‘2008촛불항쟁’의 사회경제적 성격과 이후의 대안적 운동 과제

Abstract

The social movement in South Korea has been developed and improved through the radical political change and the socio-political developing process of the overcoming the ideological control and the power oppression. And since 2000, it has achieved the partial political empowerment. However, the progressive social movement comes to be confused in its direction and to lose vitality because of the differentiation and the split within the movement. The ‘2008 Candlelight Resistance’ opened a chance for reflection and at the same time a possibility for a new development. It was a people’s resistance against the arrogant authoritarian rule of Lee Myung Bak government that ignored health right and quarantine right of the people. It was not just a simple resistance, but it experimented a direct agora-democracy and an internet-democracy. And it demanded an advanced socio-economic right and the socio-public realm. Nevertheless, it revealed various limitations, though it showed a great deal of meaning. Therefore, at this point, the social movement has to develop systematically the subjects that were suggested and demanded by the ‘Candlelight Resistance’. The social movement in South Korea has to emphasize the binary opposition in the socio-political structure between the progressive and the conservative to overcome the contradictions accumulated by the Lee Myung Bak government which is turning its direction toward the conservative regression. Thus, we need to build up the base for reserving the procedural democracy and moving to a real democracy. For this, we need to overcome the limitations of the formalistic democracy and to accomplish a progressive people’s livelihood(Minsaeng) democracy by the democratic reform of the social structure. The subject, which has to attain the progressive people’s livelihood(Minsaeng) democracy, is the enlarged progressive social movement power that embraces people’s movement and the radical civil movement. The progressive social movement power has to have a strategic program for a new transformation; without this, the space of the progressive social movement will be shrunken. And it will not be easy to prevent a conservative regression from Korean society. The social movement should expand structurally the progressive people’s livelihood(Minsaeng) politics through the solidarity between the people’s movement and the civic movement. With this expansion, it can keep off the onslaught of the neo-developmental conservative power and can reclaim the Korean people’s trust.