President Lee Jae Myung greets participants after the “Youth Budget Unboxing 2027” event at the Blue House on Aug. 28.JOINT PRESS CORPS
Ha Hyun-ock
The author is an editorial writer at the JoongAng Ilbo.
“Zeus’s law.”
The phrase is gaining currency alongside the success of Christopher Nolan’s film “The Odyssey,” which surpassed 9 million admissions in Korea just 27 days after its release. The “law of Zeus” running through the film is Nolan’s term for xenia, the ancient Greek ethic of hospitality: Treat strangers well because a god may arrive in human form, and guests should repay their hosts with courtesy.
This ancient golden rule of reciprocity may seem relevant when mutual trust is fraying. But Kim Heon, a professor at Seoul National University’s Institute of Humanities who spent 22 years completing a Korean translation of Homer’s “Odyssey,” recently offered an intriguing interpretation. Homer, he said, regarded hospitality with some skepticism, suggesting it could make people weak.
Kim explains it this way. Odysseus spent only two years actually suffering on his journey home, but eight years immersed in hospitality. After enduring hardships, it was only human for him to hesitate before leaving places where he was fed and sheltered. His homecoming was prolonged because he succumbed to the human tendency to settle into the comfort of hospitality and kindness. That is the paradox of hospitality.
I was reminded of that paradox while examining the government’s 43 trillion won ($31.5 billion) youth budget, a major component of next year’s 821 trillion won supersized budget. Particularly striking is the “comprehensive investment strategy for each stage of youth development,” announced last month.
A first child born next year in a region designated for preferential support could receive almost nearly 200 million won in government benefits from birth through age 34. The package covers virtually every stage of life, including childbirth and child allowances, a fund to help young people become financially independent, university scholarships, public rental housing and rent subsidies, employment and marriage. It is, in effect, support “from cradle to independence.”
President Lee Jae Myung explained the rationale for this 43 trillion won “bet on welcoming youth” by saying young people are the truly vulnerable generation. With good jobs dwindling and AI making employment increasingly difficult, young Koreans face formidable challenges. Soaring housing prices and higher living costs add to the strain.
As inequality grows both between and within generations, government spending to level an uneven playing field and narrow disparities at the starting line is necessary.
Still, it is questionable whether the government, in styling itself as a nanny state, is offering young people what they need most through these various cash benefits. Government handouts presented as hospitality could instead encourage young people to settle into comfort, obstruct their independence and ultimately make them more vulnerable.
Making young people dependent on government support could even turn them into something resembling the suitors of Odysseus’ wife Penelope. Exploiting Zeus’ law, they occupied his palace, eating and drinking while depleting its stores. Moreover, cash benefits disguised as hospitality and assistance are merely deferred government debt that today’s young people will eventually have to repay.
What young people want is not small government handouts offered as favors. They need conditions that allow them to live as healthy, independent participants in the economy. Above all, they need good jobs providing stable employment and income.
They can hardly dream of accumulating assets through methods such as gap investment in real estate, which older generations used before the government began cracking down. But young people should at least be given an opportunity to climb the housing ladder, including access to loans they can reasonably afford based on their earning capacity.
One online comment therefore resonates: “Rather than scattering money around needlessly, it might be better to use the 43 trillion won to create a public corporation and generate jobs.”
Hospitality can help people regain their footing. But when support becomes an end in itself rather than a bridge to independence, generosity can produce dependence.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
