신자유주의 지구화 시대의 정치'와 신보수정권:'신보수정권' 시대 개막의 의미, 전망, 과제

Abstract

This paper starts with definition of the new Korean administration led by Lee Myung-Bak as the neo-conservative gov’t, which can be differentiated from the ‘old’ conservative one, and ends with suggestion of the new tasks given newly to the progressive. This new conservative is different from the so-called ‘neo-con’ in the current Bush administration in the U. S. and closer to Thatcher gov’t in the early 1980s which replaced the Labor Party period in the ‘long’ 1960s and 1970s in the U. K. The new conservative gov’t signifies the emergence of ‘the new developmental alliance,’ in which diverse kinds of social and political forces came together and peoples from different classes and strata found their different hopes in commong in the new development vision suggested by the new conservative candidate. In terms of the character of the state, the new gov’t will become the ‘neoliberal competition state’, which brings to the front the general neoliberal policies symbolized as de-regulation, small government, expansion of the competition logic to wider areas of society, flexibilization of the labor market, privatization of the public companies and so on, which aims to try to give more autonomous space for the capital and the market and enforcing more pro-capital or market-friendly policies. The victory of the new conservative candidate in the presidential election was made possible by providing and making a new image and contents of the conservative forces to the lay people, which means to me a kind of evolution of the conservative. This evolution of the conservative in turn necessitates the evolution of the progressive in Korean contexts. Here the author suggested the importance of strengthening the so-called ‘fundamental’ of the progressive forces, political and social. In order to strengthen the progressive in the political area, the development of the new alternative discourse and policy frame to be able to counter the new conservative ones. Around this task, two options will compete, the radical innovation of the liberal political forces and popular innovation of the radical political forces such as the Democratic Labor Party. In addition, in order to strengthen the ‘social’ ‘fundamental’ of the progressive, a kind of radicalization of the ordinar people to accept the new alternative policies should be realized, which will make it possible to form a new equality-oriented alliance to counter the new developmental alliance. The task of strengthening social fundamental of the progressive implies that of local and grassroots’ base of the progressive movement. In addition, in order to get the new equality-oriented alliance popular, the struggle against new policies to make for deterioration of the livelihood of the ordinary people should be expanded in the name of defending the (social) publicity. Finally the author argued that the emergence of the new conservative gov’t raises a new task of how to form and popularize the new complex equality-oriented alliance to counter the new developmental alliance.