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Korean Workers: The Culture and Politics of Class Formation
Forty years of rapid industrialization have transformed millions of South Korean peasants and their sons and daughters into urban factory workers. Hagen Koo explores the experiences of this first generation of industrial workers and describes its struggles to improve working conditions in the factory and to search for justice in society. The working class in South Korea was born in a cultural and political environment extremely hostile to its development, Koo says. Korean workers forged their collective identity much more rapidly, however, than did their counterparts in other newly industrialized countries in East Asia. This book investigates how South Korea's once-docile and submissive workers reinvented themselves so quickly into a class with a distinct identity and consciousness. Based on sources ranging from workers' personal writings to union reports to in-depth interviews, this book is a penetrating analysis of the South Korean working-class experience. Koo reveals how culture and politics simultaneously suppressed and facilitated class formation in South Korea. With chapters exploring the roles of women, students, and church organizations in the struggle, the book reflects Koo's broader interest in the social and cultural dimensions of industrial transformation.
256 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2001
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October 31, 2023
Reflections on the Rise and Fall of South Korean Labor Movement and Its Implications to China
1. Summary of Koo Hagen's lecture "The making and unmaking of the South Korean working class" (Peking University, Nov.19)
Prof. Koo Hagen's lecture on Nov.19 tells us a story of South Korean labor movement: how it rose in the 1970s and reached its climax in 1980s, when students combined the labor movement with the political movement and succeeded in overthrowing the authoritarian dictator to establish a modern democracy framework, and how it fell all of a sudden in the mid-1990s and turned into several localised labor unions which only pursue the interests of the few workers in big firms (like Hyundai, KIA, etc) while leaving out most other workers who actually are more in need of help.
Thus, labor movement still exists in South Korea (its militancy has even escalated!), but has significantly changed its content and meaning. The main criticism by Prof. Koo is that today's labor movement has lost its mass ground, thus it is "losing steam": "declining public support and growing internal division", as he pointed out in a 2007 article on "The Korean Herald" newspaper. In that same article, Prof. Koo wrote, "in order to understand the nature of the Korean labor movement adequately, we must address the dual aspects of Korean labor - its militancy and its organizational weakness." The former is its appearance, the latter is its essence. What we see on the surface somehow conceals the inside nature.
In the lecture, Prof. Koo outlined two factors behind this historical change of South Korean labor movement. One is structural/institutional, which is the main factor. With the neo-liberal globalisation and pro-capital government policies, labor force started to divide internally. For example, irregular workers have substantially increased to around 50% of the overall labor force, but are still largely unprotected. Another gap is also getting wider: the gap between big firms and medium or small-sized firms. Adding to this internal division and fragmentation of the labor force, is the organizational form of South Korean labor unions: enterprise-based, not industry-based. During the 1980s when labor movement reached its climax, this type of organization did not reveal its weakness. But this institutional "path dependence" has its unavoidable weakness: it does not promote or support "class consciousness" (like Communist Manifesto said "Proletarians of all countries, unite!"), while encouraging the pursuit of the narrow (and shallow?) self-interest. Beginning in the mid-1990s, the result is clear: the percentage of unionized labor fell from 90% in 1992 to 10% in 2009.
The other factor is cultural/ideological. Class solidarity beyond small group is always a fragile thing, Prof. Koo argues, due to several socio-psychological factors. One is the Confucian culture in Korean tradition, which emphasizes (maybe too much?) on family value. People culturally (and naturally?) tends to care more about their familial relationships or other close personal relationships, but it is often in the expense of ignoring the bigger picture of the whole society. Another one is the newly-emerging individualism and individualization. In a more open society, there are more opportunities for every one to get rich and to bring up his social status. "American dream" thus becomes many Korean workers' dream. Prof. Koo put it more directly: the management of big firms simply "buy" their workers' obedience and quietness. (note: As I understand it, these two socio-psychological factors reinforce each other.)
These above two factors (structural and cultural) mainly deals with the side of the working class itself. On the other side, intellectuals and university students are also worth noting. During 1980s, they played an important role in various social movements. Democratization was achieved mainly by them. Intellectuals wrote or translated books, wrote articles, in order to show people their historical position and historical mission and to raise people's class consciousness, solidarity and struggle morale. University students voluntarily went to factories to encourage workers to struggle against dictator political regime, and organized night class for workers. Many students were arrested and jailed for this, but they didn't care because they felt they were contributing to a just cause. But after 1980s, intellectuals and university students moved their interest and enthusiasm to other areas and issues (partly because of the changes within the working class, as mentioned above), thus no one imagines a utopian future for the working class as a whole, nor does anyone depicts an alternative to today's socio-economic institution, or demonstrate to the working class their historical mission: self-liberation. Moreover, university students' mentality changed rather dramatically. Once radical or progressive, nowadays conservative. Individualism as a social trend, also hit the students. Today's students find it hard to understand the passion and emotion of their 1980s' predecessors.
2. My comments
Two interesting and intriguing comparison can be made in the context of South Korean labor movement. One is to compare the early stage and the later stage, the other is to compare South Korea and mainland China. I think it is highly valuable (especially for Chinese people) to compare China and South Korea, as the two countries have a similar culture and China is just one step behind South Korea in the process of industrialization, modernization and the neo-liberal "globalization".
(1) South Korean labor movements: early stage and later stage
When comparing the early stage and the later stage (mid-1990s as the turning point), Prof. Koo provides an interesting explanation, among other things: the abolition of dictatorship has had a bad effect: making people lose sight of a clear enemy. Once the democratic political framework was founded, labor movement started to escape from political movement. University students, who are usually more radical and idealistic, were expelled from labor movements, as union leaders and workers were well-aware of the actual/possible loss that students' radical political claims bring to them. So, progressive students joined in another social movement called "citizens' movement", which also originated in 1980s, a "revolutionary" age for South Korea. (note: Here, I find an interesting difference in the usage of word "revolution". In china, "revolution" (Ge Ming) often reminds people of the Warlord Era of 1911-1949 and of the peasants' revolt throughout entire Chinese history, thus implies war and violence. While in South Korea, "revolution" seems to refer to the difficult struggle for democracy and does not necessarily mean war or violence.)
Why did this happen? I may draw a daring conclusion here: objectively speaking, intellectuals (including university students) and workers mutually "used" each other to pursue their own interest in the 1980s. Students, who will be the future elite of the country as the cultural tradition promises, wanted to take more control over public affairs and are eager to be recognized as the leader of society. In a word, students longed for more political power. On the other side, while what the workers wanted was material benefits and social status, their actual claim, though not clearly expressed by themselves (as students and intellectuals spoke out on their behalf), was also political power, because it is only power that is able to define who is socially respectable and to redistribute social wealth. In this situation, the overthrow of the political dictator well fit their common interest, and "social progress" well expressed their common goal. Thus, in this historical social movement, the players successfully hid their actual purpose (whether conscious or unconscious): more power. But the quest for more power inevitably clashes, when the two classes find they have to face each other more directly after the abolition of the dictator. As long as workers' own organization grows and matures, it soon becomes a special interest group (its leaders so join into the elite class) and thus dumps not only students and intellectuals, but also the majority of workers: the unprivileged ones. The old saying rings true again: no constant friends, but constant interests.
Thus, the result of the great South Korean social movement from 1970s to 1990s, as we observe today, seems bitterly ironic. By making few people (from students in prestigious universities and workers in big firms) climb into the elite class, it just reinforced the unjust, unequal system it had claimed to change. Once again, as we see in many social movements, grassroots are betrayed.
On the whole, Prof. Koo points out: while organizing a solidary social movement is difficult, maintaining the momentum of a social movement is even more difficult. He does not say why it is so, but I think the answer is clear: for every human being, it is not easy to fight against the endless pursuit of various kinds of self-interest, or to really care about "strangers"/"the other", and for the privileged ones who are in a better position to promote social progress, it is even more difficult to do so.
(2) South Korea and China
When comparing South Korea and mainland China, more insights are found. I find many things unique to South Korea, but I find more common features.
A. The role of intellectuals
Firstly, the role of intellectuals (including university students) in social movements, especially in democratization movements, is very similar in China and in South Korea. This similarity indicates that like the working class, intellectuals also have a common historical mission, if they still believe in the progress of history, or still believe that we human beings as a whole can gradually take more control of our own destiny.
A.① Chinese "New Culture Movement" in early 20th century
China's 20th century is marked by two "enlightenment" periods. Each was pioneered and led by intellectuals, and each resulted in social movements of some kind.
One was the "New Culture Movement" which took place mainly in 1910s and 1920s. The two slogans of "New Culture Movement" is well-known even today: "Mr. De", which refers to democracy as opposed to authoritarian/tyranny/dictatorship /inequality/unjustice, and "Mr. Sai", which refers to science as opposed to undoubted beliefs/unchallenged institutions/blind compliance/blind loyalty/uncivilized. This movement had its root in many earlier intellectual works and in the practice of Chinese intellectuals and government since 1860s, and continued to exist until 1949, when it finally got a not-so-sweet fruit: the People's Republic of China.
When western warships came all the way to the capital city Beijing in the 2nd Opium War, Chinese intellectuals, officials and emperor rulers realized something must be changed. So starting from 1860s, China went through a series of experiments. Firstly, China introduced western military technology. With the heavy defeat in Sino-Japanese war in 1895, intellectuals found that the old political institution (the centralized totalitarian emperor system) was the main obstacle to the nation's revival. As the over 2000 year-old emperor era ended in the 1911 revolution, people soon found the so-called "republic" regime was actually controlled by a few warlords and western imperial countries. Finally at that time, intellectuals came to the conclusion that if China was to be strong, Chinese people must first be strong. So the priority was set on culture and education, although there were disputes over what kind of culture change should be pursued: the revival or the abolition of traditional culture, total or partly westernization. The "New Culture Movement" as its name implies, advocated the departure from traditional culture in the name of democracy and science.
During this period, the most famous social movement was May 4th Incident of 1919. First, with the help of some professors, university students in Beijing went on strike and took to the streets to protest against the unpatriotic government, then workers and merchants around the country (especially in some big cities or along the main railroads) joined this movement.
Besides radical social and political movements, various education movements, some sponsored by the party-state or even local warlords, also rose and flourished during that time, all in the spirit of "save the country by education".
Among them were many education projects for grassroots: rural peasants and urban workers. For example, when Chinese Communist Party(CCP) was founded in 1921, it came out mainly as an advocate for the education of the working class and for the awakening class consciousness of grassroots. Some intellectuals who were disappointed with the current politicians founded CCP, and attracted more intellectuals to join. They felt a strong need to be the representative of, or to unite most ordinary people (the working poor and the jobless poor), thus Marxist literature became more popular as it is featured by passionate words and universal claims. Even the ruling party of the party-state was named "National People's Party", and the party constitution "Triple-Min-ism" (San Min Zhu Yi) somehow blended Karl Marx, Henry George, Herbert Spencer and other western thoughts into Chinese traditional culture such as "Min Ben" (treat people as the foundation of the regime) and "Tian Xia Da Tong" (an ideal of a cosmopolitan world, in which different people live together in harmony).
During 1920s, CCP's main focus was on labor movements, thus they put more energy on the education and radicalization of the labor force. It was not until 1927, when CCP were cracked down ruthlessly, that CCP turned their focus to traditional Chinese peasant revolt and became a military organization. Many intellectuals who founded CCP were killed or jailed by the authoritarian government or local warlords (like Li Dazhao), or expelled from the core leadership by their former "comrades" (notably the example was Chen Duxiu). CCP was right in this strategic change, given the unmature industry base at that time and the war situation. But the bad effects ("path dependence") were revealed after 1949 and continue to today's China. Shortly speaking, China does not abandon its centralized/authoritarian/totalitarian nature of the political institution, or maybe even strengthen it.
A.② A short enlightenment period in 1980s China
The more recent "enlightenment" period was during 1980s "post-Mao Era" (as a comparison, today we may call ourselves in a "post-Refrom Era"), which burst out strongly and fast but vanished even faster. It is called "New Enlightenment" by some scholars, who agreed on the argument that during 1990s there appeared a new era in which "knowledgeable scholars rises, thoughtful scholars falls".
Starting from 1978, the new party leader Deng Xiaoping called for the "liberation of thought". By blaming several man-made chaotic periods during Chairman Mao's era such as the Cultural Revolution on "mistaken thought" and few executors of the mistaken thought (mostly "Gang of the four"), Deng Xiaoping tried to regain the legitimacy of CCP's ruling and to defeat his political enemy, namely those hardcore Maoists. Under this background, in 1980s, press control were loosened, and intellectuals got more room to speak. They talked about many topics, all in the spirit of realizing the nation's revival (or as Deng said, "modernization in four aspects") and preventing the chaos of Chairman Mao era from happening again. Among the topics were: the possibility of "human's alienation" under the socialist regime, collectivism and individualism, the deep and pervasive corruption of bureaucrats, the prospect of a democratic political reform. With the translation and publication of western books, western thought became popular among the youth especially university students, the most influential were Jean-Paul Sartre, Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche.
The social movement in the spring of 1989 marked the peak but also the seemingly "dramatic" turning point of this short period. (It is not dramatic when you really understand it.) What directly fueled the social unrest was the high inflation in the late 1980s which was thought to be the result of government officials' greedy "rent-seeking" behaviors. More specifically, in the 1980s during the transition from a top-down planned economy to a market-driven economy, there appeared a period when many industry goods (like cement, iron, electrical appliances, etc.) can only be bought through government permissions. Thus, many government officials (at every level from state to local) made a big fortune simply by selling the permits. Among them were many top officials, even the authoritarian party leader Deng Xiaoping, whose son run a notorious company selling the permits.
Compared to May 4th Incident of 1919, what happened in 1989 was merely a student movement. Even in Beijing, the center and frontline of the movement, where Tian'an Men Incident took place, most workers were not mobilized: though they sympathized the students and offered various kinds of help, they did not organize themselves to protest and demonstrate on the streets. This time, workers were not betrayed as they were by-standers to a large extent. This is not because they were realistic and wise, but because they were conservative and did not urge for a change.
1. Summary of Koo Hagen's lecture "The making and unmaking of the South Korean working class" (Peking University, Nov.19)
Prof. Koo Hagen's lecture on Nov.19 tells us a story of South Korean labor movement: how it rose in the 1970s and reached its climax in 1980s, when students combined the labor movement with the political movement and succeeded in overthrowing the authoritarian dictator to establish a modern democracy framework, and how it fell all of a sudden in the mid-1990s and turned into several localised labor unions which only pursue the interests of the few workers in big firms (like Hyundai, KIA, etc) while leaving out most other workers who actually are more in need of help.
Thus, labor movement still exists in South Korea (its militancy has even escalated!), but has significantly changed its content and meaning. The main criticism by Prof. Koo is that today's labor movement has lost its mass ground, thus it is "losing steam": "declining public support and growing internal division", as he pointed out in a 2007 article on "The Korean Herald" newspaper. In that same article, Prof. Koo wrote, "in order to understand the nature of the Korean labor movement adequately, we must address the dual aspects of Korean labor - its militancy and its organizational weakness." The former is its appearance, the latter is its essence. What we see on the surface somehow conceals the inside nature.
In the lecture, Prof. Koo outlined two factors behind this historical change of South Korean labor movement. One is structural/institutional, which is the main factor. With the neo-liberal globalisation and pro-capital government policies, labor force started to divide internally. For example, irregular workers have substantially increased to around 50% of the overall labor force, but are still largely unprotected. Another gap is also getting wider: the gap between big firms and medium or small-sized firms. Adding to this internal division and fragmentation of the labor force, is the organizational form of South Korean labor unions: enterprise-based, not industry-based. During the 1980s when labor movement reached its climax, this type of organization did not reveal its weakness. But this institutional "path dependence" has its unavoidable weakness: it does not promote or support "class consciousness" (like Communist Manifesto said "Proletarians of all countries, unite!"), while encouraging the pursuit of the narrow (and shallow?) self-interest. Beginning in the mid-1990s, the result is clear: the percentage of unionized labor fell from 90% in 1992 to 10% in 2009.
The other factor is cultural/ideological. Class solidarity beyond small group is always a fragile thing, Prof. Koo argues, due to several socio-psychological factors. One is the Confucian culture in Korean tradition, which emphasizes (maybe too much?) on family value. People culturally (and naturally?) tends to care more about their familial relationships or other close personal relationships, but it is often in the expense of ignoring the bigger picture of the whole society. Another one is the newly-emerging individualism and individualization. In a more open society, there are more opportunities for every one to get rich and to bring up his social status. "American dream" thus becomes many Korean workers' dream. Prof. Koo put it more directly: the management of big firms simply "buy" their workers' obedience and quietness. (note: As I understand it, these two socio-psychological factors reinforce each other.)
These above two factors (structural and cultural) mainly deals with the side of the working class itself. On the other side, intellectuals and university students are also worth noting. During 1980s, they played an important role in various social movements. Democratization was achieved mainly by them. Intellectuals wrote or translated books, wrote articles, in order to show people their historical position and historical mission and to raise people's class consciousness, solidarity and struggle morale. University students voluntarily went to factories to encourage workers to struggle against dictator political regime, and organized night class for workers. Many students were arrested and jailed for this, but they didn't care because they felt they were contributing to a just cause. But after 1980s, intellectuals and university students moved their interest and enthusiasm to other areas and issues (partly because of the changes within the working class, as mentioned above), thus no one imagines a utopian future for the working class as a whole, nor does anyone depicts an alternative to today's socio-economic institution, or demonstrate to the working class their historical mission: self-liberation. Moreover, university students' mentality changed rather dramatically. Once radical or progressive, nowadays conservative. Individualism as a social trend, also hit the students. Today's students find it hard to understand the passion and emotion of their 1980s' predecessors.
2. My comments
Two interesting and intriguing comparison can be made in the context of South Korean labor movement. One is to compare the early stage and the later stage, the other is to compare South Korea and mainland China. I think it is highly valuable (especially for Chinese people) to compare China and South Korea, as the two countries have a similar culture and China is just one step behind South Korea in the process of industrialization, modernization and the neo-liberal "globalization".
(1) South Korean labor movements: early stage and later stage
When comparing the early stage and the later stage (mid-1990s as the turning point), Prof. Koo provides an interesting explanation, among other things: the abolition of dictatorship has had a bad effect: making people lose sight of a clear enemy. Once the democratic political framework was founded, labor movement started to escape from political movement. University students, who are usually more radical and idealistic, were expelled from labor movements, as union leaders and workers were well-aware of the actual/possible loss that students' radical political claims bring to them. So, progressive students joined in another social movement called "citizens' movement", which also originated in 1980s, a "revolutionary" age for South Korea. (note: Here, I find an interesting difference in the usage of word "revolution". In china, "revolution" (Ge Ming) often reminds people of the Warlord Era of 1911-1949 and of the peasants' revolt throughout entire Chinese history, thus implies war and violence. While in South Korea, "revolution" seems to refer to the difficult struggle for democracy and does not necessarily mean war or violence.)
Why did this happen? I may draw a daring conclusion here: objectively speaking, intellectuals (including university students) and workers mutually "used" each other to pursue their own interest in the 1980s. Students, who will be the future elite of the country as the cultural tradition promises, wanted to take more control over public affairs and are eager to be recognized as the leader of society. In a word, students longed for more political power. On the other side, while what the workers wanted was material benefits and social status, their actual claim, though not clearly expressed by themselves (as students and intellectuals spoke out on their behalf), was also political power, because it is only power that is able to define who is socially respectable and to redistribute social wealth. In this situation, the overthrow of the political dictator well fit their common interest, and "social progress" well expressed their common goal. Thus, in this historical social movement, the players successfully hid their actual purpose (whether conscious or unconscious): more power. But the quest for more power inevitably clashes, when the two classes find they have to face each other more directly after the abolition of the dictator. As long as workers' own organization grows and matures, it soon becomes a special interest group (its leaders so join into the elite class) and thus dumps not only students and intellectuals, but also the majority of workers: the unprivileged ones. The old saying rings true again: no constant friends, but constant interests.
Thus, the result of the great South Korean social movement from 1970s to 1990s, as we observe today, seems bitterly ironic. By making few people (from students in prestigious universities and workers in big firms) climb into the elite class, it just reinforced the unjust, unequal system it had claimed to change. Once again, as we see in many social movements, grassroots are betrayed.
On the whole, Prof. Koo points out: while organizing a solidary social movement is difficult, maintaining the momentum of a social movement is even more difficult. He does not say why it is so, but I think the answer is clear: for every human being, it is not easy to fight against the endless pursuit of various kinds of self-interest, or to really care about "strangers"/"the other", and for the privileged ones who are in a better position to promote social progress, it is even more difficult to do so.
(2) South Korea and China
When comparing South Korea and mainland China, more insights are found. I find many things unique to South Korea, but I find more common features.
A. The role of intellectuals
Firstly, the role of intellectuals (including university students) in social movements, especially in democratization movements, is very similar in China and in South Korea. This similarity indicates that like the working class, intellectuals also have a common historical mission, if they still believe in the progress of history, or still believe that we human beings as a whole can gradually take more control of our own destiny.
A.① Chinese "New Culture Movement" in early 20th century
China's 20th century is marked by two "enlightenment" periods. Each was pioneered and led by intellectuals, and each resulted in social movements of some kind.
One was the "New Culture Movement" which took place mainly in 1910s and 1920s. The two slogans of "New Culture Movement" is well-known even today: "Mr. De", which refers to democracy as opposed to authoritarian/tyranny/dictatorship /inequality/unjustice, and "Mr. Sai", which refers to science as opposed to undoubted beliefs/unchallenged institutions/blind compliance/blind loyalty/uncivilized. This movement had its root in many earlier intellectual works and in the practice of Chinese intellectuals and government since 1860s, and continued to exist until 1949, when it finally got a not-so-sweet fruit: the People's Republic of China.
When western warships came all the way to the capital city Beijing in the 2nd Opium War, Chinese intellectuals, officials and emperor rulers realized something must be changed. So starting from 1860s, China went through a series of experiments. Firstly, China introduced western military technology. With the heavy defeat in Sino-Japanese war in 1895, intellectuals found that the old political institution (the centralized totalitarian emperor system) was the main obstacle to the nation's revival. As the over 2000 year-old emperor era ended in the 1911 revolution, people soon found the so-called "republic" regime was actually controlled by a few warlords and western imperial countries. Finally at that time, intellectuals came to the conclusion that if China was to be strong, Chinese people must first be strong. So the priority was set on culture and education, although there were disputes over what kind of culture change should be pursued: the revival or the abolition of traditional culture, total or partly westernization. The "New Culture Movement" as its name implies, advocated the departure from traditional culture in the name of democracy and science.
During this period, the most famous social movement was May 4th Incident of 1919. First, with the help of some professors, university students in Beijing went on strike and took to the streets to protest against the unpatriotic government, then workers and merchants around the country (especially in some big cities or along the main railroads) joined this movement.
Besides radical social and political movements, various education movements, some sponsored by the party-state or even local warlords, also rose and flourished during that time, all in the spirit of "save the country by education".
Among them were many education projects for grassroots: rural peasants and urban workers. For example, when Chinese Communist Party(CCP) was founded in 1921, it came out mainly as an advocate for the education of the working class and for the awakening class consciousness of grassroots. Some intellectuals who were disappointed with the current politicians founded CCP, and attracted more intellectuals to join. They felt a strong need to be the representative of, or to unite most ordinary people (the working poor and the jobless poor), thus Marxist literature became more popular as it is featured by passionate words and universal claims. Even the ruling party of the party-state was named "National People's Party", and the party constitution "Triple-Min-ism" (San Min Zhu Yi) somehow blended Karl Marx, Henry George, Herbert Spencer and other western thoughts into Chinese traditional culture such as "Min Ben" (treat people as the foundation of the regime) and "Tian Xia Da Tong" (an ideal of a cosmopolitan world, in which different people live together in harmony).
During 1920s, CCP's main focus was on labor movements, thus they put more energy on the education and radicalization of the labor force. It was not until 1927, when CCP were cracked down ruthlessly, that CCP turned their focus to traditional Chinese peasant revolt and became a military organization. Many intellectuals who founded CCP were killed or jailed by the authoritarian government or local warlords (like Li Dazhao), or expelled from the core leadership by their former "comrades" (notably the example was Chen Duxiu). CCP was right in this strategic change, given the unmature industry base at that time and the war situation. But the bad effects ("path dependence") were revealed after 1949 and continue to today's China. Shortly speaking, China does not abandon its centralized/authoritarian/totalitarian nature of the political institution, or maybe even strengthen it.
A.② A short enlightenment period in 1980s China
The more recent "enlightenment" period was during 1980s "post-Mao Era" (as a comparison, today we may call ourselves in a "post-Refrom Era"), which burst out strongly and fast but vanished even faster. It is called "New Enlightenment" by some scholars, who agreed on the argument that during 1990s there appeared a new era in which "knowledgeable scholars rises, thoughtful scholars falls".
Starting from 1978, the new party leader Deng Xiaoping called for the "liberation of thought". By blaming several man-made chaotic periods during Chairman Mao's era such as the Cultural Revolution on "mistaken thought" and few executors of the mistaken thought (mostly "Gang of the four"), Deng Xiaoping tried to regain the legitimacy of CCP's ruling and to defeat his political enemy, namely those hardcore Maoists. Under this background, in 1980s, press control were loosened, and intellectuals got more room to speak. They talked about many topics, all in the spirit of realizing the nation's revival (or as Deng said, "modernization in four aspects") and preventing the chaos of Chairman Mao era from happening again. Among the topics were: the possibility of "human's alienation" under the socialist regime, collectivism and individualism, the deep and pervasive corruption of bureaucrats, the prospect of a democratic political reform. With the translation and publication of western books, western thought became popular among the youth especially university students, the most influential were Jean-Paul Sartre, Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche.
The social movement in the spring of 1989 marked the peak but also the seemingly "dramatic" turning point of this short period. (It is not dramatic when you really understand it.) What directly fueled the social unrest was the high inflation in the late 1980s which was thought to be the result of government officials' greedy "rent-seeking" behaviors. More specifically, in the 1980s during the transition from a top-down planned economy to a market-driven economy, there appeared a period when many industry goods (like cement, iron, electrical appliances, etc.) can only be bought through government permissions. Thus, many government officials (at every level from state to local) made a big fortune simply by selling the permits. Among them were many top officials, even the authoritarian party leader Deng Xiaoping, whose son run a notorious company selling the permits.
Compared to May 4th Incident of 1919, what happened in 1989 was merely a student movement. Even in Beijing, the center and frontline of the movement, where Tian'an Men Incident took place, most workers were not mobilized: though they sympathized the students and offered various kinds of help, they did not organize themselves to protest and demonstrate on the streets. This time, workers were not betrayed as they were by-standers to a large extent. This is not because they were realistic and wise, but because they were conservative and did not urge for a change.
April 28, 2022
A thorough but eminently readable account of the contemporary labor movement in south Korea, tracking its origins in women workers’ struggles in light industry in the 70s, up to the 1987 Great Labor Struggle and its retreat under neoliberal backlash up to 2000.
June 19, 2019
An in-depth process-tracing analysis of how the labor movement in South Korea developed through a series of challenging political circumstances.
The discussion on the sense of 'status' of workers in the traditional socio-cultural hierarchy helps understand the historical underpinnings of the weakness of the Korean labor.
The ways in which the organized labor maneuvered the post-democratization mass politics in relations with the rest of the society remains to be discussed.
The discussion on the sense of 'status' of workers in the traditional socio-cultural hierarchy helps understand the historical underpinnings of the weakness of the Korean labor.
The ways in which the organized labor maneuvered the post-democratization mass politics in relations with the rest of the society remains to be discussed.
September 9, 2025
Important book for anyone interested in Korean history/labor history! Toojeng!!!
July 9, 2007
I don't have a particular interest in Asia, but this book just blew me away. A full history of the labor movement in South Korea. The voices and personal stories of the workers themselves really come through, especially the young women who first left the rice farms for textile factories. At the same time, Koo does an excellent job of showing how the experiences of this particular country relate to the social transformations brought by industrialization everywhere.
May 7, 2010
In South Korea, a general Strike was occurred in1996-97. Why are the labor movements so active in South Korea, while labor movements are declined after 1980s in Europe and US? This book offers you many suggestions of the answer, by historical investigation of the relationship to former democratization movements, and demonstrates how labor activist were generated and how solidarity among general workers and activists were made and facilitated.
May 6, 2010
An attempt to do an E. P. Thompson on Korean labor leading up to 1987. Does Thompson one better by also integrating women. I was a little fuzzy on Koo's assertion that other East Asian labor forces were comparatively "docile." That may have been the case in the 1970s and 1980s, but there are historical processes of co-optation responsible for that...
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews