Neoliberalism and the Korea-US FTA
Here’s a recent piece by Cho Hee-Yeon the Korea-US FTA, also posted at the NoFTA website.
The Korea-US FTA and the Rush to Neoliberalism
Cho, Hee-yeon
(Director of the ‘Institute for Democracy and Social Movement’,
Sungkonghoe University)
1. Foreword - Watching the ‘rush-to neoliberalism’.
Korean society has plunged into the whirl of pro- and anti-FTA arguments since the surprise announcement by the chief negotiator and Trade Minister Kim Hyun-chong of the opening of Korea-US FTA talks during the joint press conference with the US Trade Representative at 5:30 AM, February 3rd. The FTA to be closed between Korea and the US which was made public in such a hasty fashion has set many people thinking that economic liberalization should be the way to go. In the following 5 months, however, Korean citizens has become more aware and critical of the untransparent and dashed process and the predictable outcome that could be as devastating as the 1997 financial crisis. The Korean government is forging ahead with the policy that will have severe impact on people’s livelihood without going through a due process of consultation with the blunt-bearing sectors of Korean society. It is pushing forward a policy that could bring out even worse socioeconomic polarization without counter-measures in the same picture, obviously seized up by the group of pro-US technocrats who see only a short-term profit out of the problematic Korea-US FTA.
Taking the term of "rush-to modernization" labelled on the general Park Jung-hee’s exportation-driven modernization policy during the 60s and 70s, I’d like to call the full-frontal liberalizing policy being presently pushed ahead by the Participatory Government a "rush-to liberalization". The ‘rush-to modernization’ was implemented top-down, during an extremely repressive regime. The ongoing ‘rush-to liberalization’ is being driven by a democratic government that has resorted to bureaucratic expediency and secrecy expelling visible collecting efforts of public consensus.
This essay mainly will identify what is problematic in the negotiation process, its structural import and a negative legacy to be left us from now onwards.
