Middle classes, democratization, and class formation

The case of South Korea

HAGEN KOO
University o f Hawaii at Manoa

One important consequence of industrial development in the East

Asian newly industrialized countries (NICs) - South Korea, Taiwan,
Singapore, and Hong Kong - is the emergence of large middle classes.
Although export-oriented industrialization in the Third World is most
frequently associated with labor-intensive industries and, concomi-
tantly, with a low-skill, low-wage labor force, rapid export-led growth in
the East Asian NICs has significantly increased the numbers' of profes-
sional and managerial workers. For example, in South Korea, the pro-
portion of professional, managerial, and clerical workers (not including
sales employees) increased from 6.7 percent to 16.6 percent during the
two-decade period from 1963 to 1983. In Taiwan, the same category
of salaried workers increased from 11.0 percent to 20.1 percent
between 1963 and 1982. And in Hong Kong, white-collar workers
increased from 14 percent in 1961 to 21 percent in 1981. Furthermore,
the stratum of small business owners and shopkeepers has not declined
in these countries but instead has increased steadily, in proportion to
the growth of the urban labor force.

The rise of the middle classes has thus become a significant element in
the evolution of the new industrial order in the East Asian countries.
Concentrated in large urban centers, they shape the dominant pattern
of consumption and urban life styles; they make new political demands;
and they spawn new political debates and tactics. The political stance
of the middle classes has been a critical element in the recent transi-
tions from authoritarian rule in South Korea and Taiwan.

Despite their obvious significance, however, there have been few sys-
tematic analyses of the East Asian middle classes. Superficial journal-
istic accounts abound, but there are hardly any systematic studies of the
social and political character of the middle classes and the role they

Theory and Society 20: 485-509, 1991.

9 1991 KluwerAcademie Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
486

play in political change in the East Asian NICs, at least none available
in English. This article presents an analysis of the political character of
the middle class in South Korea, the largest and the most dynamic of
the new industrial economy in East Asia. The focus of the analysis is on
the role of the middle classes in two major political processes, demo-
cratization struggles and working-class formation. The middle classes
play a critical role in both processes, determining the outcomes and the
concrete forms of both struggles.

The major arguments of the article are as follows: First, the role of the
middle classes in democratization is fluid and variable, not necessarily
because of their inherently inconsistent class interest but because the
democratization process is a complex and protracted process and
because different segments of the middle class respond to this political
change differently. The transition from authoritarian rule is composed
of a series of different "moments" or conjunctures, each of which raises
different issues, a different form of conflicts, and a shifting balance of
power among classes. Responses to these changing political contexts
varied not only between the working class and the middle class, but
also among different segments of the middle class. In general terms, the
Korean middle classes have acted as a progressive democratic element
in political transitions but the specific meanings and goals of democ-
racy they projected differed significantly from the main concerns of the
working class.

Second, with regard to working-class struggles, the Korean new middle

class, especially its intellectual segment, played a far more significant
role than its western counterpart played in the first decades of this cen-
tury. A major reason for this difference is a historical one. The Korean
new middle class emerged as a significant social stratum before the
bourgeoisie established its ideological hegemony and before industrial
workers developed into an organized class. In the absence of effective
class ideologies and class organizations provided by either of the two
major classes, the middle-class-led social movements played a critical
role in shaping the form and content of the nascent working-class
movement. The centrality of the state in economic and social develop-
ment accentuates the political role of the middle classes. Because the
state determines the major parameters of economic and social change,
social conflicts tend to appear first at the political level, involving the
state as a major object and arena of struggles. Occupying a relatively
more autonomous position from state control than wage workers do,
intellectuals, students, and other white-collar workers participated ac-
 487

tively in political struggles against the authoritarian regimes, exerting

strong influence on the consciousness and organization of industrial
workers.

The growth of white-collar workers

In most developing countries, the growth of white-collar workers tends

to occur in the public sector, especially in government bureaucracies,
because of the overexpansion of state functions, and often because of
the necessity of absorbing the surplus of college-educated workers. In
South Korea, however, the increase of white-collar workers has been
directly related to the dynamic growth in the industrial sector. In practi-
caUy all aspects, the economic development that South Korea has
undergone in the past two-and-a-half decades represents a genuine
capitalist industrialization, quite contrary to the main thesis of Latin
American dependency writings. 1 In terms of both the structure of pro-
duction and the structure of the labor force, Korean industrial transfor-
mation has been more similar to what occurred in the West a century
ago than to what we witness in other regions of the Third World today.2

South Korea embarked on export-oriented industrialization in the

early 1960s. At the early stage of this development, emphasis was given
to developing labor-intensive industries in order to take advantage of
the abundant labor force. This growth strategy created a large number
of jobs for semiskilled manual workers at low wages. With the success
of this strategy, Korea moved into industrial deepening based on heavy
and chemical industries, such as shipbuilding, automobile, petroleum
refining, and electronics industries. The structure of production
changed dramatically. Industrial production, which accounted for a
mere 9 percent of the gross national product (GNP) in 1962, increased
to 31 percent in 1985, while the share of agricultural production
decreased from 43 percent to 15 percent. Within the manufacturing
sector, a noticeable shift also occurred from light to heavy industries.
Simultaneously, the average size of Korean firms has increased, accom-
panied by the rise of world-class corporations owned by Korean
conglomerate capital.

This industrial structural change is directly related to the expansion of

white-collar workers in South Korea, as shown in Table 1. Several
important trends are noticeable in Table 1. The first to notice is the
rapid growth in the proletarianized wage workers. Between 1955 and
488

TableL Change in Korean Occupational Structure, 1955-1985(%).

1955 1960 1970 1980 1985

Business owners and top

executives 0.3 0.5 0.6 1.1 1.4

Nonmanual workers 4.8 5.2 8.9 13.8 17.1

Managers in public sector 1.7 1.7 1.8 2.0 2.1

Managers in private sector 0.5 0.7 1.5 3.3 5.1
Intellectuals/professionals 1.8 1.9 2.5 3.4 3.7
Clerical workers 0.8 0.9 3.1 5.1 6.2

Manual workers 12.5 14.6 23.7 30.3 34.0

Industrial workers 5.9 7.1 15.8 24.0 25.7

(production workers only) (3.1) (3.6) (8.9) (15.0) -
Sales/service employees 1.4 2.5 4.5 5.3 7.7
Personal service workers 5.2 5.0 3.4 1.0 0.6

Nonfarm self-employed 7.5 10.5 13.6 17.1 21.0

Retail/wholesale - 8.0 9.4 11.9

Services - 0.4 0.6 0.9
Manufacturing - 2.1 3.6 4.2

Farmers 70.6 65.2 51.7 33.5 23.9

Unemployed 4.2 4.0 1.6 4.3 2.6
Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
(6,390) (7,522) (10,543) (12,708) (15,350)*

* Number of workers in thousands.

Source: Adapted from Suh (1987), 66-68; original data were drawn from Korean
Population Census data, both published reports and unpublished data tapes.

1985, i n d u s t r i a l w a g e w o r k e r s ( i n c l u d i n g f a c t o r y w o r k e r s , m i n e r s , a n d
c o n s t r u c t i o n a n d t r a n s p o r t a t i o n w o r k e r s ) i n c r e a s e d f r o m 5.9 p e r c e n t
o f the l a b o r f o r c e to 25.7 p e r c e n t . T h e y c o n s t i t u t e t h e c o r e o f t h e
e m e r g i n g w o r k i n g class in S o u t h K o r e a . In t h e m i d - 1 9 8 0 s , t h e i n d u s -
trial w a g e w o r k e r s c a m e to c o n s t i t u t e t h e largest o c c u p a t i o n a l g r o u p -
ing, e v e n l a r g e r t h a n t h a t o f f a r m e r s .

A s e c o n d i m p o r t a n t change, d i r e c t l y r e l e v a n t to o u r c o n c e r n h e r e , is
t h e i m p r e s s i v e g r o w t h o f w h i t e - c o l l a r w o r k e r s . B e t w e e n 1955 a n d
1 9 8 5 t h e p r o p o r t i o n o f w h i t e - c o l l a r w o r k e r s i n c r e a s e d f r o m 4.8 p e r -
 489

cent to 17.1 percent. The fastest growing occupational group has been
that of managerial workers in the private sector. Between 1955 and
1985, their relative size increased about ten times from 0.5 percent to
5.1 percent. The proportion of routine clerical workers increased at a
similar rate from 0.8 to 6.2 percent. While clerical workers increased
most significantly in the 1960s, the increase of managerial workers was
most noticeable in the 1970s and 1980s. Another important category
that increased significantly is that of intellectuals and other independ-
ent professionals; between 1955 and 1985 they increased from 1.8 to
3.7 percent. In contrast to the rapid growth of the managerial and pro-
fessional workers in the private sector, the proportion of bureaucrats in
the state sector increased only very modestly, from 1.7 to 2.1 percent.
The evidence is thus clear that the growth of the new middle class in
South Korea has been not due to the expansion of the state apparatus
but to the more genuine capitalist industrial transformation of the
occupational structure.

A third important trend of change is the increase in the nonfarm self-

employed workers, who grew from 7.5 percent to 21 percent in the
1955 to 1985 period. The majority of the self-employed workers are
retailers, market traders, shopkeepers, and independent producers.
Certainly,. not all of them can be regarded as members of the petty
bourgeoisie, because many self-employed are propertyless workers
engaged in marginal-scale commercial and service activities. One study
suggests that about one-half of the urban self-employed earned more
than the average household expenditures of the blue-collar workers,
thereby enjoying middle-class living standards. 3 Although the majority
of self-employed activities are found in commerce and services, the
most significant increase occurred in the manufacturing category.
Included in this category are mostly small-scale subcontract produc-
tion activities linked to large manufacturing firms. Another noticeable
change is a decrease of peddlers and street-sellers, while shop owners
(such as owners of restaurants, inns, and the like) have increased
noticeably.4

Several factors are responsible for the vitality of small independent

businesses in South Korea: the expansion of urban markets caused by a
high rate of urbanization and the improving standard of living among
the urban dwellers; strong mobility orientation among people who use
small business as an upward mobility channel; and the intricate sub-
contract production system that facilitates small-scale family-based
production activities. For these and other reasons, industrial transfor-
490

mation in South Korea has not entailed a decline in the "old middle
class." Actually, industrial growth in Korea has invigorated the small-
business sector, bringing about a new breed of independent producers
and small capitalists who find new niches in the rapidly industrializing
economic structure. It is, therefore, important not to treat these inde-
pendent producers as a residue of the "old middle class."

Middle classes and democratization struggles

There is a wide agreement among Korean analysts about the important

role played by the Korean middle classes in recent political develop-
ment in South Korea, but their views are split as to the specific role of
the middle classes in political transitions. One view holds that the
Korean middle strata have a highly progressive political orientation and
have acted as a democratic force in several important periods of politi-
cal change. Another view, however, claims that Korean middle strata
are basically a conservative force and have played an instrumental role
in maintaining the authoritarian regimes. I will first examine these con-
flicting views and then will present a more contextual analysis of the
Korean middle-class politics by focusing on the most recent transition
out of authoritarian rule that began in 1987.

The first view is supported by the results of several attitude surveys

conducted in the mid-1980s, s These survey data present a consistent
picture of the Korean middle strata: they were extremely dissatisfied
with the authoritarian political system and with the way in which the
benefits of economic growth had been distributed, especially with the
ways in which the rich have accumulated their wealth. They expressed
strong sympathy toward the plights of poor farmers, factory workers,
and slum dwellers, and were in favor of a more balanced and more
equitable growth. Furthermore, they showed a strong support for the
labor movement, student demonstrations, and farmers' protests against
the government's agricultural policies. Analysts of these survey data
thus came to the same conclusion that the Korean middle strata are a
pro-democracy and pro-minjung force. 6

Apart from these attitude surveys, actual behaviors shown by the

middle classes at several occasions are also consistent with this pro-
gressive view of the Korean middle classes. In April 1960, the middle
classes, both white-collar workers and small business owners, provided
strong support to students, who eventually succeeded in toppling the
 491

dictatorial government of Syngman Rhee. In the 1971 presidential elec-

tion, a large majority of the urban middle-classes cast votes for the
opposition candidate, Kim Dae-Jung as a protest against Park Chung
Hee's attempt to remain in power indefinitely. The middle classes
revolted again in 1985, in the first general election held after Chun
Doo Hwan came to power in 1980. In this election, the New Demo-
cratic Party, which had been formed for no more than three months by
old opposition politicians whose civil rights had just been restored after
several years' incapacitations, swept across urban middle-class dis-
tricts, although it also drew a strong support from the working class.

The most dramatic incident of the middle-class involvement in the

Korean democratic struggles occurred in June 1987, when a large
number of white-collar workers joined the students' street protests
against Chun's refusal to amend the constitution for a direct presiden-
tial election. Many shopkeepers also supported student demonstra-
tions by delivering foods and money to sit-in protesters and providing
shelters to student demonstrators chased by the police. This wide
middle-class participation changed the attitude of the Chun regime,
and also influenced the U.S. perception of Chun's viability. The ruling
party sensed a deep political crisis and surrendered to the people's
power. On June 29, Roh Tae-Woo, then chairman of the ruling party,
made a surprise announcement accepting all the demands of the oppo-
sition groups. This was a major turning point in the South Korean polit-
ical development. The Korean media hailed this event as a "middle-
class revolution." 7

The second view, which stresses the conservative and opportunistic

character of the middle strata, is based largely on intuitive observations
among several astute political analysts during periods of political tran-
sitions, s They note that, despite their professedly progressive attitudes
during the authoritarian regimes, the Korean middle classes have
reacted opportunistically at several critical periods of political transi-
tion - in 1961 when the military coup occurred, in 1972 when the
Yushin regime (the Korean version of the bureaucratic-authoritarian
regime) was installed, and in 1980 when Chun came to power after a
bloody suppression of a strong popular resistance. All these anti-
democratic political changes occurred after periods of active mobiliza-
tion of popular sectors and attendant political and economic instability.
Faced with the uncertainties of political transition and a threat to their
economic interests, holders of this view believe, the majority of small
property owners and high-income white-collar workers turned away
492

from those who demanded radical changes and tacitly welcomed the
return of a new authoritarian regime.

The shifting political stance of the mainstream middle class reappeared

again in the most recent political transition. After a sudden political
opening in June 1987, a violent wave of labor unrest erupted across the
whole country, causing serious disruptions in the economy. The
middle-class reactions to this active labor mobilization and continuous
student demonstrations have been generally negative (more discussion
later). Despite the liberal political attitudes that they had shown in
times of stability, one study demonstrates that their progressivism was
rather shallow and ephemeral, easy to turn to conservatism in face of
any potential threat to their own economic interests. 9

These conflicting views about the Korean middle classes echo long-
standing debates about the political character of the middle classes in
Europe and America? ~ In fact, if there is any firm generalization we
can draw from the past scholarship on middle-class politics, it is that
there is no stable and consistent middle-class politics. Variability,
inconsistency, and fluidity seem to be the hallmark of middle-class
politics in capitalist societies? 1 C. Wright Mills stated this most clearly
in his White Collar. "there is no distinctly middle-class movement on
the United States political scene. For these classes are diversified in
social form, contradictory in material interest, dissimilar in ideological
illusion; there is no homogeneity of base among them for common
political movement "'12 What he observed about the American middle
classes has been confirmed repeatedly in other industrial societies.
Poulantzas similarly argues, "These petty-bourgeois groupings can
often 'swing' according to the conjuncture, sometimes in a very short
space of time, from a proletarian to a bourgeois class position and vice
versa.''13 Abercrombie and Urry even argue that "a great deal of
'middle class' politics is premised upon the rejection of the notion of
either that there is a distinctive middle class, or that there are distinctive
middle classes." 14

Marxist scholars explain this lack of autonomous class ideology and

politics among the middle classes in terms of their unique locations in
the class structure. The class position of the new middle class in partic-
ular is polarized between the two contending classes, taking its char-
acter from both sides. Using Wright's terms, they are in a "contradic-
tory class location," within which opposite class interests are simulta-
neously represented. 15 One foot in the working class and another foot
 493

in the capitalist class, the new middle class is assumed to be unable to

maintain a consistent political ideology but continuously vacillates
between the two poles according to shifting political conjunctures.

One may thus interpret the conflicting evidence about the Korean
middle class simply as another confirmation of the inherently inconsis-
tent and variable character of the middle class. But this would not be a
wholly satisfactory interpretation. For such a broad interpretation does
not fully account for the sources of variation in middle-class behaviors
and overlooks some systematic patterns of class politics that underlie
and shape the process of political transition to democracy. In order to
comprehend the middle-class politics more accurately, we must de-
velop a more differentiated understanding of both the middle classes
and the democratization process. As widely recognized, the middle
classes do not constitute a single homogeneous class; nor does the tran-
sition from authoritarian rule represent one simple process of political
change. In what follows, I analyze diverse responses of different groups
of the middle class to changing contexts of liberalization following a
maj or political opening in June 1987.

For this analysis, it is useful to distinguish among four categories of the

Korean middle classes: 1) managerial and professional workers
employed in private and public sectors; 2) shopkeepers and other small
property owners; 3) lower-grade white-collar workers; and 4) intellec-
tuals. The first two groups represent the so-called new middle class and
the petty bourgeoisie, respectively, and constitute the core of the
middle class, while the last two are on the margin of the middle class. 16
The lower-grade, routine white-collar workers are at the boundary of
the working class in terms of their work, which is increasingly proletar-
ianized, and their economic and social status. The intellectuals may be
conceptualized as a special category rather than in class terms, but I
consider them as part of the larger middle class, because they share
basically the same objective class situations with other professional and
managerial workers and also maintain close social networks and affini-
ties with the latter.

It is also important to recognize clearly that a transition from authori-

tarian rule is composed of subprocesses and phases in each of which
new issues and new objects of struggles appear. The balance of class
power changes with shifting political circumstances, as do the strategic
maneuvers of key actors involved in the politics of transition.
O'Donnell and Schmitter consider the democratization process as
494

being composed of a "double stream" in which (political) liberalization

and democratization interact over time with no predictable direction of
movement) 7 Typically, democratic transition is preceded by liberaliza-
tion, but there is no guarantee that liberalization would lead to demo-
cratization. A successful transition to democracy depends greatly on
the nature of class politics that emerge in the liberalization period and
on the ability of key political actors to work out new institutional
mechanisms for democratic consolidation based on class compro-
mises. But, as Przeworski argues, "the coalitions that underlie particu-
lar democratic compromises rarely comprise capitalists and workers as
classes; more often than not, they are based on particular fractions
allied against other workers and capitalists" J8

The attitudes and behaviors of the Korean middle classes varied signifi-
cantly before and after the June 1987 event. Prior to this political liber-
alization, there is little doubt that the Korean middle classes as a whole
had a strong desire for democracy and leaned favorably toward some
major political and economic changes. Faced with the strong authori-
tarian regimes during the Park and Chun periods, no significant class
differences emerged between the middle classes and the working class
or among different segments of the middle class. The weakness of
organized labor and severe government repression on the labor move-
ment generated pro-labor and pro-mass orientation among the middle
classes. During this period, the intellectuals and students played the
most active role in the democratization struggle. Middle-class politics
during the pre-transition period was primarily the politics of students
and intellectuals. But, as the survey data mentioned above indicate, the
mainstream middle classes were firmly behind this democratization
movement led by students, intellectuals, and opposition leaders. The
participation of a large number of white-collar workers in the massive
civil uprising in June 1987 demonstrated the progressive role of the
new middle class in creating a democratic opening. Significantly, many
shopkeepers also participated in the protests.

With a sudden weakening of state power following the victory of the

"people's power," the civil society became instantly activated. The first
to appear on the stage were industrial workers. Within three months
after the Chun government announced a plan for political liberaliza-
tion, more than three thousand labor disputes occurred in South
Korea, more than the total number of labor conflicts that occurred
during the entire period of the Park and Chun regimes (1961-1979).
The main focus of the workers' struggles was on organizing independ-
 495

ent unions and destroying company unions; in this short period,

workers organized more than one thousand new "democratic unions"
outside the framework of the official union structure, the Federation of
Korean Trade Unions (FKTU). In the following year, workers organ-
ized ten area (or regional) associations of unions in major industrial
centers, which greatly enhanced the organizational power of labor. In
January 1990, the leaders of the "democratic labor movement" organ-
ized a national-level labor organization, the National Association of
(Democratic) Unions, in a direct challenge to the government-sanc-
tioned FKTU.

The active labor movement that appeared during this liberalization

period was not confined to industrial workers. Many white-collar
workers employed in the service sector were also mobilized to organize
unions. White-collar union movement occurred first among the
employees of banks and other financial institutions. It was immediately
followed by more aggressive unionization struggles among workers
employed in intellectual occupations - journalists, printers, school
teachers, and researchers employed in government-sponsored research
institutions. Unlike blue-collar industrial workers, the white-collar
union movement was not primarily concerned with the economic
improvement of workers but with broader political and social issues.
Intellectual workers in particular were mainly concerned with the
state's political and ideological control over their work. Thus, the jour-
nalists reaffirmed the noble mission of free press for society, teachers
proclaimed their resolve not to serve any more as a tool of the govern-
ment's ideological indoctrination of students, and researchers
employed in government-sponsored institutions refused to serve the
interest of political power and pledged to restructure their institutions
for serving the true interest of the public.

More immediately, however, all white-collar workers were most deeply

interested in democratizing their workplaces. Korean work organ-
izations - be they factories, government offices, banks, hospitals, news-
papers, or schools - are notoriously authoritarian in management
styles and highly abusive in work relationships. White-collar workers
suffer despotic managerial control, extremely long work hours, the lack
of job security, arbitrary personnel decisions, and blocked promotion
ladders caused by the placement of ex-military officers in the top eche-
lons. A growing proportion of white-collar workers, who are under age
35 and educated in highly politicized Korean university environments,
are unwilling to put up with the exercises of paternalistic and often des-
496

potic authority by the management and with many undemocratic, irra-

tional procedures in the workplaces.

Social democracy was, therefore, the dominant theme in the Korean

white-collar movement in the 1980s; this theme was present in the
charters of almost all newly formed white-collar unions. 19Although the
meaning of "social democracy" is somewhat vague, it consists of
"making the workers in factories, the students in schools and universi-
ties, the members of interest associations, the supporters of political
parties, the clients of state agencies, even the faithful of churches, the
consumers of products, the clients of professionals, the patients in hos-
pitals, the users of parks, the children of families, etc., ad infinitum, into
citizens - actors with equal rights and obligations to decide what
actions these institutions should take.''2~ Struggles for social democ-
racy, therefore, mean struggles for citizenship rights, participation,
rationality, and equality of opportunities - for those values frequently
noted as characteristic of the petty bourgeois ideology.21

Students and intellectuals who had played a vanguard role in demo-

cratization struggles during the authoritarian period pushed for an-
other agenda for political change - namely, the issues of reunification
of the divided nation and independence from foreign domination. For
them, struggles for a genuine democratic society cannot avoid con-
fronting these fundamental "national questions" For the ultimate
source of the authoritarian political systems in Korea, both in the south
and north, is believed to reside in the externally caused national divi-
sion, which generates continuous military and ideological confronta-
tions between the two Koreas. Impatient with a slow progress toward a
bourgeois democracy, a segment of intellectuals and students agitated
for a radical political change to achieve some form of socialist democ-
racy.

This sudden "resurrection of civil society" and its short-term conse-

quences on economic and political stability shaped the reactions of the
mainstream middle classes. After a few years' high rate of economic
growth, thanks to favorable external conditions (low oil prices, relative-
ly cheap won compared with Japanese yen, and low interest rates of
foreign loans), the South Korean economy began to slow down from
the latter part of 1988 with many signs of economic illness - a slump in
exports, escalating inflation, soaring housing prices, reduced foreign
investments, declining manufacturing investments, and so forth. The
opposition-dominated National Assembly made a lot of noises but was
 497

unable to develop mutually acceptable institutional mechanisms for

democratic consolidation, due to both the strength of the entrenched
interests to block progressive changes and the split among opposition
parties. There was a growing sense that both the economy and the pol-
ity were adrift.

If these unstable economic and political conditions created an uneasi-

ness among middle-class people, shrewd media manipulations by the
dominant groups directed their frustrations to the labor movement.
Both the government and major public media led the public to believe
that current economic troubles were mainly caused by labor unrest,
and that a strong labor movement would wipe out Korea's competitive
edge in export markets. In fact, blue-collar workers attained high wage
increases since 1987. In 1988 blue-collar workers were able to obtain a
hefty 22.6 percent wage increase, in comparison with a 11.9 percent
increase received by white-collar workers. In the following year, blue-
collar workers attained an 18.8 percent increase, compared with 15.3
percent for white-collar workers. The large wage gaps that h.ad existed
between white-collar and blue-collar workers narrowed con-
siderably since 1987. The media coninuously painted the labor move-
ment as "violent," "irresponsible,' "selfish," and insinuated a close asso-
ciation between the independent union movement and the "subver-
sive,' leftist forces.

This changing objective and symbolic environment must have made an

impact on the dominant mood among the middle classes, which
became increasingly conservative and stability-oriented. Surveys con-
ducted in 1989 indicate that a majority of middle-class respondents
had critical attitudes toward labor strikes, especially about violent
aspects of these strikes, and approved government interventions to end
prolonged labor conflicts. 22 At the same time, they showed strong dis-
content with the chaotic situations created by the opposition-domi-
nated National Assembly.

Unfavorable reactions to labor unrest were generally stronger among

shopkeepers and small manufacturers than white-collar workers,
because many small businessmen became immediate victims of labor
unrest. As most small manufacturers were linked to large firms through
a chain of subcontract systems, strikes that occurred in core industries
had direct effects upon their operations. With little ability to absorb
this impact, many subcontractors faced a bankruptcy. In industrial
towns, like Ulsan, subcontractors and shopkeepers, made public pro-
498

tests urging workers to calm down and take more "constructive"

methods in making their demands. A survey conducted immediately
after the first wave of labor conflicts in the summer of 1987 confirmed
that the "old middle class" had significantly less tolerance than the new
middle class toward labor unrest. 23

The conservative mood among the middle classes was most clearly
demonstrated in an important interim election held in August 1989 to
fill two vacant national assembly seats representing Youngdungpo B
district in Seoul, a heavily middle-class district. This was a hotly con-
tested election, watched closely by party strategists and political ana-
lysts as a critical test of the current mood of middle-class voters. The
result was the victory of the ruling party candidates, a surprising result
in view of a long-established Korean tradition of urban middle-class
voters supporting opposition parties almost regardless of candidates.

Taking cues from this election, the leaders of the ruling party (Demo-
cratic Justice Party) and two moderate opposition parties (the Reunifi-
cation Democratic Party and the Democratic Republican Party) sur-
reptitiously struck a deal to merge the three parties to form a "grand
conservative coalition" A new ruling party, the Liberal Democratic
Party, was launched in January 1990, and the opposition-dominated
national assembly proved to be a short aberration in the South Korean
parliamentary history. The reactions from the public, including the
middle classes, have been generally negative to this reactionary move,
however. 24 It appears that politicians overestimated the conservative
trend among the middle classes and ignored the fact that a majority of
the middle class still held a strong desire for political democracy, even
if they were perhaps not willing to trade economic and social stability
for an uncertain democracy.

The above observation leads to several conclusions. First, the role of

the Korean middle classes in democratization has been variable across
different phases of the political transition and among different seg-
ments of the middle classes. The middle classes as a whole, and seg-
ments of intellectuals and white-collar workers in particular, played an
important role in exerting pressure on the authoritarian regime and
creating an opening for a democratic transition, but in the course of the
transition the middle class tended to become polarized in their re-
sponses to changing political and economic contexts. In the face of
rising labor unrest and political instability, the majority of the petty
bourgeoisie and the new middle class gradually shifted to the side of
 499

moderation and stability, while politicized intellectuals and those

white-collar workers in blocked mobility careers acted continuously as
a progressive force for democratization. We can hypothesize that those
who occupy a position closer to the working class (i.e., routine white-
collar workers) are more likely to act like the production workers, while
those whose positions are closer to the capitalist class (managers and
small business owners) are likely to become a conservative force in
political transition. The progressive orientation among intellectuals can
be explained in terms of their distinct culture - the "culture of critical
discourse" or the "alienative disposition" of the intellectuals 25 - and
their particular reactions to the problems generated by the South
Korean authoritarian model of development (more discussion on this
topic below).

Second, the Korean transition from authoritarian rule involved

struggles for not just one form of democracy but for several forms. The
meaning of democracy varied among different classes. Although the
literature on democratic transitions focuses on political democracy,
with an assumption that other democracies (such as economic and
social democracies) are secondary to, or contingent upon, the attain-
ment of political democracy, 26 the Korean experience demonstrates
that a democratic transition is most likely to involve multiple forms of
democracy on the agenda: political, economic, and social democracies.
In South Korea, this was because different classes and class segments
responded to the democratic opening differently. If the working class
was mobilized primarily for economic democracy (demanding higher
wages, better working conditions, and rights to organize independent
unions), the majority of managerial and professional workers and the
petty bourgeoisie were mainly concerned with political democracy (an
end to military rule, direct and flee election, guarantee of human rights,
freedom of speech and association, and so forth). But a segment of the
new middle class was deeply interested in transforming the society, not
just the polity, to obtain social democracy in the workplaces and in all
other arenas of social life. Although they overlap with another, these
three forms of democratization are not always compatible with one
another as political strategies. In fact, historical experience tells us that
political democracy has been achieved often at the expense of eco-
nomic democracy. 27 This is why there exists an inherent tension
between the working class and the mainstream middle classes in their
roles in major political change.

Third, each phase of the recent Korean political transition was asso-
500

ciated with the activation of particular segments of the middle classes;

each class segment carried a different weight of influence in a different
phase of the transition. If politicized intellectuals and students played
the most active role during the pre-liberalization period, after liberali-
zation it was blue-collar production workers and white-collar workers
in the service sector that mobilized themselves for democratization
struggles. Following the first phase of social mobilization, however, it
was the core members of the middle class (upper-level, white-collar
workers and small property owners) that entered the political game as a
silent but very influential player. Though not engaged in overt political
actions, the prevailing mood of this "silent majority" of the middle
strata became the most critical element in determining the course of
events.

The role of the middle class in class formation

Although the role of the middle classes in democratization process has

received much attention, little attention has been given to another
important role they play in class struggles and class formation. In this
section, I examine the relationships between middle-class politics and
class formation in South Korea. More specifically, I describe how the
intellectual segment of the Korean middle classes responded to the
contradictions that emerged in South Korea's semi-peripheral capitalist
development and how they influenced the ways in which classes were
defined and mobilized.

The role of the middle classes in class struggles is a subject of great

interest among Marxist theorists and political strategists. The signifi-
cance of the middle classes for Marxist theories lies exactly in the prob-
lematic nature of the middle-class role in the working-class struggles.
The main question is whether it is feasible, or desirable, for the working
class to form a class alliance with the middle classes for a socialistic
transformation of society. An important assumption underlying this
question is that the middle classes have no long-run autonomous politi-
cal position and that their political and ideological stance is ultimately
determined by the struggles between the two major classes, the bour-
geoisie and the proletariat. Poulantzas argues that "the petty-bourgeois
ideological sub-ensemble is a terrain of struggle and a particular battle-
field between bourgeois and working-class ideology."28 C. Wright Mills
similarly asserts: "Within the whole structure of power, they (white-
collar workers) are dependent variables. Estimates of their political
 501

tendencies, therefore, must rest upon larger predictions of the manner

and outcome of the struggles of business and labor. ''29

This is an important proposition to consider in relation to the Korean

case. Does the middle-class politics enjoy only a "dependent" status in
South Korea? I believe not. There are several important reasons why
the middle classes play a more important role in class struggles in
South Korea and probably in other East Asian newly industrialized
societies as well.

One critical difference between Western industrial societies and the

newly industrialized countries is in the historical context and timing in
which a large new middle class has emerged. In the West, white-collar
workers emerged in large numbers only after the bourgeoisie had
established its hegemony and after a large working class had come into
existence as a significant political force. These two major classes had
developed their own class organizations and class ideologies through
protracted class conflicts. The intermediate classes, both the petty
bourgeoisie and the new middle class, were largely transitidnal classes.
They were either in decline, as in the case of the petty bourgeoisie, or
on the rise, as in the case of the new middle class. Caught between the
two major classes, their positions were equally unstable and ambig-
uous. Consequently, the political character of the middle classes has
been shaped largely by the nature of struggles between the two major
classes.

In contrast, the new middle class in the East Asian newly industrialized
countries emerged in large numbers simultaneously with, or in some
sense prior to, the rise of the capitalist and the working class. 3~ Indus-
trialization in these countries did not take an indigenous process of
gradual change but occurred rather abruptly using borrowed technolo-
gies from the already developed countries. As we have seen above, the
managerial and professional workers increased as fast as, and actually
even faster than, the growth of manual production workers in South
Korean industrialization. Thus, a large new middle class came into
existence before the capitalist and the working classes have emerged as
organized classes. Unlike in the West, neither of Korean core classes
are in a position to offer an effective ideological or organizational lead-
ership to the middle classes.

Equally important to consider is the fact that in the West the bourgeoi-
502

sie played a historical role of overthrowing the ancient regime and of

revolutionizing the economic system. The same historical mission
escaped the Korean capitalists. The breakdown of the traditional agrar-
ian order and the implantation of capitalism were done by the out-
siders. Local capitalists emerged fast but under the protection of a
developmental state. The key to their rapid capital accumulation has
been the extraordinary market privileges they obtained through polit-
ical connections. While large capitalists succeeded in amassing large
amounts of fortunes, they were unable, and actually reluctant, to trans-
late their economic power to political power; they were happy to
engage in accumulation under the protection of the Bonapartist state.
While facilitating rapid growth and capital concentration among a
select few capitalists, Park Chung Hee and Chun Doo Hwan maintained
control over capitalists and from time to time exercised disciplinary
actions over individual capitalists who became a liability to the regime
or showed a sign of disloyalty to the head of the state. Chaebols
(conglomerate capitalists) had been indicted several times since 1960
for having engaged in "illicit accumulations"; every new regime since
Syngman Rhee, except the present one, sought to gain popular sup-
ports by threatening to punish socially unpopular chaebols. Growing
under such an unfavorable political and social environment, the South
Korean bourgeoisie had taken a defensive posture; instead of pushing
forward with a modern capitalist ideology, Korean capitalists wrapped
themselves with state ideologies - including nationalism, mercantilism,
familism, and social harmony. Thus, despite their impressive economic
power and growing political influence, the Korean bourgeoisie has
been slow in becoming a hegemonic class, an important difference
from the ascending bourgeoisie in the West.

On the other hand, the Korean workers have encountered many politi-
cal, ideological, and cultural constraints in developing themselves into
an organized class. In much part of the 1970s and 1980s, workers' rights
for collective actions were denied, unions were controlled by company-
or government-controlled leadership, and workers' spontaneous pro-
tests were brutally crushed by the police. The level of working-class
struggles and collective consciousness grew rapidly in the 1980s, espe-
cially after 1987, but Korean industrial workers are still largely
unorganized: 18 percent of wage workers belonged to unions in 1989
and the existing unions are all enterprise unions. Industry unions are
prohibited by Korean labor laws, while the national union, the FKTU,
had long acted as an arm of the government's corporatist control of
labor. The emergence of an alternative national union, the National
 503

Association of (Democratic) Unions, in 1990 signifies only a beginning

of political organization of labor, but its future remains quite
uncertain. 31

In the absence of a hegemonic bourgeoisie and a highly organized

working class, the Korean intellectuals have played a particularly signif-
icant role in ideological formulation and social movement. In Korea, as
in other East Asian societies with a long Confucian tradition, the intel-
lectuals enjoy a particularly high social status and moral superiority
over other social groups, not only over the masses but also over the
power holders and large capitalists. Over the years, a segment of the
Korean intellectuals - writers, clergymen, journalists, professors as well
as students - has become increasingly politicized and has acted as a
persistent critic of the authoritarian political structure and of the in-
equitable process of Korean economic development. 32

The most important contribution the politicized intelligentsia has made

in the 1970s is their role in the Korean minjung movement. The word
rninjungmeans the people or the masses. Thus, this is a Korean version
of populism as appeared in Latin America in the early decades of this
century. In South Korea, this populist ideology emerged in the early
1970s as a political reaction to the installation of the bureaucratic-
authoritarian regime, called the Yushin(revitalization) regime, and also
as a reaction against widening economic disparities and the lack of
morality in the accumulation process as widely perceived by broad seg-
ments of the population. In a sense, the minjung movement represents
the progressive intellectuals' response to the economic and social injus-
tices they witnessed in the process of Korean economic development.
The minjung ideology juxtaposes the masses with the ruling class, the
oppressed with the oppressors. Eschewing Marxist class terminologies,
this ideology nevertheless presents a crude image of a polarized socie-
ty, where the workers, peasants, and shopkeepers suffer from the
oppression of the "ruling class" composed of the state elite, conglomer-
ate capital, and foreign power. The minjungmovement seeks to devel-
op a broad-front alliance among all those who are economically or
politically exluded from the Korean dependent development.

The minfung movement played a significant role in politicizing the

larger new middle class, especially its younger generation. The progres-
sive political attitude we find among a large number of Korean middle-
class members is attributable largely to the influence of this broad
minjung movement. In effect, it provides an opposition ideology
504

encouraging a critical attitude to the dominant groups' definition of the

reality. Minjungideology thus functioned to undermine the bourgeois
hegemony as well as the ideological artifacts of the authoritarian
regime. Important to stress is that this ideological perspective was not
restricted to intellectual circles and POliticized students but widely
shared by the young generation of the new middle class. Although it is
difficult to demonstrate here, I would argue that the "culture of critical
discourse," which Gouldner isolates as the most distinctive characteris-
tic of the intellectuals, is characteristic of broad sections of the Korean
new middle c l a s s . 33

More significantly, the minjung movement played a critical role in

shaping the working-class formation. It is important to note that the
minjung movement appeared in the early 1970s before organized
workers' struggles appeared. Korean industrial workers' protests began
to appear sporadically in the early 1970s and develop slowly into
struggles to form independent labor unions in the late 1970s and the
early 1980s. In these struggles, workers faced the powerful state-capital
alliance with few ideological and organizational resources. The first
generation of Korean industrial workers had no strong craft tradition
from which the early European working class derived much organiza-
tional and .ideological resources; neither did they benefit from any
cohesive working-class community or any cultural tradition that pro-
motes working-class solidarity. Instead, the Korean workers found a
shelter, organizational networks, and ideological supports from the
broad political movement of minjung. In particular, the involvement of
church groups and students in the democratic union movement since
the early 1970s played a significant role in enhancing the class capacity
of the fledging working-class movement in this period.

What connects the middle-class-led movement and working-class

struggles is the centrality of the state in economic and social develop-
ment. The central role of the state in South Korean development is a
well-documented fact and requires no elaboration here. 34 The state is
not simply a regulator of the market or an agency of economic devel-
opment; it is also the most critical actor in the making and unmaking of
a class. Through its economic policies and its political and ideological
control, the state shapes the dominant form of social conflicts and the
symbols and ideologies by which social groups are mobilized. The main
reason why the minjung movement adopted minjung as its master sym-
bol and ideology is that this term is safer than other explicit class terms
in this hysterically anti-communist state. Anti-communism has long
 505

been the main ideology of the South Korean state; in fact, it has been
the raison d'etre of the state.

Class struggles involve more than struggles over economic resources;

they are also struggles over symbols, meanings, and ideologies. Insofar
as the state is the most important agent in the production and repro-
duction of the dominant ideology in South Korea, class formation
necessarily involves the state as a major object of struggles. Class for-
mation occurs only through class struggles, but as Przeworski argues, a
class struggle is "a struggle about class before it is a struggle among
classes.''35 In South Korea, struggles about class mean essentially
struggles against the state - struggles to organize itself in the face of tre-
mendous political and ideological control exercised by the state. Occu-
pying a relatively more autonomous class position than the working
class, which receives the state's focused control, the intellectuals and
other white-collar workers played an instrumental role in undermining
the security ideology of the South Korean state and the moral basis of
the dominant accumulation strategy, thereby facilitating working-class
struggles.

Conclusions

This analysis of the South Korean case demonstrates the importance of

the historical context for understanding the political role of the middle
classes. In late industrialization, as occurred in South Korea and other
East Asian countries, the new middle class has emerged as a significant
social class, before the capitalist class established its ideological hegem-
ony and before industrial workers developed into an organized class.
Neither of these two major classes was able to offer an ideological or
organizational leadership to the middle classes. In this context, the
middle class can act as more than merely a "dependent variable" In
South Korea, the minjung movement led by an intellectual segment of
the middle class played a critical role in the formation of the working
class, by providing an opposition ideology, new politicized languages,
organizational networks, and other resources.

The Korean experience also highlights the significant role of the state in
class formation. The predominant role of the state in economic and
social development puts it at the center of major social conflicts. Social
tensions and conflicts that emerge in rapid industrialization are directly
and indirectly related to the character of the state and the economic
506

policies it implements. A high level of politicization among Korean

middle-class members, not only among intellectuals but also among a
large number of white-collar workers, is the product of the authori-
tarian regimes of Park and Chun and their repressive control of civil
society. Both the nature of Korean middle-class politics and its rela-
tionship with the working-class formation have been shaped by the
nature of state politics.

The role of the middle class in the South Korean democratization proc-
ess has been complex and variable, in part because of its internal heter-
ogeneity and in part because of shifting political conjunctures in the
transition to democracy. It would not make much sense, therefore, to
characterize the Korean middle class as progressive or conservative,
because different segments of it were inserted into the shifting conjunc-
tures of political transition differently. At the same time, it would be
also unsatisfactory to characterize middle-class politics as simply
inconsistent or incoherent, because there exists some definite pattern
in their behaviors.

This analysis suggests that political behaviors of different segments of

the middle class can be explained in terms of their locations within the
broad spectrum of middle-class positions between capital and labor
and by the changing balance of power between the two major classes.
This is to acknowledge the fact that capital-labor relations constitute
the primary axis of conflict and that middle-class politics must be
understood ultimately in terms of this principal mechanism of class
struggle. This is, however, not to assume that middle-class politics is
simply a terrain of struggle between the capitalist and the working
classes, as many Marxist theorists do. To repeat, in certain historical
contexts middle-class politics can have an independent effect on the
formation of the two major classes and the outcomes of struggles
between the two.

Acknowledgments

An earlier version of this article was presented at the annual meetings

of the American Sociological Association in San Francisco, August
1989. This research was supported by a Fulbright Research Award in
the spring semester of 1987 and a summer grant from the Korea
Research Foundation through the Center for Korean Studies at the
University of Hawaii. I would like to thank Val Burris, Alvin So,
 507

Yunshik Chang, and three reviewers of Theory and Society for their
helpful comments on an earlier draft.

Notes

1. Dependency writers, such as Cardoso and Evans, acknowledged the possibility of

capitalist development under dependency situations, but their preoccupation with
Latin American experiences leads them to believe that "dependent development" is
inherently unable to transform the dependent economy into a genuine capitalist
economic system. Their attention, therefore, has been focused on "marginalization"
or "semi-proletarianization" rather than on proletarianization or the growth of the
middle class. Zeitlin's critique of the dependency and world-system perspective
from the Marxist class perspective is quite consonant with the thesis developed in
this article. See Fernando H. Cardoso and Enzo Faletto, Dependency and Develop-
ment in Latin America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979); Peter
Evans, Dependent Development: 1he Alliance of Multinational, State and Local
Capital in Brazil (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1979). Maurice
Zeitlin, The Civil Wars in Chile (or The Bourgeois Revolutions That Never Were)
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984).
2. A more detailed analysis of this phenomenon is presented in my article, "From
Farm to Factory: Proletarianization in Korea," American Sociological Review 55
(October, 1990).
3. Gwan-mo Suh, "A Study on the Class Composition in Korea" (in Korean), Unpub-
lished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Sociology, Seoul National University,
1987, 146-148.
4. Suh, "A Study on the Class Composition in Korea," 139-141.
5. Sang-jin Han, "Are the Korean Middle Classes Conservative?" (in Korean) Sasang
kwa Chungchaek 3 (Summer, 1988), 114-132; Wan-Sang Han, Tae-Hwan Kwon,
and Doo-Seung Hong, Korean Middle Classes: Research Data Book H on Korean
Society in Transition (in Korean) (Seoul: Hankook Ilbo, 1987); Hi-Jung Yoo, "A
Study of the Social Consciousness of the Middle Classes in Korea" (in Korean),
Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Ewha Women's University, Seoul Korea, 1988.
6. Minjung means the masses or the people, something analogous to popular sectors
as frequently used in Latin American writings. Minjung embraces a strong populist
ideology as well as strong nationalist sentiments.
7. Hankook llbo, July 2, 1987.
8. Jang-Jip Choi, "Introduction to the State, Class Structure, and Political Change in
the 40-Year Period after Liberation" (in Korean) in Hankook Hyondaesa I, edited
by Jang-jip Choi (Seoul: Yulum-sa, 1985); Jin-Kyun Kim and Hee-Yon Cho,
"Interrelationships between National Division and Social Conditions" (in Korean)
in Pundan Sidae wa Hankook Sahoe (Seoul: Kkachi, 1985); Jae-Hyun Choe, "Why
Are Korean Middle Classes Coward?" Monthly Chosun (March, 1987).
9. Chul-Kyun Lee, "A Study on the Progressivism of the Korean Middle Class" (in
Korean), Unpublished Master's thesis, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea, 1990.
10. For excellent reviews of European Marxist debates on this issue, see George Ross,
"Marxism and the New Middle Classes: French Critiques," Theory and Society 5
(1978), 163-190; Val Burris, "The Discovery of the New Middle Class," Theory
andSociety 15 (1986), 317-349.
508

11. Abercrombie and Urry, Capital, Labour and the Middle Classes (London: George
Allen & Unwin, 1983); Bob Carter, Capitalism, Class Conflict and the New Middle
Class (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985); Martin Oppenheimer, White
Collar Politics (New York: Monthly Review, 1985); Dale Johnson, editors, Middle
Classes in Dependent Countries (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1985).
12. C. Wright Mills, White Collar." The American Middle Class (London & New York:
Oxford University Press, 1951), 351.
13. Nicos Poulantzas, Classes in Contemporary Capitalism (London: New Left Books,
1975), 298.
14. Abercrombie and Urry, Capital, 142.
15. Erik Olin Wright, Class, Crisis and the State (London: New Left Books, 1978); also
his Classes (London: New Left Books, 1985).
16. Martin Oppenheimer suggests a similar conception in which he likens a class to a
"bell-shaped curve," the center of which is clearly distinguished from other classes
in terms of objective class attributes but the outer edges overlap considerably with
other classes. Those who are at the outer edges may be considered as "marginal
members" of the class. (see his White Collar Politics, 6-8.)
17. They define liberalization as "the process of making effective certain rights that
protect both individuals and social groups from arbitrary or illegal acts committed
by the state or third parties." Democratization, on the other hand, means the proc-
esses whereby the rules and procedures of citizenship are applied to political insti-
tutions, individuals, and groups, which did not previously enjoy such rights and
obligations. See Guillermo O'Donnell and Phillipe Schmitter, Transitions from
Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies (Balti-
more: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), 7-8.
18. Adam Przeworski, "Some Problems in the Study of the Transition to Democracy,"
in Transi'tions from Authoritarian Rule: Comparative Perspective, edited by Guiller-
mo O'Donnell, Phillipe Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University, 1986), 62.
19. Young Workers' Association for the Democratization Movement, The White-
Collar, Professional, and Technical Workers' Labor Movement (in Korean) (Seoul:
Baekdan Sudang, 1989).
20. O'Donnel and Schmitter, Transitions, 12.
21. Poulantzas, Classes, 287-299.
22. Korean Institute of Labor Studies, A Study of Workers'Attitudes about Labor Prob-
lems and Labor Relations (Seoul: Korean Institute of Labor Studies, 1990);
Dong-A Research Institute, "Current Political Attitudes of the Koreans," Monthly
Dari (February, 1990), 272-298.
23. Hi-Jung Yoo, "A Study of the Social Consciousness."
24. The new Liberal Democratic Party did very poorly in an interim election held four
months after its formation in Daegu and Eumsung in north Kyungsang province, a
stronghold of the previous ruling party, the Democratic Justice Party. Despite a
massive display of government resources, a LDP candidate was defeated in
Eumsung by a rather obscure opposition candidate, while the other star candidate
of the LDP narrowly escaped a defeat in Daegu.
25. Alvin Gouldner, The Future of Intellectuals and the Rise of the New Class (New
York: Continuum, 1979); Edward Shills, The Intellectuals and the Powers and
Other Essays (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972).
26. Two major works, both four-volume studies, on democratization maintain the same
position in this regard: Guillermo O'Donnell, Phillipe Schmitter, and Laurence
 509

Whitehead, editors, Transitionfrom Authoritarian Rule (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins

University, 1986); Larry Diamond, Seymor Martin Lipset, and Juan Linz, editors,
Democracy in Developing Countries (Boulder, Col.: Lynne Rienner, 1989).
27. Adam Przeworski observes, "the democratic system was solidified in Belgium,
Sweden, France, and Great Britain only after organized workers were badly de-
feated in mass strikes and adopted a docile posture as a result." He further suggests,
"We cannot avoid the possibility that a transition to democracy can be made only at
the cost of leaving economic relations intact, not only the structure of production
but even the distribution of income." See Przeworski, "Some Problems," 63.
28. Poulantzas, Classes, 289.
29. Mills, White Collar, 352.
30. For studies of class structural change in Taiwan, see: Yow-Suen Sen, ' ~ Preliminary
Analysis of the Transformation of Class Structure in Taiwan," mimeo. Sociology
Department, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, 1986; Hsin-Huang Michael
Hsiao, "Development Strategies and Class Transformation in Taiwan and South
Korea: Origins and Consequences," Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnology 61 (Taipei:
Academia Sinica, 1986); Jia-you Sheu, "The Class Structure in Taiwan and Its
Changes," Taiwan:A Newly Industrialized State (Taipei: National Taiwan University
Press, 1989).
31. The N A U enjoys no legal status and it represents mainly the workers employed in
medium- and small-scale industries. Unions representing workers employed in
large chaebol firms did not join the N A U when it was formed.
32. Of course, many intellectuals also worked as ideologues and technocrats of the
authoritarian regime. Korean intellectuals are an internally polarized group, part of
which serves the interest of the dominant class and propagates the dominant ideol-
ogy, while another part stands on the side of the underprivileged and promotes the
opposition ideology.
33. Gouldner, The Future of Intellectuals.
34. Leroy Jones and II Sakong, Government, Business, and Entrepreneurship in Eco-
nomic Development: The Korean Case (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1980); Youngil Lim, Government Policy and Private Enterprise: Korean
Experience with Industrialization (Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, 1981);
Alice Amsden, Asia's Next Giant: Late Industrialization in Korea (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1989).
35. Adam Przeworski, "Proletariat into a Class: The Process of Class Formation from
Karl Kautsky's The Class Struggle to Recent Controversies" Politics and Society 7
(1978), 343-401.