistently stressed the importance of labor market flexibility. *Labor Market Flexibility*, which was also the first volume in the Center for Free Enterprise (CFE)’s “Freedom and Reform” series, is a masterwork that fully reflects his academic achievements on the labor market.

He also made efforts to introduce the free market economy to the broader public. *Korea in Crisis: The Market Economy Is the Breakthrough*, written so that anyone could easily understand the importance of the free market economy, and *A Journey Through the Market Economy with the Bible*, which discovers the market economy within Christianity, are works that show his passion for putting down the roots of the free market economy in our society. Even while battling illness, he never stopped his research. In 2019 as well, Professor Park submitted the paper “An Evaluation of the Price Policies of Successive Administrations: From the Kim Dae-jung Administration to the Moon Jae-in Administration” to *Freedom and Market*, the journal of the Korea Hayek Society. His dedication to continuing his scholarly work to defend the free market economy even during his illness will serve as an example to us all.

Although Professor Park has now departed on a distant journey from which he cannot return, leaving the burden of the remaining tasks to his students and junior scholars, his spirit remains as an echo in his books and in our hearts. We too will follow in his footsteps, strive even harder, and make greater efforts so that the people and the public may stand firmly on the principles of economic science and liberty. We pray that he may rest in peace, having entrusted to his students and junior scholars the work he had planned in this world but was unable to complete.

Sung-no Choi, President, Center for Free Enterprise (CFE)

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Original title: 자유시장경제에 바친 평생의 신념…후학들이 잇겠습니다

Author: Sung-no Choi

Date: 2020-12-03

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=press&idx=23283