When Capital Becomes Society: The Recomposition of Capitalist Work and New Labour Activism in Korea

Chang, Dae-Oup

Abstract

This article aims to examine the recomposition of capitalist work in South Korea. Based on Marx’s understanding of capital as a form of social relations of the extraction of abstract labour, this article shows the continual reorganisation of capitalist labour in Korea by tracing the interaction between the movement of capital and labour. Particular focus is on the recent movement of capital that precipitated the massive irregularisation of capitalist work. This article presents how labour has been subsumed to the logic of the reproduction of the social conditions of capital accumulation after the Asian economic crisis. However, it does not examine this process as a one-way process of labour being recomposed by the movement of capital. Rather, I illustrate this process by closely looking at the way in which labour moves beyond the social arrangement of exploitation by founding itself on the newly emerging labour activism in Korea.

Citation

Chang, D.-O. (2007). When Capital Becomes Society: The Recomposition of Capitalist Work and New Labour Activism in Korea. In M. Hart-Lansberg, S. Jeong, & R. Westra (Eds.), Marxist Perspectives on South Korea in the Global Economy (221-239). Ashgate

• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2007
• Deposit Date: Mar 16, 2009
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Pages: 221-239
• Book Title: Marxist Perspectives on South Korea in the Global Economy
• ISBN: 9780754648161
• Keywords: Globalisation, South Korea, labour movement, irregular workers
• Publisher URL: http://www.ashgate.com
• Additional Information: Copyright Statement : Copyright Martin Hart Landsberg, Seongjin Jeong and Richard Westra