‘박정희 체제’의 경제적 성과에 관한 비판적 평가

Abstract

Recently, as the ruling party politicians began to talk about liquidation of our disgraceful past and Park’s daughter, Keun-Hae Park, became leader of the opposi- tion party, Grand National Party, the reappraisal of the Park regime has been an urgent topic. Moreover, as the Korean economy has recently shown slow growth, the Chaebols, the ruling classes and some respectable scholars have been praising the Park Jung Hee regime in order to force the sacrifices of the working class in the face of severe international competition. In this article we introduce and criticise various perspectives on interpreting the Park regime’s economic achievements, and present an alternative view from class power relations. We critisised ‘autonomous national economy perspective’, ‘developmental state perspective’, and ‘developmental dictatorship perspective’ which is an institutionalist revision of the developmental state perspective. The developmental dictatorship per- spective seeks the primary elements for the Park regime’s economic success in specific forms of institutions(e.g. industrial policies, the State-market-institutions connections, selective external liberalisations), and seeks its secondary elements in Chaebols system and workers’ voluntary devotion. The above perspectives don’t pay much attention to the fact that the Park regime is an historical form of capitalist development which relies heavily on the well established capital-labour relations. Our alternative view is ‘class power relations perspective.’ In reappraising the Park regime, firstly we studied the historical formation of class power relations favorable to rapid accumulation of capital under the Park regime. Secondly, we examinedactive roles by U.S. Government and North-South division in shaping capital-labour rela- tions and development strategies in South Korea. Thirdly, we argued that the Park regime’s developmental dictatorship was an historically concrete form of class strug- gle, so that it had to collapse amidst explosive class struggle in 1979 and 1987. In assessing the economic achievements of the Park regime, we emphasised the followings: the Korean War with farm-land reform dissolved feudalistic estates sys-tem by getting rid of landlord class and played the role of bourgeois revolution normally required in transition from feudalism to capitalism labour movement was partially reactivated by 4.19 students’ revolution in 1960, but it was crushed by 5.16 military coup in 1961 led by Park Jung Heethe combination of development and dictatorship was partly due to U.S. Government policy to make South Korean development a show-window case for capitalist development in competition with so- cialist camp and partly due to the military Park regime’s anxiousness to consolidate its legitimacy by means of rapid economic growth. Due to the direct confrontation with North Korea the maintenance and expansion of stable capitalist class relations in South Korea required a long-term economic growth. Thus, the economic development plans in 1960s could be regarded as a kind of class struggle from above. The success in recording high economic growth depended more heavily on introduction of foreign capital deriving from Korea-Japan diplomatic normalisation and from dispatch of Korean soldiers to Vietnam than the policy change from import-substitution to export-orientation. But without capi- tal-dominant class relations the inward foreign capital could not create high economic growth. Just after the coup Park regime promulgated anti-communism as its national policy number one, and crushed workers’ struggle for living and students’ North-South unification movement. Labour policy of Park regime in 1960s was more repressive than in 1950s. Formation of Chaebols was an inevitable byproduct of rapid capitalist development being regarded as a means of class struggle from above. Rhee Seung Man and Park regimes assisted in forming Chaebols by cheaply selling Japanese properties to Chaebols after Japanese surrender, allocating American aid materials and aid dollars heavily to Chaebols, and entrusting main investment sectors to Chaebols with Government guarantee in borrowing foreign capital. Park regime succeeded in achieving high economic growth with export-oriented industrialisation in the field of light industries such as textiles, wig and plywood in 1960s. Workers suffered heavily from low level of wages and long hours of work- ing under dirty and jammed conditions. This cruel situation agitated workers’ struggle. In particular, Chun Tae-il’s self-immolation by fire on the 13th of November 1970 in protest against excessive exploitation of textile workers at Seoul Peace Market played the role of an initial explosive to labour and student movements. Subsequent large-scale demonstrations against exploitation and dictator- ship by workers, students, intellectuals and religious persons began to influence the capital-dominant class relations. But Park regime counteracted the class struggle from below by more repressive and reactionary yushin system in which Park could keep presidency as long as he liked. Yushin system proclaimed in October 1972 denied workers’ right to combine. This denial was completely consonant with the denial of people’s right to choose President and Members of Parliament in politics. Thus, struggles for democracy and for the right to live went together. A sit-down strike by 170 female workers of the YH Trading Co. in August 1979, the resignation of all members of parliament of the Opposition Party (New Democratic Party) and big street demonstrations by students and citizens in Busan and Masan in October 1979 aroused an internal discord in the Blue House, so that Park Jung Hee was killed by his CIA boss on the 26th of October 1979. The yushin system was ended by typical dynamics of class struggle. However, the class struggle from above by the rulingclasses in confrontation with explosive struggle for the right to live by workers and struggle for full-scale democracy by students and intellectuals took the form of another military coup led by Chun Doo Whan and assisted by U.S. forces. The old developmental dictatorship by Park re- gime could be handed down to a more repressive Chun regime which had to crush Kwangjoo people’s up-rising by killing many people in May 1980. Struggles for democracy and the right to live had continued and reached at a climax in June 1987 when the developmental dictatorship was completely destroyed.