Chang Ha-sung, South Korea’s new presidential chief of staff for policy and outspoken critic of chaebols like Samsung, said the fundamental solution to ease inequalities is to raise household income that had been stagnant for the last two decades and denied of unilateral clampdown on chaebols.

Because of subdued growth in income, Korea’s private consumption against the gross domestic product stays at the bottom among the economies of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, said the liberal economist handpicked for the newly post in the presidential office along with the National Economic Advisory Council to combat multiple challenges weighing on Asia’s fourth largest economy.

Chang, cousin of Cambridge professor and author of global bestseller “23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism” Chang Ha-joon, studied at the State University of New York and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and in 2006 filed a lawsuit against Samsung Group on behalf of minority shareholders.

The government will seek “structural” solution to the widening gap in wealth discrepancy, he said.

He said he shares the same view of Kim Sang-jo, another chaebol critic named to head the Fair Trade Commission, that all workplaces - chaebol, large, and small enterprises - are valuable. He appeased investors’ worries about chill over the fledgling recovery in corporate investment and economic activities due to crackdown on chaebol names, saying that policy is aimed to level the playing field for small and mid-sized companies and not to “artificially” clamp down on chaebols.

The reform moves must not be interpreted as “chaebol-bashing” as what the new administration seeks is to bring more balance to the corporate habitat to breed new strong players from the smaller segment, he said.

He also brushed aside concerns about uniform hike in corporate tax rates.

By Shin Heon-chul and Oh Soo-hyun

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