A sad portrait of Korea’s conservatism

Choi Hoon
The author is the chief editorof the JoongAng Ilbo.

“I did exactly the opposite of what the party told me to do. I did not even mention [opposition Democratic Party leader] Lee Jae-myung or Cho Kuk [the controversial former justice minister who launched his own party ahead of the April 10 parliamentary elections]. I didn’t even put up the party banner [at my campaign office],” said Kim Jae-sup from the governing People Power Party (PPP), who won a legislative seat representing a district in Seoul. His winning strategy represents the sad fate of Korea’s conservatives today.

The conservatives formed the majority and the liberals the minority in the voters’ map until the 20th century. Their conservative values — the anti-communism and pro-growth ideology — dominated politics in Korea. But the economic decline of North Korea and the end of the Cold War reduced the merit of their “anti-communist” stance. Widening inequalities also helped water down the “pro-growth” reasoning along with the deepening skepticism over neoliberalism in the 1990s.

People in their 40s and 50s today converted to the DP after being disgusted by the conservative party collecting a truckload of campaign funds from big corporate names during the 2002 presidential election. Their elders who had spent their student days revolting against the authoritarian regime of Chun Doo Hwan are in their 60s now. The younger generation also put their own happiness and interests ahead of national growth. The conservatives can only rely on their traditional voting base of Yeongnam and people over 70. Liberals form the majority and conservatives the minority in today’s electoral map.

Is conservatism that outmoded and unfit for today? Let’s take a look at its background. Humans are imperfect. Since they are not rational beings, mankind cannot achieve a perfect society. Common sense and wisdom based on the effective outcomes from experience and history can only serve as the best guidance for humanity.

One gram of experience can have more value than a ton of ideals. Socialism that regards society as a test lab cannot be the right answer. The desire to pursue one’s own interests and build possessions serves as the strongest motivation for humans. Therefore, capitalism respecting private ownership, enterprises and reasonable pursuit of self-interests can best accommodate human nature. The free-market system comes most naturally to humans due to their innate desire to fulfill their self-interests and exchange goods, as Adam Smith dictated in the “Wealth of Nations.” Society does not work like a machine, reassembled and replaced. It is vain to try to upend the natural order. Preserving conservative human nature and values contrasts with the liberal pillars of equality and distribution, according to the logic.

What really defines the strength of conservatism is the force to evolve and reinvent. “Society as a living organism must change and reform to preserve its life. No living beings can survive without change. Self-reform is better than being forced to change through revolution. The organism will sicken if it does not tend to its weaker parts. Conservatism must tend to the weak. Conservatives must brood over what to discard, preserve and uphold. They must not fear to emulate if the opponent is better. Being less addicted to ideology can be the strength of the conservatives. A flexible yet discreet approach to reform is true conservatism,” writes Park Ji-hyang, an emeritus professor of Western history at Seoul National University, in her book “The Life of a Political Party.”

President Yoon Suk Yeol’s unilateral ways ultimately caused the PPP’s crushing defeat in the recent election. But the primary responsibility for soul-searching falls on the party. If it had firm conviction on conservative values, it should have attacked the populist platforms of the liberals. Instead of mimicking the DP’s popular campaign catchphrases, the PPP should have pitched the fundamental conservative values of doing away with regulations, enabling greater enterprise freedom, surrendering vested interests and caring for the vulnerable.

The next PPP leader must reinvent the ailing party. The conservatives have no future if they solely rely on the president. The party chose to jettison its outspoken members like Yoo Seong-min and Lee Jun-seok. The PPP cannot serve as an academy to train conservative warriors if its members suck up to the president. It must disband the Yeouido Institute that serves the president and instead build a farsighted think tank that can design conservative strategies. It must raise young conservatives and seat them in responsible positions to groom them to be leaders. It must recruit people armed with creativity and coordinating capabilities rather than blindly employing rigid bureaucrats, prosecutors and police officers.

Former British prime minister David Cameron makes the example for meticulous grooming. The Conservative Party recruited the Oxford graduate as a researcher to its party think tank. He went through training as an aide to the finance and home secretaries and a shadow minister on education. He brought ruling power to the conservative party for the first time in 13 years and even changed the party logo to bestow “green tree” identity to the Tories. “I want and I will lead a Conservative party that when the government does the right thing, we will work with them, and when they do the wrong thing we will call them to account and criticise them,” he said in his inauguration speech upon being elected as the Tory leader.