한국 마르크스주의의 궤적과 노동이론의 전개

초록

This article traces the trajectory of Korean Marxism by examining Marxist theories of labour developed across successive phases of Korea’s capitalist development, from the colonial period through the developmental dictatorship, democratisation, and the neoliberal transition to the present. The article focuses on two enduring tensions that have shaped Korea’s Marxist theories of labour. The first is the tension between the sanctification of labour, which treats labour as the essential and enduring basis of human existence, and the critique of labour, which understands labour as a historically specific social relation and therefore as an object of critique and transcendence. The second is the tension between the labour of the nation, which positions labour as the subject of national liberation, and the labour of class, which regards labour as the subject of social emancipation. From the colonial period to the era of the minjung movement, Korean Marxism largely developed by privileging the sanctification of labour over the critique of labour and the labour of the nation over the labour of class. As a result, labour came to be understood less as a historically specific category of capitalist social relations than as a moral and natural force underpinning national survival and development.The political democratisation and neoliberal restructuring that unfolded from the late twentieth century dismantled the social foundations of the minjung and intensified both theintra-working class divisions and transnationalisation of labour. Accordingly, earlier conceptions of the labour of the nation and minjung increasingly lost their explanatory power, while Marxist theorisation of labour itself weakened. By critically examining this historical trajectory, the article argues that the renewal of the Marxist labour theory in Korea requires three transitions from the past: from the sanctification of labour to the critique of labour, from the labour of the nation to the labour of class, and from productive labour to social labour.

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