Circles and Squares

Korea Times

December 23, 2018

“Meditations on the word ‘unification’”

Emanuel Pastreich

The debate about North Korea’s future has been reduced to a fight between those on the one hand who favor expanding cooperation with North Korea and thereby increasing investment, business activities, transport networks, electric grids and energy ties, and those on the other hand who feel that North Korea has not completely denuclearized, that it cannot be trusted by the international community because it is run by a totalitarian government that does not embrace democracy, free markets and open borders like advanced nations do. 

This simplistic argument has filled the media over the last year and it has been effective because of the near total collapse of debate among citizens concerning current affairs outside of what the media presents.

Unlike Korea before, there are no groups of dissent or students gathering in cafes in Insadong to discuss forbidden books like there were in the 1970s or 1980s, or regular debates at NGO meetings, or even debates on policy, the environment or the future of the country going on at home over the dinner table, or among friends at school, or even in cafes. The passive reception of information, entertaining and harmless information, via cell phone has become the norm for a passive population. 

If the press describes policy is described as “liberal,” or as “conservative,” that ruling is accepted to be so by much of the population. We have achieved what Princeton professor Sheldon Wolin refers to as “inverted totalitarianism,” a state of politics in which the day to day discourse on issues is profoundly limited by hidden forces like the commercial media or the pressure of advertising, that a totalitarian system is ushered in even though there is no dictator standing at the top of the government to enforce obedience. Rather, corporate forces pushing profit-driven agendas have created an environment in which it is natural to ignore daily the most critical issues of the age. 

We are no longer readers; many of us cannot focus for more than 10 minutes. The corporate media has become the common space for obtaining information and social media just offers pictures of cats and chocolate cakes, and occasional references to pre-digested mush from the corporate media. 

The collapse in discourse on shared concerns in South Korea means that serious questions about the collapse of the local economy, about the overwhelming influence of foreign investment banks, about the catastrophe of climate change and its handmaiden fine dust, and about the dangerous drive for world war undertaken by some in the United States, are now taboo topics in the media. 

That limited domestic debate has profound implications on how the developing relations with North Korea are perceived, what exactly unification will mean, and how they will be carried out. For example, the media presented us glowing images of President Moon Jae-in and Chairman Kim Jung-eun embracing, related stories of the historical cooperation between the military on both sides in removing weapons from the sides of the DMZ, and presented scenes in which clean buildings in Pyongyang are shown in a positive light.

All that content was positive. But implied in the narrative was that North Koreans who have lived in a closed feudalistic state-socialist state, cut off from the world, will now be allowed to enjoy the pleasures of a consumer society and to live it up in the manner that their much more fortunate southern brothers and sisters have been doing. 

But South Korea is no paradise. The tremendous social, cultural and economic forces in the South, most prominently the deep alienation of much of its population that has resulted in a high suicide rate, the self-abuse and abuse of others in daily life, a rapacious employment system wherein young people, if they find work at all, are tracked for jobs at coffee shops or convenience stores that offer them no chance to serve society, to gain advanced training or to or make real decisions. Every aspect of life has become a for-profit commercial show and the people are exhausted. 

Moreover, the entire ideology of the “democracy and market economy” that South Korea and the United States will supposedly present to North Korea as a means of saving that country from poverty and isolation is collapsing around the world. In the United States, Japan, South Korea and in Europe, the modified capitalism that evolved in response to the challenge of socialism in the 1930s and 1940s has reverted to its more dangerous predatory form ― looking more like the 1890s than the 1990s. We need only look at the strife in France to get a taste of what awaits us in Korea, and elsewhere when the contradictions grow more pronounced. 

Today markets play a minor role in these so-called “advanced economies.” The super rich dominate economic activities, and have established a financial feudalism wherein those members of the elite can borrow as much money as they want and invest it as they wish but the vast majority of citizens are only allowed extremely limited high-interest loans. The process by which private banks and other funds created this nightmare world is left out of most media and the true decision makers behind policy decisions are obscured. 

At the very moment that the newspapers speak of the great market economy that is going to be introduced into North Korea, that beast is a dying species in South Korea, in France or in the United States. As described in Peter Phillip’s carefully researched book “Giants: The Global Power Elite,” the super rich and their enablers now form a mutual protection society within which they buy each other’s’ stock, and lend each other money at low rates. Ordinary people, on the other hand, are expected to complete ruthlessly for a dwindling number of poorly paid jobs. This exploitative system is the product of the “fourth industrial revolution,” we are told, by which (dictated by God and not by global institutional investors) technology demands a massive degrading of workers’ status. 

So what are the issues that are swept under the rug by the media during the headlong rush to embrace North Korea and launch a new age of cooperation? First and foremost, we are not learning any of the dirty deals of who will finance what, and why, and who will make what profits. 

If a train is going to be run from North Korea to South Korea, if oil or natural gas is going to be piped through North Korea to South Korea, we need to know. Who owns the pipes? Who owns the oil? How will it be sold and how will the profits be divided up? If the pipe is being paid for with taxpayers’ money, will taxpayers get part of the returns? 

We literally know nothing about what contracts are being discussed by corporations, or about what agreements the government is negotiating with North Korea. Demands for transparency are especially critical at this moment because a move from a state-owned system in which a mine or a factory belongs to the government to a capital-driven system in which a single corporation, or even an individual could have absolute control over such resources, could be catastrophic. It will create even greater poverty, an even greater concentration of wealth in the North and the South. 

It would be good to know which multinational banks and sovereign wealth funds might invest in North Korea and under what conditions? What protection will North Koreans, or South Koreans, have if the investors do not hold to their agreements? Are the contracts that have been signed (or will be signed) going to be made public? 

If there are plans to build factories in North Korea, we should be asking: Who will finance those factories? Where will the profits go? Who will own them? What rights will the workers be granted and what share of profits will they get? What steps are being taken to protect the health of the workers, or to assess the impact of the factories on the environment?

North Koreans do not have the expertise to assess the environmental impact of mining for coal, gold, iron and rare minerals, so experts and NGOs must be involved in assessing the process. Currently they are not being granted visas to visit North Korea at all. 

But then again, South Koreans, Japanese, Chinese and Americans did not care all that much about what has been done in Vietnam or Myanmar that may have been similar to what may happen in North Korea. We did not ask ourselves what the impact of the private exploitation of nationalized property in Vietnam meant for ordinary Vietnamese. So far we are told that Vietnam is thriving, but is that an accurate picture, and was industrialization positive for the environment or for ordinary workers? 

As a general rule, we do not discuss, or even think about, the damage to the environment, or the injury to workers, or other long-time costs that lie behind the cheap clothes we buy and throw away, the cheap plastic items we consume, the cheap smart phones and speakers and sunglasses that we think nothing of tossing in the garbage. To put it bluntly, our consumer society has blinded us to the true cost of things. This is a serious problem in the age of unification. 

North Korea will bring that reality back to us. Building 20 or 30 thirty coal-powered power plants in North Korea will be not only catastrophic for the ecosystem, and contribute to global warming, it will make the already dangerous air in Seoul even more lethal to people’s health. If pollution from factories is subject to little regulation in North Korea in the pursuit of profit, not only with South Korea get the pollution, South Korean factories will no doubt follow the precedent set in North Korea.

We must remember that poor wages and poor environmental protection in North Korea will be quickly imported into South Korea, which already is suffering from increasingly poor air quality.

If North Korean laborers have no rights and cannot organize, South Korean companies are likely to follow that model and exploit South Korean workers. To put it another way, we are being sold a myth that North Korea will open up and become freer, happier and wealthier like South Korea. But the truth is that South Koreans themselves are less and less free and less and less happy and wealthy following the current developmental model. 

Or could it be that the plan being put together by investment banks and corporations for North Korean economic development is not about helping North Korean people at all. Perhaps they are planning for North Korea much as they would plan for Mongolia or Vietnam. There is no concern for people beyond profitability.

The concentration of wealth is the most important issue after climate change that we need to consider when we address the challenge of unification. The concentration of wealth in the hands of the few is increasing globally, and particularly it is increasing in South Korea and in China. That process damages the rule of law and creates a culture in which ordinary citizens are compelled by a twisted culture to admire the indulgence and the waste and extravagance of the super rich because a corrupt media bombards them with such images.

The mainstream media narrative is that North Koreans are poor and that the big economic gap will be between South and North. In standard economic terms, this situation is an undeniable fact. 

Yet we already know that some North Koreans find the selfishness, the competitiveness and the lack of concern for others in daily life in South Korea to be so unbearable that they have wanted to go back. Many South Koreans who visit North Korea are deeply touched by the lack of commercialization, the lack of a competitive culture and the value given to art, gymnastics and writing as an end in itself. 

There is a bigger issue. If wealth is increasing concentrated in the hands of the few, as the trends described in Thomas Piketty’s book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” suggest, then it is likely that the true divide in Korea will not be between the poor and malnourished North Koreans and their prosperous and healthy South Koreans, but rather between ordinary Koreans in the North and South who are increasingly poor, and a tiny handful of the super rich. 

I am not trying to deny the existence of tremendous gaps between the North and South today, but rather to suggest that the economic distortions caused by the concentration of wealth are even greater. 

Such trends suggest that we need to address an extremely different set of problems on the Korean Peninsula and that there is not a chance in hell that we will reproduce the “Miracle of the Han River” in Pyongyang under the current circumstances. Social and economic justice will be a bigger issue than material progress in the years ahead.

The unification task must involve a meaningful response to negative impact on ordinary people of an economic system that subsidizes the cheap transport of goods through trade routes around the world and undermines the local economies, an economy in which cheap finance is available only to large corporations. 

The result for South Korea of the decay of an open economy has been the collapse of local stores, local factories, local pharmacies, local bakeries and the growth of Starbucks, convenience stores, chain bakeries and other businesses funded by large corporations that can take massive losses for years because of the low-cost finance they receive, and thereby eliminate family-run businesses. 

Working in these chain businesses means the employees are not guaranteed long-term employment or adequate retirement and health benefits. They have no role in decision-making over administration and finance, and they do not get any ownership of the branch in which they work.

This is a tremendous setback from the family-owned stores that were once so common, but are increasingly being driven into bankruptcy. If this is the economics that we are planning to introduce to the North, it should say no while it still can. After all, the primary issue for North Korea is where it will be in 20 or 50y years, not what thrills its citizens can get today from the introduction of video games or K Pop idols.

What is “unification?”
Central to the confusion concerning the ultimate meaning of unification is the vague and misleading comparisons made to the unification of Germany in 1990. This fairytale comparison is popular when talking with foreigners over soju late at night and it always follows the same plot: East Germany was hopelessly behind West Germany economically and unification improved the lives of people in East Germany and it made Germany a more prosperous and powerful nation. Korea can also derive such benefits, but because the gap in income and in industrial development between East and West Germany was not as great at that between North and South Korea, Korean unification should therefore proceed more slowly.

The gap in income and development between North and South is cited as a justification of the exploitation of low-paid North Koreans by South Korean and international firms as part of the long process of unification. But if North Koreans are poorly paid, and if they are not allowed to accumulate specialized skills, or save money, that process is more likely to result in a decline in living standards for all Koreans than it is to make North Koreans wealthier. Encouraging North Koreans to waste their tiny incomes on fast food and cell phones will make things worse for them.

And how exactly did South Korea come to enjoy the relative economic prosperity that it has had the last few decades? That process is obscured by the term “miracle” as in “miracle of the Han River.” It was many contradictory things but it was not a miracle.

Economic growth was in part a result of the plans for rapid industrialization undertaken under President Park Chung-hee. Looking back, that rapid industrialization that left South Korea so dependent on fossil fuel and on imported agricultural products seems less of a blessing now, but we must admit that the policy was effective.

President Park effectively employed the Manchurian development model to speed development and compel all citizens to participate in the national project as if they were all part of an enormous military.

But the key to rapid industrialization was the manner in which the government took the control of capital away from foreign banks, and away from big business, and put it firmly under the control of government bureaucrats who were committed ideologically to a long-term developmental model. Park ruthlessly restricted Koreans’ ability to send their money outside Korea, and he compelled them to place their savings (and saving was encouraged by state-sponsored campaigns) in government-administrated savings plans that financed development.

He also made sure the government controlled the flow of capital into South Korea so it could be focused on growing industries and technologies, on building infrastructure and education. It could not be used for short-term speculative purposes such as is being planned for North Korea now. 

There were positives and negatives to Park’s approach. What we can say for sure is that South Korea’s government and business community are not considering such a model for the development of North Korea. There has been literally no mention of how the education level of North Koreans will be increased through long-term projects, or how civil society will be developed, or green zones established. The need to cultivate a new generation of North Korean intellectuals is not even mentioned. Perhaps this is true in part because intellectuals have become so disposable in South Korea. 

The fact that conglomerates are involved in discussing North Korea’s development at all is a major conflict of interest. After all, those business interests are by their very nature focused on short-term profits and have no role to play in planning for North Korea’s future. It would be entirely appropriate to limit the discussion about North Korea’s development to government officials and specialists with no conflict of interest and a commitment to ethical governance. 

Let us turn back to the Germany’s unification in 1990. This took place a long time ago, in a distant universe. At that time, the economic system and industrial production in Western Europe supported a far broader distribution of wealth and unions and government regulation made the exploitation of citizens (at home and abroad) that we see today virtually impossible. The check on the economy enforced by the communist bloc meant the concentration of wealth did not become as radical as it has become today. 

What was ballyhooed as the triumph of capitalism in 1990 was rather the sign of the relative strength of a strong social welfare state compared with bureaucratic socialism. But that welfare state would never have developed in Germany (or in France and Scandinavia) without the constant pressure and critique from those committed to a radical or revolutionary socialist agenda. That is to say that the capitalism that won the day in 1990 was a modified and watered-down capitalism. The absence of the challenge from the communist bloc meant that it would degenerate back into its original lethal form over the next 30 years. 

That nightmare world of concentrated capital that pushes an empty consumer culture on citizens cannot be separated from the onset of radical climate change. Unfortunately, when the media mentions climate change at all, it is suggested to be something many years in the future, even though scientific experts suggest that we have very little time left. 

The response to climate change must be at the center of unification policy; and yet government officials and businessmen blithely assume that North Korea has a few dirty decades to develop without any concern for the environment. Such language is a dangerous fraud, but it is no worse than encouraging the use of coal in South Korea, or in Southeast Asia. 

Another myth is that the divided Korean Peninsula, and specifically North Korea, is the last remnant of the Cold War. But is North Korea the last remnant of the old socialist system that lingers on in a new order powered by the freedom of open markets, the open exchange of ideas, and the realization of one’s own potential through a democratic process? Those fighting in the streets of Paris against the government in France today certainly do not see the world that way.

Those who struggle against the massive agribusinesses that are destroying our natural environment and that are driving traditional farmers into destitution do not see such a paradise in the Western world. Of course it is true that North Korea has walked along the wrong path for too long, mired in corruption and its citizens subject to oppression. But we can be certain that the solution to this will not come from ruthless multinational banks that push policy through think tanks and on to governments. 

Consider the most powerful symbol of the tragic division of the Korean nation: the 
Demilitarized Zone, or DMZ.

For the older generation, the DMZ represents the tragic division between the socialist and capitalist worlds, between state control of the economy and democratic and free societies.

For them the DMZ is a monument to the personal suffering and the divisions of the past that have already been overcome in Europe and elsewhere. The DMZ lingers on, strangely, in an age in which borders are melting away in the age of the internet, of free trade and tourism and the remarkable integration of the world by free trade over the last 30 years.

That is a powerful way of describing the DMZ. But might there be other ways of looking at that wall?

If you asked someone from a younger generation, the answer might be that this DMZ is not a remnant from the past, but rather a harbinger of something that is coming ― the restriction of the movement of ordinary people at a time that capital, products and the superrich are free to go wherever they want, wherever there is a profit to be made.

We see the offspring of the DMZ in the walls put up around Gaza in Palestine and in the massive wall that Donald Trump is erecting between the United States and Mexico. These walls block out poor people, and they resolve the economic conflicts created by global investment, through the use of force 

There are also walls going up right around us, the walls that surround the gated communities where the rich live, walls that make sure that those who enjoy a comfortable life can avoid running into people who are not their equals. Those walls suggest a radical fragmentation within our society, whether in Korea or elsewhere, into small groups that share narrow interests. 

The hidden precedents for unification policy
As we dive deeper into the unification project, we need to consider what exactly might be the model for unification that lurks in the subconscious of the South Koreans in government and in business who are making the plans. Of course, they may talk about German unification, but that process is quite distant from the history of the Korean Peninsula and from their instinctual responses. 

The economic, political and social unification of Korea has happened before. There were the previous unifications of the peninsula under the Silla Dynasty or the Goryeo Dynasty, but those precedents for unification are too far in the past to have an immediate impact on how Koreans respond. 

But what is it that is hidden beneath the surface of the Korean consciousness, just out of reach, but that deeply formed how Koreans think about economic development and about what unification might mean? 

The more recent precedent for a massive economic and political unification project can be found rather in the 1936 “First Agreement for Cooperation between Manchuria and Korea (dai ichiji mancho kyotei 第一次?朝協定) issued by the Japanese governor of Korea. This agreement set in motion the “Manchuria and Korea as one” (?朝一如) vision for the rapid industrialization of both regions and their effective economic and cultural unification.

Korean newspapers in the late 1930s were full of reports about how Manchuria offered a tremendous opportunity for Korean businesses to take advantage of cheap Manchurian labor, and to exploit the natural resources of Manchuria (coal, minerals and rich soil) to make a quick fortune.

When former President Park Geun-hye spoke of a “bonanza” (daebak대박) to be found in unification with North Korea back in 2014, the term she employed seemed a bit odd. But in fact, it was literally a modern translation of the expression popular in Korea in the 1930s to describe the economic opportunities offered by Manchuria to “snatch up a thousand pieces of gold” (일확천금 一攫千金). 

President Park probably was not thinking specifically about economic and political integration between Korea and Manchuria in the 1930s when she made that comment. But that process was the source of many Korean family fortunes that continue to the present day. A subtle resonance was most certainly audible. The concept was perhaps imbedded in her subconscious. 

After all, her father, the former President Park Chung-hee, learned about politics and economics, and found his path to power as an ambitious young man who ran off to Manchuria to take advantage of that economic boom. Just as many Americans were drawn by the siren call of “Go West!” in the 19th century, so were Koreans drawn to Manchuria’s open skies in the 1930s. 

The parallels between how North Korea’s development is explained to South Koreans today and how Manchuria’s development was sold to Koreans in the 1930s are disturbing. 

But we do not have to follow that tragic path this time. We have the ability to find our own way and to create new models for the development of the Korean Peninsula and of the region that do not depend on exploitation or massive capital investment. 

Unification must be a citizens’ movement. It must be an exchange between people that allows them to realize their full potential without any concern for the returns given to venture capitalists. Unification should be a cultural movement that revitalizes culture and expression so citizens can express a vision and then realize it. It should be a youth movement that allows youth from across the peninsula to join forces and to create a society in which they are empowered.

Unification should be a peace movement that seeks to direct attention towards social issues, environmental issues and other concerns that are shared by all, and away from militarism and great power competition. 

Let them eat Macron!

中央日報

「スマートフォンのない韓国」

2018年　12月　7日

エマニュエル・パストリッチ

スマートフォンがない韓国を想像してみようという提案をするたびに、韓国人は何の荒唐無稽な話かというような表情を浮かべて私にその理由を尋ねる。彼らは私がメガネや網膜に情報を投射したり電子チップで頭脳に情報を直接伝達したりして、スマートフォンを使わなくてもいい、さらに先端化された「スマート都市」を思い浮かべながらそのような提案をしたのだと考えたりもする。だが、私が提案する「スマートフォンない韓国」の意味は字そのままだ。今のようなスマートフォンの使用はなくすか、必ず変化するべきだ。

  地下鉄に乗るたびにほぼすべての人々がスマートフォンに夢中になっている光景を目にする。韓国人は周辺の人と「絶縁」した状態にいたいようだ。ゲームに没頭したりチョコレートケーキや流行服が登場する写真を慣れた手付きでスワイプしていく。動画を見る人も多い。我々の時代の深刻な問題を扱った本を読む人を見つけるのは難しい。

  彼らは韓国が気候変動危機や米国・ロシア・中国間の核兵器競争や核戦争の危険に対応する方法について関心を示さない。多くのマスコミの報道はエンターテインメントコンテンツ同様に扱われたり過度に単純化されたりしている。最近、国会に係留中である法案の内容は言うまでもなく、現在の複雑な地政学的問題を知ろうとする努力もなかなかしない。

  韓国の大気環境を一例としてみてみよう。私は韓国人が自分たちと密接に関連したこの問題の原因を糾明できない姿を見ながら衝撃と苦痛を感じる。さらに高等教育を受けた人さえ韓国と中国の粒子状物質の排出に対する正確な原因を知らなかったり、韓国と中国の産業規制緩和に対して消費者として何をするべきか慎重に考えないようだ。言い換えれば社会的現象があたかもフェイスブックに投稿される「散文」のように個別要素に分解され、複雑な現象を分析する能力が頭の中で形成されていないように感じる。

  スマートフォンが韓国人の頭脳と社会を掌握して不吉な方向に進み続けるなら、韓国には共同体の目標に対する献身的人生と政治的認識は衰退して消えてしまうだろう。その兆候はすでに現れている。衝動的で不確かな応答を奨励するソーシャルメディアの拡散と同時に、スマートフォンがこの悲劇で重要な役割を果たしていることが恐ろしい。

スマートフォンが未来社会に及ぼす役割に対する分析はさまざまだ。多くの専門家がスマートフォンが我々の人生をより便利にし、無限の情報に接することを可能にするという。我々が必要とするものごとにうまく対応できるようにし、人生をより過ごしやすくするということだ。スマートフォンは民主主義の拡張にも寄与する。２０１０年アラブ圏で起きた「ジャスミン革命」はスマートフォンが大衆にプレゼントした「情報の民主化」が触発したとみることができる。最近、韓国で起きた「ろうそく革命」も同じような流れの一つだ。

  しかし核心は「情報の量」ではなく「情報の質」だ。スマートフォンを通じて拡散する情報が質的に果たして優れていると考えることはできるか。現在、韓国の既成世代はスマートフォンがなくてもかつて大学内で民主主義の花を咲かせた青年たちだ。彼らはもしかしたらスマートフォンが与える情報を批判的に使える最後の世代になるかもしれない。政府の無能を明らかにする「スマートろうそく」は未来には期待できないかもしれない。

  雑誌『ハーバード・ビジネス・レビュー』の編集長だったニコラス・カーの著書『ネット・バカ』は、インターネットとスマートフォンが我々の脳を再プログラミングして神経系の素早い反応を煽るが、思索と深い思考を難しくさせるパターンに脳が慣れるようにするという科学的証拠を提示している。『ネット・バカ』は社会の差し迫った危機を把握したり解決策を提示したりすることはできない市民だ。彼らが主流になって社会を動かすことになれば、韓国はますます悪夢の世界に陥ることになるだろう。我々は果汁があふれる花から花へと飛び回る蝶のように、一つの刺激的な話から次の話に流れる日常を生きている。

  我々は何かが間違っていて正確な問題が何で、それが我々の行動とどのように関連があり、どのようにこれを解決するのかに対する計画を持たずに、ただ漠然とした意識を持ったまま、「読む」ことから遠ざかっている。このため、我々の世の中の認識方法を変えることができる特定技術が民主的過程にいかなる影響を及ぼすか追求し、その分析によってその技術拡散問題をどのように統制するべきかも考えてみなければならない。民主主義は、複雑な社会・経済・政治的な変化を理解する能力すら持たずに、ソーシャルメディアで最新の流行商品を選ぶように行われる投票では発展していくことはできない。

On December 4, the Governance Department of the Office of the Director General, invited Professor Emanuel Pastreich, President of the Asia Institute as a speaker for a Green Bag Seminar at the GGGI Seoul headquarters.

During the Seminar, Professor Pastreich talked about North Korea’s potential as both the threat and opportunity in dealing with the adverse effects of climate change. He also discussed the resolution of tension in Northeast Asia through a complete redefinition of the concept of “security” that draws on highlighting the threat of climate change to the region. Specifically, he raised a question to ponder about how the future development of North Korea should be focused so that it sets a model for collaboration as a response to climate change and gives future debate on security a new relevancy.

Furthermore, he underscored the importance of China-Japan-Korea (CJK) cooperation in global issues such as climate change through a joint effort by the three governments. He noted that GGGI also has been playing a facilitating role in the CJK initiative with the progress with its relationship with Japan. He believes that intergovernmental organizations like GGGI have a key role to play in tackling global climate change such as climate change.

The Seminar was attended by colleagues at the Seoul HQ and country offices.

Link