Economic Crisis and Left Politics in Europe
Met with the severest economic crisis after Great depression, European countries pushed counter-cyclical policies as financial relief and fiscal expansion, and fell eventually into another contradiction of fiscal crisis. Fiscal austerity policy pursued by most country provoked confrontation between classes and struggles against budget cuts. Economic crisis provided good opportunity for european socialists and radical left to form broad left party beyond the left of social democrat parties fallen into legitimacy crisis by adapting to neoliberalist policy line. However, the performance among countries varies not a little. Left Party of Germany and Left Bloc in Portugal are somewhat successful, Italy and Britain are in a disrupted condition contrastingly. NPA of France deserves future results.
(Sang-Hwan Jang)
Alterglobalization Movements and Radical Left Parties: Experiences of Socialist Workers Party and Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire
This paper compares the experiences of building the radical left parties attempted by Socialist Workers Party(SWP) in Britain and Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire(LCR) in France. Behind the emergence of the radical left parties in Europe since the beginning of this century were the active interventions of Trotskyist organizations like SWP or LCR as well as the rise of alterglobalization movements against the rightward shifts of existing social democratic parties under the pressures of neoliberalism. While SWP built another party, Repect, as ‘a special kind of the united front’, LCR expanded themselves into ‘a broad left party’, Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste(NPA).
(Seongjin Jeong)

The Social Europe of the ETUC
The States of Europe established an economic community of Europe after they founded EEC on the Paris Treaty in 1952 and Rome treaty in 1957. There was a strategic purpose of the European economic community in the Mastricht Treaty in 1993 and Amsterdam Treaty in 1997. The most important content was to set up an economic development strategy and to overcome structural crises of capitalism. However, ETUC has utilized Social Europe of the States and the capital for interests of the European labor. ETUC has struggled to ensure rights of European labor against EU. ETUC had three strategies. Firstly, ETUC wants to ensure flexicurity of labor.
(Youngsu Kim)


Alterglobalisation Movement in Asia: New Politics of Scale
This article aims to understand the nature of the different forms of manifestation of struggles against the expanding circuit of capital in the context of neoliberal globalisation. In the first part of this article, I will try to identify the dual impact of neoliberal globalisation, whcih expands the basis of solidarity among different social movements by integrating the majority of the population into value-relations and at the same time creates divisions between social movements by building up hierarchical relations through different social mediations such as gender, region, and nationality. In the second part I will trace the making of inter-Asia solidarity during the anti-WTO protest in Hong Kong in 2005 with a particular focus on their scaling-up strategies.
(Daeoup Chang)

Bolivarian Revolution’s Construction of the 21st Century Socialism in Venezuela: Limits and Possibilities
This article will examine the possibilities, limits and the tasks for Bolivarian revolution to construct ‘the 21st century Socialism’ in Venezuela. It argue as follows: The revolution has been radicalized and evolved from radical populism to one with the potential to socialist revolution, and that it can be radicalizedfurther; Cooperatives which is the core of ‘social economy’ cannot be a part of socialist production as long as it is not controlled by the society; Community councils will not sustainable as far as it continues to depend on the state, thus it must constitute socialist communes along with workers’ committee in state-owned companies; In order that the revolution will be a true socialist one, nationalization and control by labors of factories is crucially important and necessary.
(Changkeun Kim)





New Discovery of Karl Marx
During the last few years there has been a widespread resurgence of interest in Karl Marx, even though with the end of the century its disappearance had been unanimously declared. One of the most significant examples of this rediscovery is the continuation of the Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe (MEGA 2), the historico-critical edition of his complete works. From new philological acquisitions there emerges a different author. The dogmatic thinker represented by Marxism-Leninism must be supplanted by the image of a scholar who left a major part of his writings incomplete in order to carry on researching and verifying the validity of his claims.
(Marcello Musto)

Global Financial Crisis and Finance-led Capitalism
This paper aims to review the cause of global financial crisis with respect to the financialization of economy and advent of finance-led capitalism since 1980. The financial crisis and the preceding bubble in US economy have also cast a light on the social economic transformation wrought by financialization. Financial institutions have become adept at profit?making through mediating transactions in open financial markets, that is, investment banking system. In an investment banking system where balance sheets are continuously marked to market, asset price changes show up immediately in changes in net worth.
(Jangpyo Hong)
Towards a New Construction of Radical Democracy: A Exploration of a Road of Radicalization of Democracy beyond Capitalism
There have been two groups within the anti-dictatorship opposition camp in the 1970s and 1980s in Korea, that is democratic right and left. While the latter was composed of National Liberation, People’s Democracy, Leninist, neo-Marxists, progressive liberal, and other diverse groups then, it is now composed of progressive feminists, radical ecologists, autonomist, social democrats, old radical groups, etc. In this paper, the author argues that we are confronted with a new task, that is making a new alliance relation among different democratic left, on the one hand, and forming a new radical democratic popular front against the contradiction of the neo-liberal globalization and post-democratization.
(Hee-Yeon Cho)
A Critique of the Monopoly Price Theory of Information Commodities
The monopoly price theory of information commodities has been one of the two main contending theories in the Korean debate over the value of information goods, and has significantly contributed to the development and evolution of the debate. However, the monopoly price theory short-circuits the social process of the virtual intensification of commodity-producing labour and the role of knowledge labour. Furthermore, it is based on a false understanding of the nature of knowledge and the role of intellectual property rights.
(Heesang Jeon)
The 2010 Local Elections in South Korea: From the Perspective of ‘Progressive Political Movements’
This paper aims at analyzing the 2010 Local Elections in South Korea from the perspective of ‘leftist’ or ‘progressive political movements’. In this election, the progressive parties must have pursued ‘first anti-neoliberalism progressive alliance(PA), and later conditional anti-MB democratic alliance(‘DA’) with the liberal parties against the ruling conservative government. However, the Democratic Laber Party(DLP) chose to ally with the liberal parties whereas the New Progressive Party(NPP) failed to enforce the DLP to join PA and to prevent some of its own local branches from joining ‘DA’.
(Hochul Sonn)
Democracy and Dictatorship:Neoliberalism and the State of Exception
This article explores Walter Benjamin’s insight according to which the tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the ‘State of emergency’ is not the exception but the rule. The liberal state tradition, and not just its authoritarian wing, understands this well and does indeed conceive of the state as the executive committee of the bourgeoisie. The neo-liberal conception of laissez-faire does not extend to the state. Laissez-faire is no response to riots. That is to say, neo-liberalism does not view dictatorship as the opposite to the liberal democratic state but sees it instead as a means that safeguards the ends of the ruleof law in the face of democratic pressures.
(Werner Bonfeld)

ALBA and Cooperative Development: Lessons from the European Payments Union
The member nations of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) are working to create an integrated trade and monetary zone with a new currency. This paper explores the significance of their effort, highlighting potential challenges and benefits. First, it discusses the rationale for a cooperative development strategy. Next, it analyzes the history and workings of the European Payments Union (EPU), one of the most successful attempts at collective regional development. Finally, it draws upon the EPU experience to suggest a process of zone construction capable of achieving ALBA’s goal of cooperative development.
(Martin Hart-Landsberg)