"Imperialism without Empire" — A Situation Analysis Piercing the World System After the Collapse of U.S. Hegemony and Korean Capitalism
Source
Why this was selected
It satisfies all three criteria. **Theoretical sophistication**: The unique periodization of "Imperialism without Empire" — the proposition that the collapse of U.S. hegemony is a dissolution of empire, not of imperialist capitalism — is a theoretical intervention that simultaneously critiques both multipolarization theory and anti-imperial nationalism. The perspective of "anti-monopoly, not anti-imperialism" and the methodology of viewing imperialism as a single system rather than inter-state relations are also of a precision rarely seen in domestic left-wing discourse. **Empirical adequacy**: The analysis of the Lee Jae-myung administration's October 29 Korea-U.S. agreement as a "dual agreement of U.S.-centered rearrangement consolidation + acceptance of domestic big capital demands" goes beyond the typical progressive media's 'anti-American vs. pro-American' framework and delves into class political economy. Redefining the Yoon Suk-yeol martial law-impeachment phase as a "process of resolving the constitutional crisis" rather than a "constitutional crisis" is also a frame-shifting intervention. **Concreteness in the field**: It includes the atmosphere of the March 7, 2026, KCTU 15th-floor lecture event, audience question patterns (focus on the Iran war), and reactions from the movement camp, filling the gap between academic papers and activist discussions.
Context
This lecture summary simultaneously intervenes in three major debates. First, the multipolarization/Global South discourse: Against the trend of reading U.S. decline as 'the end of the imperialist system,' it emphasizes the continuity of the capitalist structure itself. Second, the problem of liberal hegemony after impeachment: It diagnoses how the democracy vs. insurrection dichotomy has eroded class dividing lines and analyzes the mechanism by which the Lee Jae-myung government absorbs the radicalization of progressive forces into the democratic alliance. Third, methodology of situation analysis: The shift from "situation is tactics" to "situation as subject formation" corresponds to a methodological debate mediating analysis and practice. Among the site's existing curation, the Anglo-American theory axis of Inés Valdez (empire-democracy relationship) and William Robinson (transnational capitalist class) and the Korean domestic analysis axis of this article complement each other.