Corea as commons: an integral approach to unification

The Japanese colonialism strategy that made "Corea" into "Korea" required the demolition of the shared communities for mutual support that once thrived in its villages. Joint Press Corps

By Emanuel Pastreich, Layne Hartsell

The relations between North and South Korea are changing so rapidly it makes your head spin. The pressing question is no longer what the next step in a process of reconciliation will be, but rather where the peninsula is heading in a political, economic and cultural sense.

For the first time, the door is open to rapid institutional transformation of the "hermit kingdom" as new concepts and technologies are introduced. Moreover, that process will impact not only the North but also the South as the basic principles of what a country is are debated.

The drafting of a unification constitution, the implementation of new approaches to government and the building of new infrastructure could make Korea an inspiring experiment that other nations can model.

Yet, just at the moment that Korean families who have been cruelly separated for 60 years are reunited and efforts are made to reconnect rail services and to make cultural exchange possible again, the Korean media reports that multinational corporations are planning, behind the scenes, to establish an extractive economy that will generate quick wealth from the exploitation of North Korea's rich mineral resources and its cheap labor. The profits will not be for the benefit of impoverished North Koreans, or even of ordinary South Koreans, but rather for international investors.

If we do not offer an alternative quickly, Wall Street, or its Japanese, or Chinese equivalents, will develop North Korea's economy according to the blueprint offered by post-war Iraq.

But there is an alternative, a third way, which offers a path for North Korea to leapfrog dirty and exploitative "growth" to reach sustainable economic and political success. North Korea does not have to choose between following the backward economic policies of North Korea's labor party that have produced stagnation and poverty on the one hand and embracing consumption-based neoliberal "development" policy run by global investment banks and the consulting firms that they fund.

That third way for North Korea is a collaborative economy, the embrace of the emerging global commons in education, politics, manufacturing and economics that is made possible by peer-to-peer (P2P) systems and commons-oriented production (e.g. Linux, Wikipedia).

Because North Korea is essentially starting from scratch, it can adopt the internet of verification (such as blockchain and holochain) in a more comprehensive manner than has been done elsewhere in the world. Such economic innovations will be shared and participatory, in the sense that socialist economies were, but the decision-making process will be distributed throughout the entirety of society so as to avoid authoritarian politics and thereby empower communities to set priorities.

This approach will allow North Korea to benefit from the advantages of internationalization without allowing international finance to dictate what North Korea will become. Concrete proposals for such a sharing economy that are a viable alternative to exploitative and extractive market economies have been implemented by the P2P Foundation in Amsterdam and the Commons Foundation in Seoul.

North Korea can empower its people by integrating them into the global P2P economy that links individuals with their peers in South Korea, and around the world, so that they can realize their full potential through commons-based micro-manufacturing which is controlled neither by the state, nor by Wall Street. Rather than being exploited for cheap labor, or cheap mineral resources, North Korea can develop a model for positive globalization that is powered by people, and not by capital.

The term "Corea as Commons" employed here suggests the fundamental conceptual shift required for such an integral view. The divided nation "Hanguk" is standardly referred to as "Korea" in English. Yet few are aware that this seemingly neutral term is colored by the Japanese colonial legacy. "Korea" was the Japanese version of the native term "Corea" that the Japanese employed when they introduced their colony to the West. The Japanese colonialism strategy that made "Corea" into "Korea" required the demolition of the shared communities for mutual support that once thrived in its villages by means of the Japanese equivalent of the enclosure acts that deprived most Koreans of their land and of their traditional means of production through the secret implementation of new laws and regulations. As opposed to the traditional concept of "hongik," "the spreading benefit through the greater community," the colonial period introduced ruthless competition to "Corea" and transformed it into "Korea."

Choi Yong-gwan, founder of the Commons Foundation, explains,
"The commons is not a new idea in Corea, but rather an economic model with a long history. The village contracts (hyanghak) of traditional Corea defined roles in the community, but did not assign absolute ownership. Those village contracts were destroyed during the Japanese colonial period. The deepening inequality born of inhuman competition and the resulting concentration of wealth started then."

Corea as Commons could serve as a model for how wealthy nations can work together with those less developed in a constructive, not exploitative, manner by creating shared economies that are focused on citizens. Moreover, in a practical sense, because the commons economy is not about foreign investment on a massive scale, or about exploiting North Korean labor, it does not fix with the standard models for economic interaction described in the current United Nations (U.N.) sanctions against North Korea and therefore offers a window of hope.

Getting North Korea on the right path

Although the Western media standardly portrays North Korea as a bizarre, isolated and mysterious nation, the recent negotiations with South Korea about economic exchanges have revealed that it is almost like any developing nation struggling to find a place in a ruthless globalized order dominated by financial institutions. The innovation we are proposing does not consist of a particular technology, but rather of an open platform that gives North Korea access to knowledge, to technology, to expertise, and to financial resources from around the world that will permit it to make an economic transition without following under the domination of oligarchs such as emerged in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union.

North Korea has little of modern technology, but it also has little of the commercialism or the consumer fetishism that have ripped apart the cultures of other nations. It therefore offers unprecedented opportunities for institutional innovation of which other counties are not capable ― precisely because we start from zero.

North Korea could require that all buildings employ solar power, that manufacturing allow for open-source innovations at the local level, that services be shared between families without a middleman, and that local government in North Korea be allowed to develop ties with other local governments in other countries for education and social exchange. In other words, North Korea's opening up could present a priceless opportunity to establish a healthy and mutually supportive P2P version of internationalization that benefits local communities.

Similarly, North Korea can establish innovative financial systems that nourish local cooperatives employing cyptocurrencies and crowd funding as a means to build local economic autonomy while also allowing foreign investment in the form of crowd funding, or micro-investments by supporters around the world of $5-$50.

North Korea can put together a shared economy wherein everything, from vacuum cleaners and saws, to washing machines and solar power generators, are held together in trust for the community. It can set up programs for the barter of services (from caring for children or the elderly to cleaning and cooking) that recognize contributions of all citizens. It can even pair elderly people with young people, farmers with city dwellers to create new cultural and economic synergy. North Korea lacks highways or dependency on automobiles and therefore cities with shared transportation, all electric transportation, or even urban planning that eliminates the need for automobiles, are possible in North Korea.

We should also remember that the adoption of a commons, of a shared economy rooted in regional agriculture and micro-manufacturing is essential today in that it reduces the unsustainable overproduction that plagues East Asia and which not only promotes waste and economic disparity, but has also been shown to be a major factor behind military conflicts.

South Korea's role in "Corea as Commons"

South Korea should play a major role in North Korea's development, not only because it shares a common language and the common culture, but also because it has established powerful precedents for a P2P economy. South Koreans have displayed tremendous enthusiasm for participatory politics and economics, culminating in the "Candlelight Revolution" of 2016 that brought millions of citizens together to demand an end of corruption in politics.

The Mayor of Seoul, Park Wonsoon, launched a government program to create local villages across the city four years ago that provides a powerful platform for a sharing economy. More recently, Mayor Park announced on October 5 that Seoul has committed $54 million to establish blockchain systems throughout Seoul and to train a new generation of experts who can use them effectively. Such inclusive digital communities are rapidly moving South Korea away from domination by large corporations and that effort can be rapidly extended to North Korea.

Michel Bauwens, founder of the P2P Foundation, explains,
"I've had the occasion to visit Korea at 18-month intervals, and I am struck on each visit by the rapid acceptance of the commons paradigm. Perhaps such a rapid shift is possible in Korea because of the strong tradition of land commons, a dynamic democratic movement, and a vibrant solidarity economy."

What to do next?

North Korea needs first and foremost a P2P advisory committee that focuses on the ethical implications of economic and technological change, and not on short-term profits. South Korean citizens' groups can play this role well, but it will be important to obtain advice from around the world about how to avoid the traps set for emerging economies.

Above all, the P2P advisory committee must help North Korea stop the irresponsible exploitation of the extensive deposits of coal, uranium, iron, gold, zinc and rare-earths in North Korea (worth around $6 trillion according to the South Korean mining company, Korea Resources) that lie beneath its soil.

One of the first recommendations of the P2P advisory committee might be a freeze on the exploitation of subsurface resources until Pyongyang possesses sufficient expertise to assess the long-term environmental impact of such efforts on its own, or through its P2P networks, such as the internet of verification. The vetting of all proposals for the mining of resources; for the building of transportation infrastructure; and for the development of urban spaces by a P2P network of experts could be the first step towards establishing a federated-bioregional society.

Similarly, North Korea must avoid getting itself into heavy debt during the first stage of its opening to South Korea, and the world, so as to make sure that short-term returns for investors will never be a factor in planning, and to assure that there is no risk of capital flight.?"Corea as Commons" is a strategy that will help North Korea avoid a situation similar to the rise of oligarchs after the fall of the Soviet Union by empowering people to form community banks and create their own participatory financing mechanisms.

North Korea does not have to be a mysterious, closed, inscrutable remnant of the Cold War that must catch up with the "advanced" industrialized world. Rather, North Korea can be an inspiring experiment, a space where blockchain technology, micro-manufacturing, sustainable energy infrastructure and a P2P approach to internationalization ushers in a new era for that nation, for Northeast Asia, and for the world.