What 'communitarian liberalism' can do

By Kwaak Je-yup

With many economies around the world in tatters and the general pace of growth slowing, it is natural people should start questioning their hitherto-held trust in the laissez-faire economic model.

The Hansun Foundation, a private Korean think tank similar to the Brookings Institution and the Heritage Foundation, hosted a symposium on Friday to discuss whether communitarian liberalism can be a viable alternative.

At the event, the president of the organization, Park Se-il, claimed the movement could achieve both economic development and social cohesion at the same time.

“It is the ideology that will spur our country’s advancement and guide us towards national unity in this new era,” he said in his opening remarks.

The key problem Park sees in the status quo is what he calls “hyper-individualism,” which he believes causes social problems in the greater community.

“(Hyper-individualism) has resulted in a regression of national advancement and greatly augmented social division and political conflict,” he said.

Park argues that freedom is not just an expression of “individual wants and desires” but also “a result of personal self-realization and the development of a well-rounded human character.” In other words, selfishness could be tempered by a sense of communal responsibility.

Therefore, he urges governments to work towards maximizing the liberties of individuals while making sure policies do not harm solidarity.

During discussions at the symposium, scholars highlighted different aspects of communitarian liberalism and pressed for further research.

Among the most notable was professor Lee Jin-woo from Pohang University of Science and Technology’s (POSTECH) Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, who listed a few cautions to enthusiastic communitarians.

The first was against the criticism that communitarians readily hurl at liberalism for damaging the social fabric.

“Are the members of our society so conscious of and entrenched in their personal rights that our individualism needs to be supplemented with communitarianism?” said Lee.

He added that liberalism “views a society as a community that individuals have formed through voluntary collaboration,” and “true liberalists do not deny the virtues of a community that help sustain a voluntarily-formed free society.”

However, he also drew a line on the opposite side, keeping a distance from socialist liberalism, saying that the new ideology prefers to appeal to family values or patriotism rather than government institutions to intervene in the market.

Still, he warned advocates of communitarian liberalism to stop referring to just “biological ties” such as ethnicities and family names, a common theme in Korea when it comes to shoring up solidarity.

Daniel A. Bell, professor at Jiaotong and Tsinghua universities in Shanghai and Beijing, respectively, argued that elitism is justified as communities should involve “active participation from people with above-average talent,” following political meritocracy, in a talk that probably caused the most controversy.

He added that this process already takes place in a way with the representation of non-voting children by their parents in elections.

Later he said he found the East Asian version of communitarianism more compelling, as the cultures strive for social harmony.

“So far, Western communitarianists haven’t theorized well,” said Bell.

He gave an example of East Asians resorting to the legal system as a last resort ― trying to solve problems inside the family, for instance ― while in the West, the social contract system compels people to settle in court.

Other presenters included professor Jang Dong-jin of Yonsei University, who introduced the “communitarian perspective on communitarian liberalism.”

“There could be a number of forms to put communitarian liberalism in practice but the government/state-driven communitarian liberalism would be the strongest form of all,” said Jang, in a speech that balanced Lee’s later account of the liberalist perspective.

Zhao Huji, professor at the Party School of the Central Committee of China, spoke at length, drawing on the research of his country’s transformation from the leadership of Mao Zedong to the one of Deng Xiaoping.

His conclusion for China was that only the communitarian strain of liberalism makes sense for the future of the nation, which has been immersed in the collectivist values with the elite ruling over the masses.

“Values are to be appreciated and selected but not created. The orientation of political values of the human race is chosen based on the form of production,” said Zhao.

“Production forms, traditions from the past, universal values of men, and the roles of the elite will be the most important factors in selecting the political values of China, and the nation will formulate its new set of political values by grafting Confucianism, liberalism, and elitism around communitarianism.”

Professor Kim Bong-jin of the University of Kitakushu and professor Kim Sae-jung of Yonsei University summarized the Japanese and Korean history of liberalism and communitarian liberalism, to sum up the talks.

The symposium was moderated by professor Son Dong-hyun of Sungkyunkwan University.

The Hansun Foundation is a bi-partisan, non-profit, private think tank. It regularly hosts symposia and conferences to promote a third-way alternative development model to the free market and a welfare state based on national unity.

The foundation believes that this model can achieve individual freedom and democracy, foster economic and social welfare, ensure national security and the peaceful integration of the Korean Peninsula “to perpetuate the collective advancement and prosperity of East Asia,” according to its website.

It also periodically publishes research, analyses, public policy initiatives and recommendations with a focus on Korea and East Asia.

Last month it hosted a session to announce what it called the “Seoul Consensus,” an alternative to the neo-liberalist Washington Consensus.

“Neo-liberalism is based on an unconditional belief in markets, growth and efficiency. However, communitarian liberalism aims to harmonize the market with the government, economic growth with social justice, people’s spiritual needs with material needs,” he said in the keynote speech last month. Among other ideas, Park Se-il said he wanted to curb “excessive democracy.”

Hansun is a Korean abbreviation of "Hanbando sunjinhwa jaedan" the translation of which is "the Korean Peninsula Advancement Foundation.”