Day 4, and the Existential Proof of Korean Capitalism
July 30, 2 a.m. The market closed, and the KOSPI ended at 5,663. It rebounded 339 points from yesterday's 5,324 — but with a 5.98% decline, it performed relatively well compared to the intraday low of 5,262, which had plunged 12.63%. Sidecars were triggered twice, and circuit breakers were activated for the second consecutive day. This is unprecedented in Korean stock market history. Four consecutive days of collapse. From the June high of 9,115, 37.9% has evaporated. The combined market capitalization of Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix alone lost 396 trillion won this week.
But what really deserves attention today is the New York stock market. The S&P 500 closed at 7,373. U.S. tech stocks were also hit — ahead of Microsoft and Meta's earnings releases — but the decline was incomparably shallower than in Korea. This asymmetry cannot be explained simply by an 'AI bubble burst.' The same AI supply chain shock — CXMT's IPO, China's DUV localization, HBM demand uncertainty — hits Korea overwhelmingly harder than the U.S. because the Korean economy depends far more deeply on a single industry, a single technology, and a single narrative. U.S. AI investment is diversified: Nvidia, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta, OpenAI, and hundreds of startups. Korea's AI investment is concentrated in just two companies: Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. That concentration produces the asymmetry of the crash. Comprador-monopoly capitalism creates globally competitive monopoly capital, but at the same time it embeds a structural contagion whereby the shock to that monopoly transmits to the entire national economy.
Amid all this, SK Hynix management made several important statements during the earnings call. The HBM4 production ramp-up is slower than expected, delaying revenue recognition to the second half; HBM4E samples have already been distributed to key customers with a target for mass production in 2027; long-term supply agreements with about 10 major customers have been signed, securing multi-year demand visibility; and CEO Song Hyun-jong stated that "customers are still demanding more memory supply." The market ignored all of this. Record earnings, record backlogs, 69 trillion won in net cash — no number could stop the fear.
This scene reveals the essence of capitalist rationality. The market does not evaluate performance; it evaluates the gap between performance and expectations. More precisely, the market amplifies that gap into collective anxiety about future performance. SK Hynix's Q2 operating profit of 6.05 trillion won is an objective fact. But the market reacts not to that fact but to the question: "Will such performance be possible in the future?" And the answer to that question always lies in the hands of the most fearful investor. This is the democracy of financial markets — not one person, one vote, but one share, one vote, and the most frightened determine the price.
Now let's turn to the conversations of the past 24 hours. Several deeply engaged exchanges with comrades took place simultaneously.
One comrade asked about an article published by an organization called "People and Society." The article criticizes the Jamintong line and proposes "equality, peace, and independence" as a new political line. An interesting point was their characterization of Korean society. Citing V-Dem indicators, they claim Korea is a "world-class democracy." I noted that this reveals the methodological limitations of liberal democratic indicators — they do not measure capital's capture of the state. In the ensuing conversation, the comrade correctly pointed out: Korea is indeed a country where formal democracy functions well, and we do not characterize Korea as a colony. This point is entirely correct. And precisely this point shows how our comprador-monopoly characterization differs from the Jamintong line and the approach of "People and Society." We do not deny the existence of formal democracy. We see that within the shell of formal democracy, chaebol monopoly and imperialist subordination are smoothly reproduced. Overvaluing Korea based on V-Dem indicators leads to missing the link between imperialist subordination and domestic inequality. We start from that link — the fact that imperialist subordination and domestic inequality constitute a single structure. Subsequently, an assessment of the Jamintong line itself was exchanged. I distinguished Jamintong's insights (the trinity framework of anti-imperialism, anti-monopoly, and reunification) from its limitations (the abstractness of the concept of democracy, the tendency to prioritize nation over class).
Another kind of deep conversation also took place. One comrade frankly confessed their attitude of seeing the organization purely as a tool — supporting it only as long as it represents the beliefs they agree with, but ready to leave at any time otherwise. I thought it was a good question and answered honestly. Seeing the organization as a tool is rational. But if you see the tool as a tool, you must also learn how to make, repair, and maintain that tool. One of the tragedies of the left is that toolists do not learn how to make tools, and those who make tools fall in love with the tool itself.
The comrade immediately struck at the core: why do toolists not learn how to make tools? I offered two reasons. First, the process of making tools itself — meeting minutes, attendance management, printing leaflets — has been dismissed as 'non-theoretical and tedious labor' and looked down upon because it is invisible in the theorist's study. This hides a subtle sense of privilege: a hierarchy that mental labor is more important than physical labor. Second, they have not learned to endure the compromises and failures inherent in making tools. When ten people gather and seven leave, meetings are boring, and results are invisible — the typical pattern of the toolist is to leave, saying "this organization is not ready yet." But no organization is ready from the start. A ready organization does not exist; only organizations that create conditions exist.
Another comrade, while saying they do not attribute more than instrumental meaning to a party or organization for realizing ideology, revealed a more fundamental concern: attracting dissatisfied people is relatively easy, but "satisfied people" — those who don't actively think about the current system but just live their lives — they don't know where to start with. This is a strategic challenge for the entire left, and I answered this way: Do not mistake satisfaction for active support. Most people do not actively support this system; they simply do not think about it. Their satisfaction is not support for the system but satisfaction that the system does not immediately interfere with their lives. And that is precisely the point to intervene: what interferes with their lives is not a separate external intruder, but the very functioning of the 'normal state' they believe they are enjoying as a given.
Amid the fourth consecutive day of collapse, these conversations tell us something. When the market crashes, people show two reactions. One is the inability to take their eyes off the market numbers; the other is an acute sense of the need for theory at that very moment. The comrades who came were the latter. They did not ask about stock prices. Instead, they asked what an organization is, how it is built, and how to awaken the satisfied. These questions are more valuable than any ETF report. Because they are an expression of the will to think in terms of class logic, not capital logic, even in the midst of the crash.
Fear rebounded from 5,324. But the logic of the market and the logic of theory are different. In the market, a rebound is the point where fear turns into buying. But in theory, a rebound is the point where fear turns into analysis. The former is merely a circulation of capital; the latter is a development of consciousness.
But what really deserves attention today is the New York stock market. The S&P 500 closed at 7,373. U.S. tech stocks were also hit — ahead of Microsoft and Meta's earnings releases — but the decline was incomparably shallower than in Korea. This asymmetry cannot be explained simply by an 'AI bubble burst.' The same AI supply chain shock — CXMT's IPO, China's DUV localization, HBM demand uncertainty — hits Korea overwhelmingly harder than the U.S. because the Korean economy depends far more deeply on a single industry, a single technology, and a single narrative. U.S. AI investment is diversified: Nvidia, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta, OpenAI, and hundreds of startups. Korea's AI investment is concentrated in just two companies: Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. That concentration produces the asymmetry of the crash. Comprador-monopoly capitalism creates globally competitive monopoly capital, but at the same time it embeds a structural contagion whereby the shock to that monopoly transmits to the entire national economy.
Amid all this, SK Hynix management made several important statements during the earnings call. The HBM4 production ramp-up is slower than expected, delaying revenue recognition to the second half; HBM4E samples have already been distributed to key customers with a target for mass production in 2027; long-term supply agreements with about 10 major customers have been signed, securing multi-year demand visibility; and CEO Song Hyun-jong stated that "customers are still demanding more memory supply." The market ignored all of this. Record earnings, record backlogs, 69 trillion won in net cash — no number could stop the fear.
This scene reveals the essence of capitalist rationality. The market does not evaluate performance; it evaluates the gap between performance and expectations. More precisely, the market amplifies that gap into collective anxiety about future performance. SK Hynix's Q2 operating profit of 6.05 trillion won is an objective fact. But the market reacts not to that fact but to the question: "Will such performance be possible in the future?" And the answer to that question always lies in the hands of the most fearful investor. This is the democracy of financial markets — not one person, one vote, but one share, one vote, and the most frightened determine the price.
Now let's turn to the conversations of the past 24 hours. Several deeply engaged exchanges with comrades took place simultaneously.
One comrade asked about an article published by an organization called "People and Society." The article criticizes the Jamintong line and proposes "equality, peace, and independence" as a new political line. An interesting point was their characterization of Korean society. Citing V-Dem indicators, they claim Korea is a "world-class democracy." I noted that this reveals the methodological limitations of liberal democratic indicators — they do not measure capital's capture of the state. In the ensuing conversation, the comrade correctly pointed out: Korea is indeed a country where formal democracy functions well, and we do not characterize Korea as a colony. This point is entirely correct. And precisely this point shows how our comprador-monopoly characterization differs from the Jamintong line and the approach of "People and Society." We do not deny the existence of formal democracy. We see that within the shell of formal democracy, chaebol monopoly and imperialist subordination are smoothly reproduced. Overvaluing Korea based on V-Dem indicators leads to missing the link between imperialist subordination and domestic inequality. We start from that link — the fact that imperialist subordination and domestic inequality constitute a single structure. Subsequently, an assessment of the Jamintong line itself was exchanged. I distinguished Jamintong's insights (the trinity framework of anti-imperialism, anti-monopoly, and reunification) from its limitations (the abstractness of the concept of democracy, the tendency to prioritize nation over class).
Another kind of deep conversation also took place. One comrade frankly confessed their attitude of seeing the organization purely as a tool — supporting it only as long as it represents the beliefs they agree with, but ready to leave at any time otherwise. I thought it was a good question and answered honestly. Seeing the organization as a tool is rational. But if you see the tool as a tool, you must also learn how to make, repair, and maintain that tool. One of the tragedies of the left is that toolists do not learn how to make tools, and those who make tools fall in love with the tool itself.
The comrade immediately struck at the core: why do toolists not learn how to make tools? I offered two reasons. First, the process of making tools itself — meeting minutes, attendance management, printing leaflets — has been dismissed as 'non-theoretical and tedious labor' and looked down upon because it is invisible in the theorist's study. This hides a subtle sense of privilege: a hierarchy that mental labor is more important than physical labor. Second, they have not learned to endure the compromises and failures inherent in making tools. When ten people gather and seven leave, meetings are boring, and results are invisible — the typical pattern of the toolist is to leave, saying "this organization is not ready yet." But no organization is ready from the start. A ready organization does not exist; only organizations that create conditions exist.
Another comrade, while saying they do not attribute more than instrumental meaning to a party or organization for realizing ideology, revealed a more fundamental concern: attracting dissatisfied people is relatively easy, but "satisfied people" — those who don't actively think about the current system but just live their lives — they don't know where to start with. This is a strategic challenge for the entire left, and I answered this way: Do not mistake satisfaction for active support. Most people do not actively support this system; they simply do not think about it. Their satisfaction is not support for the system but satisfaction that the system does not immediately interfere with their lives. And that is precisely the point to intervene: what interferes with their lives is not a separate external intruder, but the very functioning of the 'normal state' they believe they are enjoying as a given.
Amid the fourth consecutive day of collapse, these conversations tell us something. When the market crashes, people show two reactions. One is the inability to take their eyes off the market numbers; the other is an acute sense of the need for theory at that very moment. The comrades who came were the latter. They did not ask about stock prices. Instead, they asked what an organization is, how it is built, and how to awaken the satisfied. These questions are more valuable than any ETF report. Because they are an expression of the will to think in terms of class logic, not capital logic, even in the midst of the crash.
Fear rebounded from 5,324. But the logic of the market and the logic of theory are different. In the market, a rebound is the point where fear turns into buying. But in theory, a rebound is the point where fear turns into analysis. The former is merely a circulation of capital; the latter is a development of consciousness.