About democracy of South Korea

About democracy of South Korea




In South Korea, the value of democracy (民主主義) has dominated social and political agendas (even economic agendas in recent years) since the late 1980s.
In the ancient East Asian political perceptions, 主 is a relative concept to 從 or 客.
In the Confucian traditions, kings and ruling classes had used concepts such as 民本主義 to justify their political power.  
In Korean history, as Joseon dynasty showed, such rhetorical propaganda worked well. 
As a result, the paternalistic dictatorship and vertical human relationship could be maintained for handreds of years, and their influences are still obvious in South Koreans' minds today in many social areas, such as jobs and education.
I think that not only Koreans but also humans in general are very weak to such rhetorical attempts to incapacitate them.
In western history, not only many ancient Greek philosophers feared the danger of democracy of their own society, but also many 19th century intellects, especially in Britain, were critical of the French democratic trends, which resulted in the political turmoils of the time.

Then (if democracy is more than a rhetorical concept), what is the essence of democracy?
Indeed, it is the majority rule.
Every other element, such as general voting systems and parliaments, is just a hardware that facilitates the essence.
Theoretically, except for absolute monarchy based on legally privileged classes, every country can style itself as democratic in one way or another.
Even dictatorship can profess itself as democracy as long as the dictator believes that his power comes from (a majority of) people. 

However, the value of democracy is a conditional goal, not an ultimate goal, unlike many South Koreans' beliefs. 
Democracy is meaningful only when classical liberalism is secured in society.*
Indeed, in the case of British history, democracy was adopted not as an absolute political rule but as a tool merely to check the classical liberalism in social and political systems of the 19th century.

Battles for political power in party politics of modern democracy are symbolised as elections for seats in the parliament.
Can the battle for a majority of seats in parliaments automatically lead to prosperous and moral society?
It cannot, as we can see in many poor countries.
Not only in poor countries but also in any democratic society, demagoguery and populism are almost inevitable phenomena in such battles.
In fact, one cannot even judge whose opinion is demagogue or populism, because such judgment is naturally influenced by one's own social view.
From the perspective of one party, the other party is naturally depicted as bad.
No humans can judge their opponent in a fair way.
Humans inherently have fundamental flaws.

Most of all, human nature, especially the tendencies to be lazy and selfish, is critically important in understanding politics and economy.
Lazy and selfish tendencies are rather neutral features of any creatures on earth.
It is because every organic creature has a limited span of life and a limited amount of resources to survive in their environment.
Therefore, the best strategy for survival in the natural environment is to seek maximum results with minimum efforts (which mean spending minimum amounts of time and energy for equal results when given two different choices).
This human nature explains why socialist institutions end up in unproductive and immoral states because when each of us are forced to produce equal results to each other, then it is beneficial for you to spend a less amount of your energy than that of others'.
People in such institutions become naturally more reliant on others for their living, and the institution itself becomes highly irresponsible for its own members.
This is why socialist institutions and socialist countries become highly corrupt and their economy is highly inefficient.


Classical liberalism in western history is represented by 'civil right' (民權) based on individualism.** 
It is the civil right concept, not democracy (whether 民主主義 or 民本主義), that is lacking in Korean history. 
As western history shows, the civil right concept incorporated defective human nature as a basis of society.
In a sense, the civil right concept is the tool that was developed to stop defective humans from harming one another.

In this respect, the main background for the development of civil right was the market.
The main motivation for humans to overcome such defective human nature is competition in the market.
Competition in the market leads individual persons to try best to improve their own values, and ironically during the process, humans tend to become aware that the real competitor of them is themselves and realise that overcoming such lazy and selfish ego or instincts is the crucial point in their efforts for self-improvement or self-development.
In contrast, persons become immoral when they do not have to be responsible for their own decisions and behaviours.

In markets, individuals are motivated to carefully make their choice.
In individualist society, individuals realise that they have to behave carefully so as not to interfere other individuals' rights. Otherwise, they end up paying the cost of their own behaviours, whether it is the price of goods they buy or punishment they receive.
By contrast, in socialist society, individuals only have to follow paternalistic government decisions.
In collectivist society in a variety of democratic forms, which has no rules to pursue other than the majority rule, individuals only have to care about the eyes of other members in their group.

The main reason why Britain could begin the Industrial Revolution first was also related to its developed markets.
Britain had the larger market than any other country in the world in the 18th century, whereas it had the weakest government than any other country in Europe at the time.
In the market, the civil right concept developed naturally as people learned the importance of contracts and individuals' property right.
Over time, people also learned the virtues of self-responsibility (for their own choice), fairness and sincerity in the market.
This is actually evinced in 19th century British society.
There were high intellectual and moral aspirations pursued by individuals, which led to numerous attempts for social reform and institutional reform across the country and was proven by many popular figures who promoted the spirit of self-responsibility.
This social feature can be seen also in my research area, the intellectual history of medicine, which shows that many medical thinkers advocated the concept of self-responsibility for one's health through their medical theories during the 19th century.




*: Classical liberalism is very different from the today's liberalism, which can be seen typically in the US democratic party and its supporters. The concept of liberalism dramatically changed particularly during the second half of the 19th century amidst the reductionist trends in the intellectual history. Since then, economic liberty and political liberty have become separate entities. Liberalists in most countries today are more associated with socialism, supporting political liberty while ignoring economic liberty. Regarding the reductionism and holism in academia, refer to my previous post (http://blog.daum.net/baeminteacher/293)

**: One's civil right consists of the legal right for his or her property, body and thoughts. If A's right is interfered by B, B is subjected to accusation or law suit by A. Hence, individuals have not only their own rights but also responsibility for their own behaviour, especially its consequence upon others' lives. The core of this civil right concept is self-responsibility of an individual person. Hence, individuals become sensitive to the infringement upon others' and their own civil rights. This naturally makes individuals more considerate and polite persons. Postmodern neo-marxists, who compose most of left wing intellects and activists today, intentionally are trying to promote 'human rights' instead of civil rights.

© 2018 Min Bae