한국 경제질서의 특징과 변천:대한민국 헌법을 중심으로

It is not too much to say that the south Korean economy leaped into the developed countries in very short period of sixty years after Korean war. This experience is not easily found in the world history of economic development. It is especially contrasted with the north Korean economy. The south Korean economic success should be basically attributable to its economic order. This brought me to the question of its figure and characteristic. The purpose of this paper is in figuring out how the Korean economic order has evolved after the Republic of Korea established in 1948. This will be undertaken by investigating articles of the Korean constitution. The paper observes also whether the evolving of market economic order has a meaningful relation to its economic performance. The Korean constitution has been amended nine times after establishing the first Korean constitution in 1948. The first Korean constitution was somewhat far away from the market economic order and colored rather a socialism system. This was mitigated after its amendment in 1954. But it was not enough to be called a market economic order. The period when the Korean constitution was close to the market economic order was from the full amendment of the constitution in 1963 to before its amendment in 1972 that is called ‘the constitution for revitalizing reform’. It was 10 years since Park Jung-Hi had started to govern the regime. After ‘the constitution for revitalizing reform,’ it continued to contain clauses to strengthen the government interventions in the economy for the building of a welfare state, the protection and promotion of a small and medium enterprise, and the promotion of science and technology. To that extent, the purity of market economy was spoiled. The rate of the economic growth and the investment was increased faster in the period when the constitutional economic order was close to the market economy system. But we can not say that this paper has revealed the positive corelation of economic growth and its economic order. Since the economic performance of a country is affected not only by an economic order but also by many factors such as leadership of political elites, the relations of labor and management, different implementation of economic policies, domestic and global political and economic situation etc. In order to derive the meaningful results of the relation between economic order and its performance, we need more systematical analysis. The distribution structure was improved in the period when the purity of a market economy was deteriorated by the government interventions. But if we see the improvement of distribution in terms of the change of absolute income in the poorest class or the opportunity of this class to make income, this result of the paper could be interpreted differently.