Anti-Imperialist, Anti-Monopoly
반제·반독점
A political line formulated in the South Korean democratization and progressive movements of the 1980s, which identifies imperialist subordination (especially to the United States) and monopoly capital (the chaebol) as the two fundamental structural contradictions of Korean society. Overcoming both simultaneously became the strategic core of the transformation program. It was consolidated as shorthand for the People's Democracy (PD) faction's NLPDR (the National Liberation People's Democratic Revolution thesis) and was later adopted across the progressive camp, including the National Liberation (NL) faction, as a minimal common denominator of systemic critique.
In depth
Origins and two tendencies
The anti-imperialist, anti-monopoly line crystallized in the 1980s through the 'Social Formation Debate' between the two major poles of the South Korean movement: the People's Democracy (PD) faction and the National Liberation (NL) faction. PD characterized South Korean society as neo-colonial state monopoly capitalism and called for dismantling the twin structure of external imperialist domination (anti-imperialism) and internal monopoly-capital exploitation (anti-monopoly). NL prioritized the national contradiction and anti-imperialist struggle, but also integrated the monopoly-capital question into its National Liberation People's Democratic Revolution (NLPDR) framework.
Strategic significance
The pairing of anti-imperialist and anti-monopoly is not a mere list of slogans but a claim of strategic linkage. In South Korea's comprador-monopoly-capitalist system, dismantling the chaebol (anti-monopoly) is impossible without challenging the military and economic subordination embedded in the US–ROK alliance, while the withdrawal of US forces and the restoration of wartime operational control (anti-imperialism) directly clash with domestic monopoly capital's interests. For this reason the two tasks are posed as a single, integrated program of transformation.
Operationalization in institutional politics
The concept was reactivated in the context of the failed constitutional amendment of May 2026. While mainstream amendment discourse confined itself to limited defensive measures (tightening martial-law procedures, memorializing democratization symbols), a countervailing constitutional program that foregrounded the anti-imperialist, anti-monopoly line presented an alternative encompassing US troop withdrawal, chaebol dissolution, and the substantive guarantee of labor rights. It thereby functions as the logical endpoint of a critique that moves beyond reform-within-the-regime toward a call for constituent, rather than merely amendatory, constitutional transformation.
Related terms
Sources
- Wikipedia (KO) NL faction article documents 반제반파쇼, 반미 자주화 as NL's core line and the NL-PD distinction
- Wikipedia (EN) Documents PD/NL factional divide; PD prioritized working class and anti-monopoly struggle; NL foregrounded anti-imperialist national liberation
- labortoday.co.kr Detailed exposition of 반제반독점민중민주주의혁명: 반제 addresses national contradiction (US imperialism), 반독점 addresses class contradiction (chaebol monopoly), 민중민주주의 is the post-revolutionary political form