Essay On Populism

According to Oxford English Dictionary, the definition of welfare is “statutory procedure or social effort designed to promote the basic physical and material well-being of people in need” or “financial support given to people in need” (defs. 2 and 3). Both definitions include an expression “people in need.” However, some politicians currently use the term “welfare” to rationalize populism which is just an activity to take political power by gaining popularity from the public. Those politicians make election pledges that provide financial or material support to every citizen just to win an election. Sometimes, these kind of indiscriminate supporting policies cause the country’s serious financial crisis. But some people in the public accept this as welfare, because they benefit from it, even if they are not people “in need”. I define welfare as support for people in desperate need only. Giving material support that the public wants to everyone in the public should be called populism, not welfare.

Recently, in South Korea, there was an issue that explain this situation. Some politicians argued that free lunch for every student in the country as “welfare”. And many people in the public actually thought it is good welfare. Because they thought they
First, it was not for people “in need”. They offer free lunch for everyone in the country even if they have enough money to pay for it. And if we think carefully, it is not free at all, because all budgets from our tax. We pay it, and we gain it. Nevertheless, using populism policy such as free lunch for every student those politicians got support from the public, because the public thought it is welfare, even if it is not real welfare. As I mentioned before, welfare is people in desperate need, who cannot pay for the basic service. If we do real welfare, then the tax should be used to help people in need. This kind of populism policy cause the failure of the