South Korea | Trotskyist Platform

An Eye Witness Account of Capitalist South Korea

Seoul’s subway at 7pm where 33 or more homeless people are resting. This situation in South Korea is in stark contrast to that in its northern socialistic neighbour where housing has been expropriated from the landlords and collectivised to provide free public housing.

An elderly working class man doing it tough in South Korea: it is common to witness many resorting to collecting recyclables for petty cash in a country where an aged pension is virtually non-existent.

South Korean Ssangyong workers armed with metal pipes during their 2009 industrial struggle with the car company. In South Korea workers have a strong history of resisting their exploiters and subsequently being brutalised by the capitalist state. — South Korean Ssangyong workers armed with metal pipes during their 2009 industrial struggle with the car company. In South Korea workers have a strong history of resisting their exploiters and subsequently being brutalised by the
capitalist state.

I met relatives for the first time at Incheon Airport, South Korea. As we travelled towards Seoul, I looked out the car window. Out there were signs of highly urbanised life: tall, twenty storey buildings clumped together in the distance and we hadn’t even reached Seoul, the capital city, just yet. I remember being eager to see every aspect of South Korea, especially the ‘development’ of an ‘Asian Tiger Economy’ under capitalism. In the following article I will share my experiences of and some of my discoveries about South Korea: conversations with the people, a rally for workers’ rights that I attended and my thoughts on the situation in general of socialists and left-wing activists in South Korea. Continue reading An Eye Witness Account of Capitalist South Korea →