공정성 원칙을 둘러싼 갈등과 변화: 최저임금 인상 논쟁을 중심으로

This study aims to find the sources and driving forces of social conflicts in Korean society and the basis of social conflict resolutions. The narrative analysis of the controversy over the minimum wage increase, from the late-Durkheimian cultural sociological perspective, shows that social justice based on civic solidarity, that is the principle of justice, is the fundamental cause of social conflicts and a source of social conflict resolutions. It is found that social conflicts are symbolic struggles of the principle of justice and cultural codes, both of which are based on civic solidarity. While arguments against the minimum wage increase commonly only depend on the equity principle, it is observed that contentions in favor of the minimum wage increase seems to utilize the principles of equity, need, and macrojustice. This observation indicates growing conflicts between the economic and the social. In essence, issues in the economic sphere have been treated solely depending on the equity principle, but there has been a strong tendency for the civil sphere to reinterpret such issues with the need principle. Furthermore, the coexistence of various principles of justice means that the perception of justice in Korean society is formed in a relative and collective way rather than in a fragmented way. This suggests the potential to resolve social conflict through the compromise or combination of these various principles of justice. However, the fact that the equity principle is incorporated in all arguments for or against the minimum wage increase makes it possible to deduce that equity, among microjustice principles, serves as a dominant value in Korean civil society and plays a core role in social conflict resolution. The macrojustice principle, the concept of a “good society,” does not seem to function as a mediator in the conflict between equity and need principles. In this way, social conflicts implicate the coexistence and tension among the values and cultural codes in civil society implying the fundamental questions of “what is just?” and “what definition of just society do we idealize?”