Is the Conservative Camp the Only Hope for Korean Liberalism?

Political science has a concept called audience costs. The idea is that whenever a politician makes a political choice, there is always an audience related to that choice, and depending on that audience’s preferences, the politician bears certain costs as a result of the choice. For example, if a politician says he will expand FTAs, he must bear audience costs. It could become a reason for losing supporters who were negative toward FTAs. The same is true if he says he will not expand FTAs. That may attract the attention of people opposed to FTAs, but it may also cause him to lose supporters who wanted FTAs expanded, so audience costs are involved there as well.

In this way, every political choice entails audience costs—especially choices made by politicians in a democratic system, where political power is formed through public opinion. And political action that ignores audience costs can never be sustained. In a democracy, large audience costs mean, above all, the loss of many votes and can lead directly to electoral defeat. That is why politicians cannot help but reflect at least some portion of public opinion in their political actions.

If we divide South Korea’s political landscape into the left and the right, the camp on the “left” currently has a structure in which audience costs can be managed to a certain degree. Small ideologically driven parties speak of ideals and thereby create a positive image for the left, while large parties supported by the broader public present timely, broadly appealing messages in moderation. In this way, each minimized the audience costs associated with its own political moves while consolidating votes for the left and winning elections. The Justice Party did this, and the Democratic Party of Korea did as well. This was possible because the Justice Party’s support base consisted of people pursuing progressive ideals, while the Democratic Party of Korea’s support base encompassed a broader range of people, including many in the center.

But no such structure existed in the camp on the “right.” After democratization, progressive political forces—symbolized by the term movement activists—formed parties and gradually came to wield influence even within the National Assembly. In pursuit of electoral victory, the left repeatedly united and split, and together with the Democratic Party of Korea eventually developed today’s structure for sharing audience costs. The right failed to do so. Of course, there were processes of division and integration, but since democratization there has been no history of people coming together under a clear ideological ideal to form a party.

The Liberty Korea Party, which today is the largest party in the right-wing camp as well as the main opposition party, has its roots in the Democratic Liberal Party, which was born out of the merger of three parties. And its essence did not change as it passed through the New Korea Party, the Grand National Party, the Saenuri Party, and finally the Liberty Korea Party. Of course, I do not think there is not a single person within the Liberty Korea Party engaged in politics with ideals such as classical liberalism or libertarianism. It is also true that quite a few people support the Liberty Korea Party while at least understanding that liberalism matters. Even so, it is difficult to say that the essence of the Liberty Korea Party lies in liberalism. That is because the very support base that once backed the Democratic Liberal Party—and, if one goes back further, supported the dictatorial regimes of Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan—still remains within the Liberty Korea Party.

That does not mean the Bareunmirae Party, Our Republican Party, or the soon-to-be-founded New Conservative Party can serve as alternatives. None of these parties is centered on liberal forces. They are all conservative parties born from the regroupings and breakups that followed the split of the Saenuri Party after impeachment and have continued to this day. In particular, the New Conservative Party has inherited much of the Liberty Korea Party’s conservative values, while Our Republican Party has inherited much of its support base.

At present, there is in practical terms no party within South Korea’s right-wing camp that places liberal values first. For that reason, the entry and survival of liberal political forces in the National Assembly are still a distant prospect. But just as progressive political forces on the left ultimately succeeded in creating parliamentary parties, liberal political forces on the right might also be able to enter the legislature if they can establish a structure with a large party like the Liberty Korea Party that minimizes audience costs. Moreover, because liberalism pursues values not bound by the dichotomy of progressivism and conservatism, alliances with left-wing parties such as the Democratic Party of Korea could also be explored. In that sense, one could even say that the conditions today are more flexible than those in which the Justice Party once found itself.

Attempts thus far to realize liberalism by borrowing the strength of the conservative camp must, regrettably, be judged a failure. Looking back now, it was all too predictable how the public would receive liberal messages voiced by parties whose support base prioritizes conservative values and does not pursue liberalism itself. Liberalism has been distorted within the conservative camp and misrepresented outside it. We can no longer expect the conservative camp to persuade the public of liberalism and to realize it in practice. A conservative wearing the mask of liberty may be possible, but it is impossible to pursue conservatism without abandoning liberalism.

If a party is truly a liberal party—if it treats liberalism not as a short-term tool for winning elections or a long-term means for enriching the nation and strengthening the military, but as the highest end to be pursued in itself—then it must be able to strongly criticize historical wrongs committed through the abandonment of liberal values, regardless of faction or political camp. How strongly has South Korea’s conservative camp been able to speak about the brutality of Japanese colonial rule or the anti-liberal repression of dictatorial regimes? A liberal party must also be able to criticize interventionist economic policies, excessive government spending and welfare policies, and expansionary monetary policy—things that can disrupt the market order and drive ordinary people into misery—regardless of whether they come from “our side” or “their side.” A healthy liberal party, one that can say such things and need not worry about audience costs for doing so, is truly necessary if only to check the left, which has gained an advantage through a more stable structure for managing audience costs than the fragmented right.

The same is true with respect to women, sexual minorities, young adults, adolescents, foreigners, and other minorities. Conservative political forces, including the Liberty Korea Party, have not practiced politics that seriously takes minorities into account. In fact, the Liberty Korea Party in particular has shown a tendency to politically exclude groups such as sexual minorities, adolescents, and foreigners. That is because not only are they seen as not yielding votes, but moves to embrace them now generate audience costs for the Liberty Korea Party. Liberalism, however, excludes none of these groups at the outset. There is clearly a distinctively liberal way of speaking up for them. And yet South Korea’s right-wing camp has rarely tried to use such a language. What the right needed was also the ability to present clearly a liberal path toward a world in which people can be freed from such hardships—without comparing or belittling the value of the suffering minorities themselves regard as important, and sometimes by soothing wounds long inflamed by those hardships.

On the left, one can see progressive parties, including the Justice Party, speaking harsh truths to the Democratic Party of Korea. As a result, the spirit of the Democratic Party of Korea is continually renewed, if only a little. Those who have supported the left, or centrists who have grown weary of the right, see hope in this. But on the right, there has been no such intellectual renewal because conservative political forces have long occupied the overwhelming mainstream. Even now they glorify and long for developmental dictatorship, and use liberalism only to brand others as pro-North Korean socialists. If there had been a liberal ideological party within the right, conservative political forces would at least not have glorified colonial rule or developmental dictatorship, nor treated liberalism selectively. The right, too, must now be able to offer hope by speaking hard truths to conservative parties.

More and more people are instinctively realizing the need for liberalism in light of the Moon Jae-in administration’s policy failures and are trying to understand it. Difficult classics that are not easy to popularize—such as Mises’s “There Is No Plan for Freedom” and Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom”—are ranking high in the politics/society sections of major domestic bookstores. Is it not liberal political forces that can offer hope to such people? This may well be the very moment when liberal political forces have a golden opportunity to arise in a truly “spontaneous” way. Even in the face of such an opportunity, we cannot go on indefinitely expecting liberalism to spread by relying only on the strength of the conservative camp. The future of liberalism in South Korea will finally come into clear focus only outside the embrace of the conservative camp.

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Original title: 보수 진영이 한국 자유주의의 유일한 희망일까?

Author: Young-jun Kim

Date: 2019-12-13

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=free_opinion&pn=16&idx=22155