The age of revolution is on its wayIf I sum up the development in the state of international affairs over the past few years, ¡°bankruptcy¡± would be the most proper word. The financial capitalism, which have been facing the downward tendency of the profitability in real economy, set off a chain reaction of bankruptcies from 2008 after having committed habitual speculative investments and high risk lending for the past ten or fifteen years. Moreover, many developed countries narrowly escaped from avalanches of bankruptcies by spending astronomical public funds are now facing a serious crisis and on the brink of moratorium due to the snowballed national debts. It looks like a matter of time for Greece to go bankrupt. Besides, we can¡¯t rule out the possibility of Italy¡¯s insolvency as well considering the high national debt accounting for 119% of its GDP. Only Greece and Italy? I don¡¯t think so. As a matter of fact, almost all of the countries in Eurozone except a few such as Germany, France, the Netherlands and Finland are at risk of continuous fiscal crunch heading toward a fatal situation
It means not just the bankruptcy of individual countries, but also the bankruptcy of the ideology of market integration under the Eurozone and EU. If Greek banks did not follow low-interest policy as in the case of Germany, and if Greek government could have exercised monetary policy by issuing more money with its own currency, Greece could have avoided this kind of devastating end. The Eurozone, created to serve the bankers and industrialists in leading countries, toyed with peripheral countries like Greece by offering carrots under the name of ¡°growth¡± at first, and then virtually led them to the hell. So, we may claim that the idea of Eurozone, which was devised to establish domain for capital in Europe - went bankrupt. Ultimately, it is the capitalism itself that went bankrupt. What we have to know without mistakes is that profit-driven market economy cannot make anyone happy, let alone protect and sustain itself in the long run. Because profits tend to decline with the fluctuations of the business cycles, capital has been perverted to risky speculation and predatory finance resulting in so-called ¡°debt bomb¡±.
Further, the profit-oriented capitalism destroys labor market by marginalizing labor to become temporary workers and eventually blocks its own potentials by self-destructing domestic demand and consumption. In this respect, capitalism seems to have inherently self-destructing characteristic. Market economy without regulation is exactly the same as a car without driver. It is destined to explode after hitting innocent people and colliding into a tree or street light. However, crisis in capitalism cannot be clearly solved even though state intervenes in the affairs. After shouldering banks¡¯ debt, the state itself has encountered with the risk of bankruptcy. Look Afghanistan war. The new imperialist war, prepared for the demands of military-industrial complex, only ended up with faltering and indebted government. It surely would be a best solution for ruling class to build up a Fascist regime and trigger another World War, as happened 70-80 years ago, to break through the crisis plagued with overproduction and profit decline, however, the contemporary rulers sitting on nuclear bombs, fortunately enough, lack of discretion to take such extreme measures.
(Maybe they are always in standby mode, though.) Anyhow, the lives of majority of people are getting more miserable even in the core capitalist countries. Youth unemployment in EU, which covers those aged 15 to 24, mounted up to 21% so that finding a simple white-collar job is now even regarded as winning a lottery. In Spain, about 38% of young people are suffering from either idling out of work or wandering from place to place seeking for part-time jobs. One could find job luckily, nevertheless, the quality of life rarely improves to the level of meeting one¡¯s wishes. Although general working conditions in EU are far better than those in Korea until now, it became ¡°Koreanized¡± step by step. Even in the Netherlands, well known for their relative tolerance for labor rights, about 10% of workers are suffering burnout, and the volume of anti-depressants sales in Germany has increased about 40% over the past four years. When it comes to the US, the most brutal capitalist country in the world, we can imagine the gloomy picture without difficulty.
About 70% of parents are complaining that they could not take care of their children due to work, and about 33% are subjected to intense stress at work. Increasing anxiety, perpetual stress, labor exploitation, and unhappy feeling and depression rooted in the sense of alienation – it is exactly the portrayal of our devastated inner side in this age of inhumane capitalism.The intensity of economic crisis nowadays may exceed the degrees in the early 1930s, nonetheless, the reaction of labor class is far weaker than those days. Aside from Greece, which has a legacy of anti-dictatorship struggles, and equipped with communist party and radical labor unions that lead current militant fight, socialist parties in most of the core countries either became extinct or degraded to mere clubs. Therefore, poor people¡¯s response to the economic crisis more or less took on guerilla actions.
Categorically speaking, while the guerilla struggles by poor people resulted in violent uprisings like the recent revolt of the poor in London and its environs and the insurrection called ¡°Les émeutes de banlieues¡± happened in the suburbs of Paris six years ago, the guerilla struggles by middle-class(young people, in particular) have developed in a less violent manner as we can see in the case of ¡°candlelit protests¡± in Korea three years ago, sit-in demonstrations in major cities in Spain, and the Occupy Wall Street movement in the US now. The crucial trait of these guerilla struggles is that it often lacks well-developed agendas and there is considerable gap between the nominal agenda and real agenda. To illustrate, the nominal agenda in terms of candlelit rallies in Korea was hasty American beef import and humiliating agreement with the US, however, the real reason of the massive and explosive demonstrations originated in the people¡¯s overall anger toward neoliberal policies implemented by the new ultra-right regime.
The Occupy Wall Street movement is now shouting against greedy bankers, however, there is no unified consensus among activists and participants how to penalize banks. No more bail-out program? More regulation and more tax? Nationalization? Occupy activists do not try to formulate demands only because they do not want the movement to be divided by internal conflicts. It might be an inevitable aspect considering the incipient stage of the movement, but it couldn¡¯t be a virtue, anyway.Three years ago in Korea, amid the whirlwind of candlelit demonstrations a group of progressive intellectuals praised the struggle as a people¡¯s participatory movement without leaders and leading organizations, however, the perspective was a complete mistake based on an anarchist discourse. A radical party, which could have led and institutionalized the movement, never appeared and the movement was suppressed and faded away in a few months.(Neither New Progressive Party nor Democratic Labor Party had the ability to do the job. They are still incompetent until now, unfortunately.).
Having powerful and radical leftist party is indispensable for us to lead movement and to deal with the crisis of capitalism on the basis of labor¡¯s stance. Guerrilla action is a good method in the early stage, but it is difficult to maintain longer term in a sustainable way. I couldn¡¯t find yet any group who can coordinate and concentrate all array of guerrilla movements including Occupy Wall Street, and attack the Establishment with the aggregate power. However, it may be a matter of time. As time passes the movement will grow and be getting radicalized with the inevitable oppression, and people will eventually recognize that only democratically planned economy and nationalization of the bank is ultimate solution to overcome the evils of capitalism. Once we could share those kinds of perceptions, at least part of our movements might be a foundation to pave the way for constructing a leftist party broadly supported by public. It will be an epoch-making incident to America where popular leftist party hasn¡¯t existed since the days of McCarthyism.
When it comes to the Southern Europe, where left-wing parties stay alive, the reinforcement and radicalization of the parties are expected in the near future, which might imbue new meaning to guerilla struggles. Whether or not we want, we are entering the age of revolution driven by the catastrophe of capitalism. The problem is how the exploited class and radical parties can take full advantage of these opportunities. In this sense, the development and reinforcement of working class parties such as New Progressive Party is of overriding importance. If New Progressive Party could play a crucial role, it can be a heart of resistance movement against capitalism, and Korea can write a new history in the future.