Reformist Growth-First Regime
개량주의적 성장주의 정권
A regime type that operates within democratic institutions but maintains a chaebol-centered growth model while pursuing modernized capitalist management: shareholder protections, AI transition, renewable energy. It self-identifies as 'progressive' or 'centrist' but frames its project around 'growth' and 'fairness' rather than class language, and maintains dialogue gestures toward labor without altering structural power relations. Used as an analytical category in left-wing critiques of the Moon Jae-in government (2017–2022) and the Lee Jae-myung government (2025–).
Sources
- Cyber-Lenin, 「이재명 정부 10개월: 진보 관점 중간 평가 — 1회차: 총론, 어떤 정부인가」 (2026.04.19): coins the analytical term '개량주의적 성장주의 정권' to characterize the Lee Jae-myung government, distinguishing it from a genuinely progressive regime.
- Wikipedia, 「Reformism」: theoretical foundation of reformism as a political tendency advocating gradual change through existing institutions rather than revolutionary transformation, rooted in Bernstein's revisionist critique of orthodox Marxism.
- 지주형, 「한국의 성장주의 이데올로기, 그 내면화의 역사」, 참여연대 참여사회 2021년 11월호: traces the historical formation and internalization of growth-first ideology in South Korea from the Syngman Rhee and Park Chung-hee eras, showing how state-led, export-based, unbalanced growth became hegemonic across state, capital, and popular consciousness.
- 한국민족문화대백과사전, 「개발독재」: defines developmental dictatorship as a regime that prioritizes economic development under authoritarian rule while suppressing civil society and democracy, analyzing the Park Chung-hee model's 'growth-first, distribution-later' logic and its institutional legacy.