People's Solidarity for Social Progress (PSSP)

8-48 4F, Galwol-dong, Yongsan-gu, Seoul, Korea

Tel: +82-2-778-4001  Fax: +82-2-778-4006

Website: http://www.pssp.org

E-mail: pssp@jinbo.net

About PSSP

People's Solidarity for Social Progress(PSSP) was founded in December 4, 1998 for democratic and class-based social movement. PSSP  has struggled against domestic and global neoliberal attack, for political, economic emancipation of workers, farmers, women, the poor, and other oppressed and exploited people.

Main Agendas

■ No to Neoliberal Financial Globalization!

The nature of neoliberal globalization is globalization of high-finance. Financial globalization has destroyed people's basic rights and strengthened exploitation to promote the profit of financial capital. Opposition against financial globalization designates the direction of people's movement activating in various areas.

■ No to instability of labor!

Neoliberal globalization intends to cut down cost and to manage labor by increasing unstable labor. Unstable labor, such as contingent, casual and daily workers, has difficulity maintaining their lives because of low wage and coarse labor conditions. Also, the increase of unstable labor widens division and obstructs solidarity within the working class. Therefore, the struggle against instability of labor is a struggle to protect not only the lives and labor of unstable workers, but also those of the entire working class. It is central to the struggle against neoliberal globalization.

■ Achieve women's rights!

We believe that "feminism" is a movement for emancipation of women and the idea that advances this movement. the rights of women and the right to work are indispensable to emancipation of women. These two rights are not one and the same, but can be realized only when they are promoted together. This perspectives important in the global struggle against neoliberal globalization. Neoliberalism has brought "feminization of poverty" and "increase in violence against women". The effects of neoliberalism's destructiveness are more evident on women. Struggles of women is a struggle to resist neoliberalism and to expand women's rights.

■ No to war!

The neoliberal financial globalization strategy of capital is now facing crisis due to the resistance against the violence of this strategy and also due to its own innate limitations. However, the problem even more serious is the fact that the US is mobilizing violent methods to maintain and strengthen financial glottalization. The so-called "Bush Doctrine", which is the new military and security strategy of the US that appeared after the 9.11 reflects this well. The struggle against war should be merged with the struggle against globalization and further strengthened.

Main Activities

PSSP  has formed solidarity with various groups and organized many activities against neoliberal globalization such as rallies, campaigns, and so on. Also, we have  researched and analyzed into neoliberal policies and political-economic situation, and have educated workers about these problems.

■ Solidarity Action

We work with workers, peasants, women and other social movements against neoliberal financial globalization, WTO·FTA, labor instability, new poverty, feminization of poverty, U.S military hegemony and military globalization. We organize solidarity action for deepening democracy, abolishing National Security Law and achieving peace in Korean Peninsula.

■ Organizing Support for Migrant Workers

Recently, the Korean government passed a bill to promote a new migrant labor system. To Prepare for the effectuation of this law, the government has deported migrant workers. Migrant workers organized their autonomous union and has struggled against the government's crackdown and oppression. We have been organizing a supporters' association to form strong solidarity.

■ Publishing "Solidarity for Social Progress"

"Solidarity for Social Progress" is PSSP's monthly publication for an active debate and discussion of social movements against neoliberalism, distributed to over 700 organizations and individuals.

■ Publishing "Socialization & Labor"

"Socialization & Labor" is a weekly paper issued by PSSP, to stimulate debate on political and economic situation within mass movements. It analyzes on various issues and proposes directions for people's movements.

■ Social Movements Activists' Summer School

We organize social movements activists' summer school every year. It is a school of education, discussion and lecture. Various activists from labor movement, women's movement, students' movement and other social movements participate in this program. We share the viewpoint and analysis on neoliberal globalization and innovation of our movement.

Contents

1   About PSSP

5    Characteristics of Participatory Democracy and Neoliberal Reforms of Roh Moo-Hyun Government

10  Labor Instability and the Task for Working-class

14   The Crisis of Reproduction and the Critique of Financial Globalization

21  The Essence of the Crisis of Korean Peninsula and US Strategy

27    Political crisis in Korea in Aftermath of the Impeachment of Roh Moo-Hyun

Characteristics of Participatory Democracy

and Neoliberal Reforms of

Roh Moo-Hyun  Government

What are the results of President Kim Daejoong's IMF program and economic reforms? The economic reforms driven by the IMF and the WB marked a big turning point and shaped a new exploitation system. The restructuring program (company liquidation, M&A, work-out, lay-off, irregular employment) destroyed existing employment, while turning a large portion of production equipments idle. In the process of the restructuring program, national wealth became vulnerable due to the opening of money market, the removing of restrictions against trans-national capitals, and the extraordinary development of financial technics of TNC's (including M&A, interest income, exchange benefit, etc.) Restructuring as well as foreign investment in the form of portfolio and direct investment led to a destruction of existing industries and to an industrial specialization; it also accelerated the collapse of local economies (especially the ones based on agriculture.)

In this way, South Korea has turned into a "capital luring"  nation. It has no other choice but to desperately attract TNCs and financial capitals, by swiftly concluding investment treaties, actively participating in free trade in East Asia, and establishing free trade regions within its borders. The freedom to enter and exit has become the minimal right for the TNCs because the open financial market is a prerequisite for their new exploitation system. Neither President Roh nor labor movement can interfere with such a right of TNCs'.

The critical task for the Roh administration is to discover a motor power for a consistent economic development. Whereas Kim's task was to engage in a powerful restructuring in order to transform South Korea into a capital luring nation, Roh's task is to actually attract large-scaled foreign investments. Of course, Roh needs a special strategy to do this. This is why he is developing a project of turning South Korea into an "East Asian Center". This project contains TNC's global management strategy; it aims at enhancing the value of South Korea as a gate for China. Therefore, Roh's basic assignments are "making a progress in corporate governance reforms, in order to provide foreign investors with means of surveillance", "concluding free trade and investment treaties to give more rooms for TNCs to move", "enlarging financial company and allowing outside work, in order to stabilize South Korean finance system", "constituting tripartite committee to build cooperative labor-capital relationship". To attract foreign investment, Roh also suggests spending more budget in technological development, industrial specialization, economic infra-structure building, educational reforms and mobilization of high quality labor power of women's.

However, a more critical task for the South Korean government is to create a political-ideological condition for continuing the policy reforms. The policy reforms driven by Kim Daejoong during the IMF crisis is in great danger; hence, Roh's fatal task is to prevent its collapse. The key points are as follow: "Re-collecting the reforms supporters", "reforming the political-administrative-judical system which keeps reproducing corruptions and moral hazards, or, what is the same, re-founding the morality of the ruling power", "supplementing policy to enable a social integration" (either in a conservative paternalist way or in a liberal rationalist way). Therefore the Roh administration will try to gain his support from the groups that uphold the neo-liberal reforms, thereby ideologically strengthening the inevitability and consistency of reforms. Roh will try to gain a political stabilization through a political reforms (especially by improving the political parties and the constitutional system). He will pursue some policies to prevent political corruptions, as well as certain temporizing measures to show off an employment enlargement or a poverty reduction. Roh's "participatory democracy" is designed to create political-ideological conditions for continuing the neo-liberal reforms.

The Origin and the Circumstances of the Roh Administration's "Participatory Democracy"

In 2002, two of the most spectacular and unprecedented events happened: First, Roh won the presidential candidate election for his party; second, he unified the candidacy with Jung Mongjoon, who was originally the candidate for another party. Roh appraised these events as showing that the political process guaranteed the participation of the people; he called his administration "the participation government". "Participation" became Roh's keyword. His "participatory democracy" is an epigone of the European neo-liberalist ideology often called "the third way". Its two axes are "participation-decentralization of authority" on the one hand and "national integration- social agreement" on the other. This "participatory democracy" relies on the political ideology of stakeholder capitalism model (a political concept that regards citizens as interest holders) which emerged in the mid and the late 90's in Germany against the shareholder capitalism of England and the U.S.A. Its goal is to overcome (avoid) the destructive effects of capitalism in crisis □ through a "reforms from the top (justified by the participation of citizens)" □ without threatening the dominance of capitalism (which, by the way, is the cause of the crisis). However, discourses on this "stakeholder capitalism" model had no consistency nor actual contents even in Europe. Lie and incompetence are typical characteristics of this model. It has consistency and competence only in making destructive restructuring possible. "Paternal restructuring" and "globalization with the face of human" are its specialty. This is what president Roh chose.

Last year, Roh announced that he would soon like to hold a confidence vote for him. This incident showed Roh's strategy in a clear way. At that time, the economic crisis was bringing about many complaints and conflicts. When the situation went out of hand, Roh proposed a national referendum for confidence. This was a blackmail. It demanded people to choose between the president himself and the crisis of the nation. Still, it was an irony that such a blackmail would arrive at the destination through the most democratic way, namely, a national referendum. This case unmistakably demonstrates how Roh's "participation" operates.

There is a definite limit to Roh's participation. The process of his neoliberal reforms proves it. His proposal of the "East Asian center" with an ability to attract foreign capitals for the future of South Korea has faced many difficulties. There have been various resistances from people, including the anti-free trade region movement, the strike of the truck laborer's union, the anti-FTA movement, etc. Roh's promise that he will make everyone happy, has brought greater discontents and conflicts in which no one could be satisfied. But Roh has no other choice but to manage the discontents and conflicts before they threaten the governmental system. Roh has put forward the motto, "Toward the era of $20,000 GNI!". Though this is the same rhetoric as the idea of the East Asian center, it has a certain ideological effect. The phrase "$20,000 income" is more straignt forward than "the East Asian center"; it can stimulate people's illusory anticipation for the actual profit. This spreads the idea that we are on the crossroads where we could leap either to a advanced country or to a collapse. Nobody wants the collapse. Reaching the era of $20,000 and living in East Asian center has become the only agreed future of South Korean economy. Anyone who resists or opposes this future has to be oppressed. The oppression of the struggles of South Korean laborers and people in the second half of 2003 was as harsh as that of the military dictatorship in 1980s. Roh's participation applies only to those who agree with the neoliberal reform.

The Anti-democratic essence of the participatory democracy

Who are the participants? Roh's participants are certain stakeholders (a laborer can be an individual stakeholder of a corporation.) Roh's participation applies to a member who meets certain requirements and conditions, or to a shareholder who has certain amount of shares. And the rights gained by participation are always restricted. The "decentralization of the power from the top", which is naturally accompanied by a formal rejection of authoritarianism ("the president who speaks like a common man"), is the way to distribute rights only to those who have done their pre-requisite obligations for the system or to those whose interests overlap with the system's. In order to describe its aim, participatory democracy uses the identical expression "the overcoming of political alienation" as that of people's democracy or democracy of people's political advance and ideal which must assume the form of mass movements. However, it does so in order to paradoxically reduce democracy to "the institution without movements" or "movements inside the system" whose framework is given from the top. It degenerates people's rights into the rewards for carrying out their obligations.

We must point out that this "participation" substitutes "equality" of leftists. The participatory democracy has the populist aspect which reforms (or attacks) the representative democracy when it loses its justification. And, at the same time, it attempts to confirm the debilitation of leftists (after the dismantlement of the cold war) as the failure of radical mass movement itself, as the failure of Marxist idea itself. Thereby the participatory democracy tries to define itself as an ultimate substitute for the leftist politics. Hence, it is an attack against both rightists and leftists. The attack against rightists focuses on removing "the bad old politics"; it seeks both to show off the distinct merits of participatory democracy and to protect the national unification. The attack on the leftists, on the other hand, focuses on robbing them of the historical remains and annihilating any hope for a possible resurrection of combative mass movements and radical ideas. In this battle against right and left, the emphasis on the voluntary individual traits of participants results in the emphasis on the individual ability of the leader. Therefore Roh's participatory democracy switches freely between populism and authoritarian violence.

Economic crisis with no sign of recovery is driving the society into disorganization. The ideological state apparatuses such as family, school and other communities face their crisis. Ideological confrontations becomes deeper concerning the crisis and the  countermeasures for it. The ruling power puts into work the mechanism of subsumption or exclusion based on the "participation" ideology, in order to manage the crisis. The mass seeks "someone else" as a scapegoat in the fear of exclusion. The mass dive deeper into competition to avoid becoming a scapegoat. This kind of politic is not the fundamental solution for the crisis. Instead, it spoils the active movements of the masses into the passive petitions of stakeholder, that is, petitions for the right to participate, to defend minimal profit and not to be excluded. Therefore, the efforts to organize the active movements of the masses and to transform the society cannot go along with Roh. PSSP

Labor Instability and the Task for the Working-class

1. Instability of Labor and the Confrontation of working-class

1) Instability of labor and spreading of poverty

In the past 1997, the Kim Dae Jung government promoted structural reform in the name of globalization, efficiency, rationalization. First, they set the work starting with Cooperation, Public, Labor sector including financial institutions and put the public fund for rationalize and withdrawal. Also they intended to recover the economy with construction boom and credit expansion. Though they pointed out that only hosting the global capital into national market is alternative solution for the depression, the result just came to the effect of economic crises coming from risky and instable financial market.

On the basis of economic crisis, the capitalist and the government made the labor right as a instable one than ever before. By law making of dismissing, the capitalists came to the power of free-selecting the labor in the market under no responsibility. Also the new law of dispatching worker, make them possible to cut down the wage expense. This matter is not only included in corporate expense, also within the matter of breaking down the opportunity of gathering and solidarity for working class under these instable reforms. The internal intension of making such a law is creating a new labor tradition - submissive labor-. These capitalistic new reform brought out massive dismiss of workers, instable status than ever before in the name of competitive, efficient management. In this situation, one part of workers (regular worker) had to be suffered from hard working and instability and the other ones (non-regular worker) had to suffer from low wage and discrimination. By such a result from neoliberal reform, non-regular workers, paltry factories, unemployed has increased at a high speed. Additionally various rights of workers reduced continuously, the general condition of work and living fell into the undeveloped standard.

In the year of 2003, the Roh government attempted to show an alternative plan for Korean economy releasing "Plan for 20 thousands GNP nation", "Development toward for central nation in east Asia". But such plans were just an implement for covering up the contradiction imposed within world globalization, were an unreliable propaganda which can force workers to have a hard time under sweet dream of economic recovery.

The comments "Only growth is path." Or "A job is best welfare" of his speech implies their will to cut down the expense for welfare system.

2) Instability of labor and the confrontation of working class movement.

South Korean working class movements transformed a fighting line against the neo-liberalism and also examined how to improve the labor movement. After IMF crisis, such attempts are exposed in some noteworthy struggles. First, the struggle to a massive dismissal was the one, secondly the other was "5-days working movement", "struggle for the reduction of working hours" which were the main issue for total labor movement for 5 years since IMF. The third is the "impeding the privatization", which has been promoted actively from 1999 when most public services were privatized or sold to overseas capital, also affects now to the "impeding movement the railroad privatization". The forth is "non-regular workers movement". Since 1999, as being flourished to organize the non-regular workers, many people paid attention to them (non-regular workers) as main movement power. Also their movement contains some possibility to transfer or improve into the political struggle toward to the neo-liberalism which has key role to bring out such social problem. But though the outcome of organization of non-regular workers union, the "possibility" has many barriers to realize.

2. The crisis and the prospect of workers' movement

The KCTU(Korean Labor Union Organization) is facing the crisis which was formed with regular-workers mainly in various aspects. Such recognition about "crisis" was stirred from the event when KCTU consulted together with NOSAJUNWI (committee for counsel with government) the matter of massive dismissal. Besides, KCTU tried to minimize the bad effect making "Research for Labor movement progress", but it was in vain. Afterward, the 2nd committee of KCTU leaders even canceled "national strike" and "solidarity movement with electric union's strike", which made increasing understanding about "crisis". Not only in such events we can examine the crisis. Nowadays, most labor unions conclude the wage convention without struggle guided with corporate representatives and even they (union) show the hostility to non-regular workers' struggle or female workers' rights.

When we talk about these problems, we trace its origin into the incompetency of KCTU leaders, but it's just ostensible reason. The real reason lays under the whole incompetency that labor movement cannot bear the alternative strategy toward the neo-liberalism attack. However, the mainstream of movement way, "the conciliatory attitude" is helpless against contemporary situation totally created by neo-liberalism.

Therefore, we have to consider fully again the labor movement. Commonly, KCTU is indicated that they has a limited boundary with male, regular, big plant-emphasized organization, however this limitation is just a part of whole matter. Also we suggest that the labor movement will proceed not only included existing unions, also will be included various movement classes or groups.

(1) Unions should be reformed into organization that can perform social movement. Instability of labor threatens the leaders' representation organized with regular workers mainly. For overcoming the crisis and meeting the situation of Neo-liberalism, they must spread the practice the task "anti-liberalism" not just by a slogan.

(2) Organizing the non-regular workers has a special meaning because that the non-regular-workers, by itself, expose the neo-liberalism's contradictions.

(3) The stream of consciousness has to be changed into more responsible one which can regard the female rights as their duty to accomplish. As the former unions was male-emphasized organizations, they should make effort to overcome this problem. First extracting the androcentric components should be done from all area of activity, then the effort for correcting the components have to be followed. Surely, it can be proposed to establish unique organizations for female members (female committee) which leads such change of stream. Actually, for us, the real condition for reforming is required. That is the communication route between union and social organizations.

Absolutely, the only way to maintain revolutionary pursuit for unions is improving the movement to anti-liberalism ideology. For that, the unions' movement should communicate with social movement permanently.PSSP

The Crisis of Reproduction and the Critique of Financial Globalization

Increasing Female Labor Market Participation

Recently various data and statistics show that women's participation in the labor market is gradually growing. According to Korean National Statistical Office, the economic participation rate of women grew from 36% to 42.8% between 1965 and 1980. It grew by 48.3% in 1995, then reached 49.7% in 2002. The economic participation rate of married women has been growing faster compared to that of unmarried women. In case of married women the economic participation rate increased from 47.6% in 1995 to 49.4% in 2002, while in case of single women it rarely increased from 50.4% to 50.6% in the same period. In addition 77% of women who participate in economic activity are married.

However, these figures on statistics cannot be interpreted as an index to show the improvement of women's position and situation. If it is possible to read the statistics more exactly, we should add the fact that 52.3% of the entire female population in the job market is working on temporary and contingent labor and women form 70.2% of this kind of labor. This situation is related with the strategy of capital to overcome the crisis in two aspects. First, as current tendency of capital movement is to destruct the productive section and to pursue financial expansion and growth, women labor which is the characteristic of □flexible labor□ have drawn in the labor market on a large scale. The number of women who participate in the labor market have tended to increase since 1980s. This tendency is often called □feminization of labor□. At the same time this means that the condition that used to be the character of the women labor have been diffused throughout all the industries. Now, temporary and contingent work is a general form for men as well as women. Second, as the household income has decreased by the reduction of real wages resulting from feminization of labor, i.e. instablization of labor and as the budget concerning social and public service have reduced by restructuring, women have more and more wanted to enter the labor market in order to fill up the household income. After all, the statistics exactly show up the number of women workers who cannot help being driven to the labor market in order to stand the shape increase of household cost and the responsibility shifted on women.

The Survival Strategy based on Family and Women

We note what positions and roles are assigned to women in the capitalist relative production which is characterized by □the division between the production of commodity and the social reproduction of labor population□. The labor market makes good social control of labor by forcing most of workers to make their livings by entirely depending on wages. Capital cannot directly control the reproduction of labor force performed in the sphere which is divided from production. However, the control of reproduction, such as giving a birth, bringing up, is a decisive factor in controlling productive capacity. Thus, capital considers it as the essential object of control women's bodies and emotions which is the basis of caring in the process of giving a birth and bringing up.

Ironically, though more and more women have participated in wage labor, the recognition is that women take the responsibility for caring children and keeping household affaires. It is still women that have the primary responsibility for caring children and other members of family. Women are assigned dual roles to respond to the crisis of capital and the crisis of working class families.

South Korean Working Class Families

In the capitalist production system, the working class population has responded to insecurity of their livelihood through forming □families□. South Korean families have the form of the nuclear family model that originated in the early 20th century with the emergence of corporate capitalism in the US. It was transplanted into South Korea as a semi-peripheral variety. The South Korean society lacks material basis for the nuclear family model, which were the □family wage□ and □welfare system□. Instead, the basis in South Korea was □mass-production without mass-consumption□. Families in South Korea has taken the enormous responsibility of providing basic social welfare services, from raising kids, education, to taking care of the old parents, without any hope of positive reform in the social system itself. In addition, frugality was encourages, and through this the social cost of labor reproduction was minimized. These two aspects provided stronger role that any other social service system. However, the social responsibility for all these family activities was solely on mothers. And it involved the □wise and good mother ideology□ and the Confucianist patriarchism. The South Korean family system gives us the definite key word that helps us to understand the absence of South Korean Welfare System: The South Korean Welfare system has the face of miserable mothers and daughters. And it is also the face of South Korean capital accumulation. At the same time, the average wage for South Korean workers was less than the cost for the labor reproduction for themselves, and therefore women have participated in unofficial economic sectors to add to insufficient family wages.

After the foreign exchange crisis in 1997, the crisis of livelihoods of the working class has been amplified. The family income level became even more unstable due to lay-offs and mass unemployment, and the cost of living increased since the government had destroyed public services. The survival strategy of working class families has been □more members of the family participate into the labor market to raise the income, and increase the unpaid labor in family to decrease the expenses□.

The Vicious Cycle Surrounding Women, and the Crisis of Reproduction

However, The investigation done by □Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs□ (1996) shows the survival strategy like this cannot be a fundamental solution. In the study where the authors tried to understand the impact of women's labor market participation, they found that the average income of double income families was only 10,000 won (about 8 dollars) higher than that of single income families. It is because of the fact that the women in the labor market are located in relatively lower-paid sectors and the incomes of their husbands are small on average. On the other hand, average expenses per month was higher in double income families by 110,000 (about 90 dollars), because they need to purchase the originally unpaid labor of the wife - such as eating out, child-caring, private education expenditure, medical expenses especially for the elderly - from the market. They also have to buy home appliances that would help reducing the time needed for the house shores. Family debt piles up very fast due to the expectation of extra income earned by the wife. Now we can see that the women's participation into the labor market do not realize the strategy to increase family income. We can translate the result as follows: 1) Women usually occupy auxiliary positions in the labor market because of their primary responsibilities in the reproductive labor; 2) because of their marginal positions in the labor market, their incomes also occupy secondary proportion in the family incomes, and therefore their primary responsibilities for the reproductive labor are in turn strengthened.

The family expenditures for the reproduction, for example raising children and taking care of family members, increase by the dismemberment of public services. And they can be cut by the unpaid labor by women in the house. And it forces the position of female workers in the labor market to be quite different that of male workers. Because of the primary responsibility that female workers take at home, they choose part-time positions or the positions in the un-official sectors such as temporary or irregular works, rather than full-time positions, in the labor market. Also, the jobs available for women are those ones that are related to the house shores, which are considered to be unskilled jobs and therefore lower wages for women are justified. The labor market participation like this tends to be "forced" to earn livings rather than was wanted by women themselves. For this reason many women endure horrible working conditions and very low wages. Then women are attracted into various service industries that use their □bodies□- sex industries. Because these women occupies only marginal roles in the labor market, the income they earn is considered to be secondary to the family income. It makes it harder for women in the family to get out of the dependent and secondary role in the family, and strengthen their primary responsibility for the house shores. Therefore, the truth behind the statistical number of increased female participation in the labor market is that the women are exposed to the vicious cycle of extensive labor exploitations both in the labor market and the family. Now women, as the social reproducer of labor power, need to take burdens of unbearable labor pressures, and this could lead to the crisis of the basis for the social reproduction itself.

Financial Captivation of Female Desires

In the neoliberal structural adjustment policies, there are ambivalent strategies towards female population. On one hand, the state and capital try to lay-off women first that occupy the majority of marginal workers therefore putting them into the position of temporary, unofficial, precarious workers. On the other hand, capital tries to recognize women and pull them into the labor market for the "sustainable development". The perception of economic development and gender of international finantial institutions, such as the World Bank, aims to strengthen the double burden of women inside the labor market and families. A recent World Bank Report, 『Genderization of Development』 insists that putting legal, social and economic inequality onto women is harmful to the whole people, and therefore gender equality is the core issue for economic development." Also, it suggest the following as agendas:

- Enhancement of women□s rights

- Increasing women□s access to and control over the resources through guaranteeing women??s independent land ownership and simplification of bank processes

- Shared responsibility for maternal protection in the labor market by employers, the state and employees

- Establishment of infrastructures in using water, fuel and transportations to save time

- Expansion of child-caring services outside homes

- expansion of women□s opportunity of education, wage and labor market participation though development of delivery and family planning services

- Establishment of social protection systems based on the recognition of gender differences

By accomplishing these agendas, it claims that we can provide the equal rights and opportunities for both genders, which cannot be achieved by economic development. However, they expect the effect to be □the solidification of productivity and effective governance of the state and reduction of poverty□. It shows that they consider women as □human capital□ that provides services for the social reproduction of labor, and therefore try to enhance the quality of the services by provision of the right social condition. For example, the report expects that by enhancement in women's educational level, the quality for the child-raring labor will improve accordingly, therefore resulting in the better nutritional status and higher immune capacities of these children. Also extra income earned by these mothers will eventually improve the quality of life and serve as buffer for family crises, due to, for example, economic shocks.

In the meantime, the insurance plans that aims for the compensation for the house labor, or injuries that is caused by it are flooding in the market. Capital□s strategy is to control its own crisis by financial expansion, and it tries to absorb women□s difficulties from double burden as chances for profiteering. The public services are dismantled, and it causes not only the □commodification of services□ but also exploit women□s needs that originate from their responsibilities in both spheres - homes and labor markets. The financial globalization reinforces sexual and labor power exploitation of female working population through its parasitic nature and precariousness of jobs provided.

Need for Re-construction of Reproductive Labor

Women□s unpaid reproductive labor has always been considered as □given□ in capitalist societies. However, as we□ve seen, the responsibility for the reproductive labor itself is destroying the basis to sustain the reproductive system through pushing female working population into miserable lives. This, in turn, amplifies the precariousness of working class livelihoods. Commodification of reproductive labor was supposed to bring more choices, autonomy and independences to women, but instead, it resulted in more complex and contradictory situations for many female workers. States try to decrease welfare expenditures and restrict entitlement criteria. It only demands women to take care of children and the elderly in place of the State services and therefore concentrating these female workers into lower wage precarious job sectors. If the needs originate from the contradictory responsibilities are used as the source for the financial expansion, the minimum basis for family lives would restructured under the name of □efficiency□, therefore pushing these working class families into considerable crises.

We need to understand the crisis of people□s right to live in a more positive way through the lens of the situation these women are in. It implies that we need a fundamental redirection in working class□s strategy to survive in our times. The strategy is not sustainable as long as it is based on the family structure, which assumes that women□s labor power is infinite. Now, women□s struggle to break from their enormous burden from the social relationship of production and reproduction, it should be recognized as a general demand of the whole people. PSSP

The Essence of the Crisis of Korean Peninsula and US Strategy

1. We have to look back on the Korean War in 1950 to understand the conflict between North Korea and US and crisis of Korean peninsula historically. US intervened in the Korean War in the course of building the Cold War system and expanded the Korean War which was like a civil war into international war between two blocs. The result was tragic: the political and military control of US on East Asia was justified and especially nuclear policy of US was maintained in Korean Peninsula.

Supporting South Korea economically to make it the showcase of anticommunist developmentalism, US widened the economic gap between North and South Korea. It promoted the political and military isolation of North Korea. It drove North and South into irreconcilable relationship. Nuclear policy of US was also applied to Korean Peninsula. US intended to be predominant over North Korea politically and diplomatically by nuclear threatening. In the official document US disposed nuclear missile and air force nuclear weapon in South Korea in 1957 for the first time and promoted the modernization of them continuously.

Team Spirit military drills were special issue. It was joint military training between South Korea and US, started in 1976. It treated North Korea as a supposed enemy and assumed the use of nuclear weapon. It is not clear when North Korea started developing the nuclear as a nuclear deterrent. But it is general that North Korea developed the nuclear when the Team Spirit military drills started, when South Korea president Park regime attempted developing the nuclear.

2. In 1990, the issue of "mutual recognition" rose to the surface. Mutual recognition is recognition of two sovereign nations on the peninsula by the adjacent "four major powers(US, USSR, China, Japan)". South Korea normalized ties with China and USSR without condition. But North Korea couldn't be recognized as a nation by US and Japan. So North Korea sought new strategy in the mutual recognition framework. It proposed normalizing ties with Japan positively and resumed the South-North summit talks. It made an effort to improve the relation with US. These efforts peaked in December 1991. "Basic Agreement" (between South and North Korea) was adopted, in which the North and the South officially recognize one another as a sovereign nation and regard the relation as a special relation for the time being in moving toward reunification. Consequently two Koreas agreed to "Joint Statement of Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula" on December 31.

But mutual recognition was ruined because US and Japan - the other sides of mutual recognition - acted passively. The US demanded as prerequisites for improving relations (the usual Solomon 5 including), resolve nuclear issues, improve inter-Korean relations, return bodies of US soldiers, stop terrorism, and added two more - stop exporting ballistic missiles, improve human rights record. It showed that US actually refused to improve relation with North Korea. In result mutual recognition was concluded with diplomatic isolation of North Korea.

A series of events took place in the second half of 1992 including failure to come to terms concerning the inter-Korean nuclear inspection regulation, announcement to re-launch Team Spirit military drills, and claim to conduct special nuclear inspection in North Korea. The US showed very clearly through aggressive measures that it had no intention of meeting North Korea's demands, and North Korea's reactions were no less severe (North Korea withdrew from NPT in 1993). Therefore the tense conflicts on nuclear inspection between US and North Korea appeared on the surface.

3. In 1994 the crisis which lead to North Korea-US military confronting each other seemed to end through signing North Korea-US Geneva Agreement. It included freezing the nuclear facilities in North Korea (in Youngbyun area), building a light-water reactor nuclear power plant and normalizing relation. But they were very incomplete measures because in the "Joint Statement of Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula" the US was not included as a subject, the air tactical nuclear weapon in Guam maintained the protection of US nuclear umbrellas and preemptive nuclear strike option in an emergency was also maintained. US even didn't intend to carry out the incomplete measures. US was not interested in improving the relation with North Korea, but in gradual reduction and complete removal of North Korean weapon. We have to pay attention to the fact that US intended to violate the Geneva agreement on purpose. US and South Korea proposed 4-nation conference - it changed the agenda between US-North Korea into that of 4 nations (US, North Korea, South Korea, China) and US delayed the building a light-water reactor nuclear power plant. In the background of these, there were crisis of energy and food in North Korea in 1990's and the question of collapse or soft landing of North Korea from the death of Kim Il-Sung(ex-president of North Korea).

4. In August, 1998 North Korea succeeded in launching a multi-stage rocket. It brought delicate change to the relation between North Korea and US. North Korea had been expected to collapse, but it 　muddled through.　 And US faced the situation that it couldn't control North Korea's change by the current system. (Neither Geneva Agreement nor international law could control launching a multi-stage rocket. So US planned to blockade the change of North Korea. It was called comprehensive process on North Korea and was showed in the "Perry Process"(Perry was Clinton's North Korea policy coordinator from 1998 to 2000).　It meant that US should promote both "negotiation" and "reinforcement of military strength". It said "negotiation" but it was contradictory measure which premised strengthening military cooperation among South Korea, Japan and US. In short, US only wanted to reduce North Korea's armament through gradual negotiation, maintaining military deterrent on North Korea. "Perry Process"　 seemed to improve relation between North Korea and US with "Joint Communique", but finally it was stopped because US demanded that the removal of missile should be confirmed in North Korea(Clinton's visiting North Korea was canceled).

5. Avoiding responsibility for Geneva Agreement continued to Bush administration. As Bush delayed adjusting the policy on North Korea, he repealed Clinton's policy. US took the "ignorance line" on North Korea, for example US connected its responsibility for Geneva Agreement with South Korea's supplying electric power for North Korea and connected its responsibility in North Korea-US missile negotiation with Japan's liquidating colonial dominance and paying reparation. US demanded that North Korea should reduce even the conventional weapons, and it drove the situation acute.

Now, we have to pay attention to the concept of "New War" emerging after 9.11. In short this is a preemptive strike to protect vital interest from asymmetric threat. As asymmetric threat means that unspecific subjects threat with unspecific means, vital interest of US means protection of the neoliberal financial globalization in the crisis of capitalism. As you know, practical conclusion of this is a preemptive strike or even a preventive war.

In East Asia the neoliberal financial globalization is going on systematically under     conception of economic unification, so this area is very important to US. Military stability is maintained under South Korea-US-Japan triangle alliance. But US can't completely exclude a large scale military conflict because there's no regional military hegemony country. And US wants to control rising China. So East Asia is a point of strategic importance to US. In this point North Korea is a hindrance to US strategy because it doesn't follow US. Therefore US is interested in complete removal of nuclear missile threat in North Korea which can impede the US led stability in East Asia.

Consequently US broke off Geneva Agreement after 9.11 and changed its policy to "hawk engagement". In other words US took a strategy that incite North Korea's "mental decadence" and shake ideological basis. Then US defined North Korea as a "axis of evil" and oppressed it with announcement of "nuclear preemptive strike option". US weakened the political position of North Korea through making the issue of "nuclear" rather than "North Korea-US relation" using the "multilateral oppression system (6-nation conference)". And US raised issues of "the escaped from North Korea" and "human rights in North Korea", a measure that can break down the moral basis of North Korea. US started to examine the change of regime as a goal of the policy toward North Korea (Operation Plan 5030). US increased military opposition and tension in Korean Peninsula to protect its vital interest through strengthening the military measures under the justification of removing the WMD - nuclear and missile.

6. We looked into the cause of Korean Peninsula crisis and the origin of long term opposition between North Korea and US. Now we have to ask a question. Is it a goal of anti-war movement to dissolve the military tension between North Korea and US? Is it an alternative to stay under economic unification, neoliberal financial globalization and US' military umbrella in East Asia? Anti-war movement in Korean Peninsula and East Asia should think these points. Contrary to neoliberalists' promise, neoliberal financial globalization doesn't suppose the highest stage of peace. Because US, as a center of promoting neoliberal financial globalization, accelerates militarization to protect it. Militarization doesn't go to settlement of strife but focuses on protection of private property as a result of financial globalization and trade liberalization. So military strength will be used to get rid of the threatening force completely.

We know that globalization worsen the economic social inequality by increasing insecurity, hence military disorder brought about violence and new wars. If maintaining and managing these situations can be called "armored globalization", we should recognize that "armored globalization" is the strategy of ruling class including US.

Up to now anti-war movement against US militarism and anti-neoliberal globalization movement appeared separately. Ruling class coped with unitive strategy, but we coped separately. Then we should make unitive strategy against "armored globalization". This is why you and me get together here, think and discuss the crisis of Korean Peninsula. Discussion toward international solidarity of anti-war movement can be started at this point.

7. In conclusion, We suggest following :

1) We criticize both US military policy which threaten the peace of East Asia and economic unification of East Asia. Also we oppose the "peace and prosperity policy" of Korean government which promote modernization of war-military strength aiming the removal of enemy completely.

2) Anti-war movements have to struggle for peace-disarmament. We oppose US military bases in Korea and defence budget increase.

3) We oppose deceptive "cooperative self-reliance of national defense" of Korean government. Because it means that Korea cooperates with US militarism and increases armaments.

4) We demand reduction of defence budget and military force, complete denuclearization of Korean Peninsula and total withdrawal of US military in Asia.

5) We call for Asian people's strong solidarity to carry out all of these tasks. Solidarity struggle will be able to abolish Neo-liberal globalization and militarism. PSSP

Political Crisis in Korea in Aftermath of the Impeachment of President Roh Moo-Hyon

Politics in Korea has become highly unpredictable since the Grand National Party (GNP) and the New Millennium Democrat Party (NMDP) impeached the president Roh Moo-Hyun on March 12, 2004. This article aims at explaining why the confrontation between the government party and the opposition parties is getting more intense and how Roh deals with this confrontation. It will also discuss the two important changes that the April general election entailed: first, the government party named Yolinuri Party (YP) succeeded in becoming the majority party in the National Assembly, despite the fact that it lacked any vision for a policy shift; second, the Democratic Labor Party (DLP), obtaining eleven seats, finally entered the National Assembly for the first time in history. These two grand changes definitely raises a question for the popular movements: What direction should they take?

Can neo-liberalism be the alternative to the previous political ideology?

These days neo-liberal economic and social restructuring process goes hand in hand with the changes in the structure of the Korean government. Neo-liberal reformers who call themselves "moderate leftists" have produced their policies according to the plans of transnational capitalists and international financial institutions. They have attempted to give most of the decision power to the Administration. As a result, the National Assembly has been relegated to a secondary position so that differences in the positions of the political parties are practically reduced to none in front of the on-going neo-liberal reform. South Korea has become an "exemplary" case of neo-liberal reform led by a powerful administration. The "successful" neo-liberal reform has resulted in a high unemployment rate and an increased number of casual workers and poor people. Naturally, people's discontent and anger are running through the society. Yet, when it comes to the issue of supporting the neo-liberal reform, all the parties are indistinct. This makes it harder and harder for a political party to mobilize people to its side. What each party can do for elections is to merely defame other parties and to incite people to select "the second to the worst." The hostility between the parties keeps on increasing until politics turns into a dogfight. People are forced to enjoy watching it, while being completely deprived of any means to stop it. Thus neo-liberal reform goes on. This explains what happened in April. As many people became numb to such a dogfight, the political parties was forced to release a much more sensational, though crappy, "soap opera" titled the Impeachment of the Korean president.The GNP and the NMDP, along with the dominant social groups supporting them, failed to provide successful election strategies. They even publicly admitted that the impeachment was another strategy for the general election. The opposition party members intended to make people believe that only Roh's administration was to blame. In order to understand why the opposition parties had to choose such a negative election strategies including the impeachment, it is necessary to understand the way in which Korean right-wings have grown up. Having few supportive groups, the right-wings had to depend on imperialist countries and to identify themselves with strong anti-Communists and pro-U. S. collaborators. They relied upon the strongly centralized and oppressive state apparatus realizing political ideologies such as anti-Communism and developmentalism. It was impossible for them to change Korea's subordination to the U.S.In that sense, the Third World right-wings were quite different from the European right-wings, who were based on a wide range of anti-U.S. groups.In the late 1990s, however, the right-wings' domination over the Korean society began to grow weaker, as people became disillusioned about the old nationalist-developmentalist ideas of economic growth and the anti-Communist ideology in the aftermath of the end of the Cold War. Thus Korean right-wings started to import neo-liberalist ideas as an alternative. Indeed, an impossible alternative because Korea's socio-economic contexts were totally different from those of Europe and U. S. where those ideas were originally engineered.

Not all the right-wings were able to survive by adopting the new ideology. Most of the right-wings had too reactionary an image to become a part of the new dominant group. The U. S. and international financial institutions regarded only a small number of right-wings qualified (Kim Dae-Jung was one of them). From their point of view, they were the only ones who could promote the neo-liberal reform, while effectively disarming other reactionary dominant ruling classes whose interest differed from that of the reform and the economic restructuring.These new right-wings who came out as the advocates of reformism mostly consisted of liberalists. But it did not mean that they were totally against reactionary anti-Communists and pro-U. S. collaborators. They had no ability to maintain a stable governance on their own, because not only did they themselves preserved to some degree the reactionary anti-Communist, pro-U. S. ideas (which was dramatically shown in their decision to dispatch troops to Iraq last year), but also because neo-liberalism itself demanded them to infringe democratic principles extensively. Thus, the neo-liberal reformists had to come up with a new political strategy to disguise themselves as democratic liberalists. To complement their self-contradictory political ideas, they utilized mass media, academics and NGOs; they tried to conceal the fact that their reforms were threatening the lives of common people such as workers, peasants, women and migrant workers. Obviously, neo-liberal reformists' political disguise lived short, and repressive measures against people and their movements returned chronically.

Roh Moo-Hyun rose to fame when the Kim Dae-Jung administration and neo-liberal reformists began to lose control. It should be noted that Roh's populist politics differs both from Kim Dae-Jung's politics and from populism in Latin America. Roh Moo-Hyun has much more wide supports than Kim Dae-Jung did. Roh's populist politics has effectively legitimized the government's neo-liberal reforms. However, Roh's populist politics is not the same as that in Latin America, because it is not based on any social consensus with trade union workers, but only on his public images processed by mass media.

Roh Moo-Hyun took advantage of people's anger toward politicians' corruption. Even though the president himself was responsible for corruption, he emphasized that the opposition party members were much more corruptive than the government party. Roh publicly promised that he would resign if his illegal funds exceeded one tenth of the illegal funds that the opposition parties used. While the political parties' power were weakened by the anti-corruption reforms, Roh's populist politics gained more strength and became able to realize a“neo-liberal despotism". However, it is questionable how long Roh's politics might stay strong.

The government party cannot make a difference

The administration and the government party (YP), however, have no intention to change their economic policy. One of the questions of the survey conducted after the impeachment was turned down by the constitutional court was, "Which takes a priority, economic growth or political reforms?" Obviously, this question is silly, because both economic growth and political reforms are equally important. However, it has a merit of clearly showing that the government party ultimately relies on media populism, while lacking any blueprint for the future.  Economic growth and political reforms are not the government party's concern, but only a part of its political rhetorics.

There is another example. After the general election, the financial administration and the YP conducted a meeting. When the vice prime minister briefly outlined the existing framework for economic policy, the YP representative simply promised that the party would base its activity on the government's policy. Thus the YP representative practically admitted that YP was unable to provide their own ideas and policies. All the political parties, whether the government party or not, no longer have an initiative.

What people's international movement should do?

The executive and the judicial have gained more power than the legislative, because they are more effective in fulfilling social and economic reforms. What will happen next?

More intense than ever will the conflicts be between the government and the workers as well as between the government party and the opposition parties. Roh has attempted to use the opposition parties as scapegoats and blame regular workers for their selfishness, not to support irregular workers, but to avoid his own responsibility.

Hence, it is expected that such intense conflicts will limit the ability of the DLP (Democratic Labor Party) to make a change in the congress. It is obvious that people will not keep supporting the DLP, if the politics of "the second to the worst" continues. There is a good chance that the DLP may face the situation in which it is forced to compromise its principles while negotiating with right-wing parties. What is worse, it has only ten seats at the moment in the congress and thus lacks the ability to negotiate with its competitors.

The only way the progressive party can overcome the current situation is to solidify its relationship with other social movement groups. People's growing support for the DLP was in the first place the outcome of such a solidarity. The DLP's policy and the principles of negotiation should not merely be made out of the theoretical discussions within the party, but rather reflect people's various demands from the outside. The DLP must recognize that its consistent support for people's struggle against neo-liberal reforms is essential to its own congressional activities.PSSP

Publisher

Park Ha-soon

Chief Editor

Kim Ye-nee

Main Writer

Lee Sang-hoon, Jung Ji-Yeong, Lee Jong-hoon, Ho Sung-hee,

Lee So-hyung, Lim Phil-soo

Special thanks to

Choi Won, Yun Yeo-hyeop, Yu Sin-jae, Cho Kye-won,

Jung Hae-joo, Jung Young-sup, Park Se-young

First published in June, 2004.