RESOLVED: There is more harm than good to have a government mandated day off for mega supermarkets to promote sales growth for small stores.

RESOLVED: There is more harm than good to have a government mandated day off for mega supermarkets to promote sales growth for small stores.

Affirmative Argument 1. Why this policy is harmful and unjustified According to an article written by 경숙 김, the journalist of 조선일보 states that even if traditional markets are available around certain areas, traditional markets have problems such as lack of parking space, don't accept credit cards, dirty conditions and this is the reason why consumers will go to the mega supermarkets anyways even if mega supermarkets has a day off. Furthermore, if mega supermarkets are harmed, this will result in economic losses for everyone, not just large conglomerates. For example, according to an article written by 경희 김, the journalist of 경향일보 states that e.g. In the year of 2012, the twice a month mandatory holiday for mega supermarkets resulted in the loss of 5636 job losses, and 866 job losses as a result of the nighttime operations regulations (심야영업제한). This evidence shows that how it is a serious problem also for the employees of mega supermarkets who depend on their jobs for their livelihoods. Additionally, store owners who rent shops inside mega supermarkets: will also lose out, and this is bad because these are the very same people as those selling in markets, except they chose to rent their stores inside large supermarkets. To add, according to a statistic collected by the government runned organization, 중소기업청 (small to medium business association), shows that out of 100 people who rent shops inside the mega supermarkets, more than 75 of them are small to medium stores. Small to medium enterprises who supply to large supermarkets are also harmed, because when large supermarkets are able to sell less, this translates to direct hit in sales for the suppliers who sell through those large supermarkets. According to statistic collected by a small to medium company who sold through mega supermarkets, named Shinseonmi, e.g. has suffered a 10% hit to its sales 10% hit to its sales is a big thing since it is a small to medium company and they should be protected, not harmed by the government.

  Argument 2. Why this policy is ineffective Even if large supermarkets are restricted in their hours of operation, this would not lead to a boom for traditional markets. According to an article written by 라희 박, a journalist of 국민일보, it states that large supermarkets have their ways to bypass this problem, such as by holding sales promotion events during the weekdays to encourage more people to buy during that time, and by opening their stores earlier and closing later to allow people to take advantage of their stores for longer during the weekdays. Furthermore, traditional markets are avoided for their inherent problems that they are inconvenient for people to use (e.g. lack of parking space, not accepting credit cards, etc), so even if large supermarkets are closed, people do not necessarily choose to go to traditional markets instead. Additionally, This does not incentivize markets to become more competitive and improve themselves, which is the reason that people do not want to go to these markets in the first place. Even if this results in momentary sales gains for traditional markets during the weekends when the large supermarkets are closed, this is offset by the relative drop in sales during the weekdays when people show a stronger preference for large supermarkets in reaction. According to the economic newspaper E-Today, even though traditional markets saw sales growth on the government mandated holidays, their overall sales actually shrunk, as less people chose to visit them on the weekdays.

  Argument 3. Harms of government interference in free market economies and the need for a self-regulating free market economy Importance of the supply and demand chain and the invisible hand; how the market will work itself out. In capitalist markets, producers decide on their own how much of a certain product to make and sell, and consumers decide on their own how much of a product to buy. This is how price points are determined and this is how the market economy regulates itself, without government interference. In fact, government interference in notoriously bad in working out specifically how much of a certain good should be produced for how many people, as is evidenced by the collapse of the socialist economies of the Soviet Union and China. Therefore, government interference in markets has historically proven to fail, and it makes no sense for the government to try and direct people's demand and businesses' supply as according to its own will, because it WON'T WORK. In particular, as traditional markets simply lack competitiveness, they should be forced to change through economic incentives. If less people are buying, and this means less profit for business owners there, then it should be the business owners responsibility to improve their stores to make them more appealing to consumers(traditional markets lack competitiveness - therefore let them suffer - if they suffer, they will change their ways). This policy is harmful because it does not push local businesses to improve their competitiveness through financial incentives, but allows them to be complacent in their lagging conditions, and ultimately loses their appeal to consumers, as is evidenced by the fact that in spite of this policy, traditional markets have FALLEN in overall sales.

  Negative
One of the biggest problems for the Korean economy is that it is dominated by large conglomerates, and this is particularly harmful for the economy in that it harms small business operators, owner-operators and local businesses. For this problem to be alleviated, the government must regulate mega supermarkets from crowding out such businesses from the market, and therefore, the government mandated day off for mega supermarkets is a very necessary policy for the overall health of the Korean economy.

  Argument 1. NEED 
In our first argument, we have 2 subpoints to prove.
 
Subpoint A. Problem of Mega Supermarkets If the Korean government stops mandating day off for mega supermarkets, this will lead to the tyranny of mega corporations. In the beginning, most mega supermarkets will compete with smaller markets by lowering their prices. However, as soon as small to medium business owners collapse when mega supermarkets have driven them out of business through their low prices, which will be unsustainable for smaller stores, the mega supermarkets will raise the prices since there is no more competition and they can sell at whatever price they like, because as the only suppliers, consumers will have no one else to turn to. Thus, consumers will be harmed, so to prevent this scenario from coming to pass, the government should keep the policy of mandating a day off for mega supermarkets.

  Subpoint B. The money earned by the mega supermarkets ultimately goes back to the mega corporations, whose headquarters exist not in regional provinces, but elsewhere. Therefore, even if local residents buy from mega supermarkets, this would result in capital outflow and harm the regional economy. Since the owners of small to medium businesses in traditional markets are also the consumers of that region, they spend their earnings in the area of their residence, which would lead to greater money flow in the regional economy. However, mega supermarket’s sales revenue would travel back to the shareholders and the owner families, which does not result in wealth distribution nor money flow within the region, and this will slow down the local economy.

  Argument 2. Effectiveness Now moving on to our second argument. This policy is proven to be very effective by the following evidences. Firstly, according to a survey on the effects of this policy on sales for traditional markets, the Small and Medium Business Association has showed up with the result of 15% of sales increased in traditional markets. Also, it has shown that small to medium markets around the mega supermarkets’ sales and consumers had incredibly increased for about 15% ~ 30%.

  Argument 3. Benefit We have 4 subpoints to prove in our last argument.

  Subpoint A. Economic Growth and reduce wealth gap If mega supermarkets are allowed to operate everyday, people would continue to shop at those places and avoid traditional markets, resulting in greater wealth gap between large conglomerates and small business holders. Therefore, this policy of mandated holidays is necessary to remedy this situation because the statistics show that with this policy, small markets will also be able to grow resulting in alleviation of wealth gap. According to the survey done by Agency for Traditional Market Administration in May 10th, 2012, small to medium retail companies and traditional market’s average sales increased 11.7% compared to May 3rd, 2012, when mega supermarkets were open. Also, its consumers actually increased by 11.5% also compared to May 3rd, 2012. This shows that government mandated day off for mega supermarkets to promote sales growth for small stores is promoting sales growth for small to medium markets and even traditional markets too.

  Subpoint B. Promote Economic Democratization According to Korea Times article written on 2012, economic democratization is defined as regulating big conglomerates and promoting small to medium businesses in order to curb economic polarization between the haves and have-nots. Economic democratization is the key factor to reduce the wealth gap between rich and poor and ultimately, to flourish the country’s economy. Government mandating a day off for mega supermarkets will ultimately lead to economic democratization and benefit the country’s economy due to following two reasons. According to documentary named ‘Truth and Fallacies of creation of employment in mega supermarkets’ broadcasted in Han-gyeong TV, traditional markets create more jobs than mega supermarkets. As of 2007, traditional markets create 3 times as more jobs as do mega supermarkets. This shows that traditional markets are able to employ more people than mega supermarkets and if more people are able to be employed in different sizes of supermarkets, it will lead to economic democratization since different people will earn money in different places.

  Subpoint C. Importance of Small Business Owners for the Korean Economy According to an article written by Won Jae Lee, the Chief Manager of 한겨례 research institute, in 2001, traditional markets and local stores’ share of the sales’ pie was 51.7% however, it has decreased to 40.5%, more than 11%. Yet, about 28.8% of owner-operators (자영업자) open their markets in the local and traditional markets. Even if they are office workers right now, their is a high possibility of them being owner-operators after retirement. 21% of people aged over 60’s turns out to be a owner-operator and only 4% of them still work in a permanent job position.

  Subpoint D. Beneficial For the Welfare of Employees at Mega Supermarkets Mandating day off for mega supermarkets is not only about protection of economy and small to medium sized market owners. It also links with the environmental problems and labor welfare programs too. There are lots of the mega supermarkets runs for 24/7 because of competition between each other. However, the government should mandate day off for mega supermarkets also to protect laborers’ welfare and can save energy during the hours mandated by the government to close at night time in addition to the protection of small stores.