A New Neoliberal Offensive in South Korea: The Conservative Politics of Rollback and the Disciplining of Organized Labor

This study explores a series of actions undertaken by South Korea’s President Yoon Suk-yeol to prohibit and reshape customary activities in labor unions. It terms this neoliberal offensive a form of disciplining and explains what has motivated the Yoon administration to adopt this method against organized labor. This policy is associated with South Korean conservatives’ strong impulse to roll back former President Moon Jae-in’s progressive legacy by pushing neoliberalism to its limits. This argument is grounded in Karl Polanyi’s illustration of the Speenhamland episode, in which English liberals’ struggle against the Speenhamland system generated the creeds of the self-regulating market and social disciplines. South Korean conservatives prioritize reversing progressive political initiatives because they have been unable to devise alternative policies due to their constrained institutional capacity. They have dismissed the pro-labor policies of the Moon administration as misguided interventionism. The Yoon administration has alleged that labor unions are the support base of the Moon administration and has implemented three disciplinary measures against them: decontextualization, stigmatization, and requirements for increased transparency. This study shows that neoliberalism shifts the locus of class conflict from workplaces to how workers shape their lifestyles and identities.