The policies of President Lee Jae Myung are a bundle of contradictions. There is no coherence or system. There are no economists or intellectuals who provide theoretical justification for the ideas of the president. Naturally, there can be no policy debate. Because there is no debate, it is impossible to grasp what the goals, programs, strategies, and system of government policy are. Is this a government for the individual, by the individual, and of the individual, for President Lee himself?

When it serves the need to flaunt that he is right, President Lee moves freely from anti-Japan to pro-Japan. He emphasizes national and historical consciousness, then immediately shifts to talk of investment and making money. He speaks of unity, then again provokes enmity and conflict. He can look progressive, yet on turning around he is over on the conservative side. The president insists on calling this “practicality,” but it is ‘improvised responsiveness’ without principle. It is different from the progressive practicality known as ‘pragmatism’, and also from the Aristotelian practical theory that means ‘the realistic best’. Rather than practicality, it should be called ‘self-centered expediency’.

Real estate is a case that well illustrates the absence of policy. The real estate issue is a distinctive element of the Korean economy that the state has abnormally maintained, managed, and expanded since the 1970s with the aim of ‘artificial formation of the middle class’. From this emerged a Korean-style class structure. The electoral space that divides not only Gangnam and Gangbuk but also the capital area and non-capital areas, new towns and old towns, redevelopment districts and old urban centers all originates in the real estate issue.

Korean society is, in effect, a real estate republic and a real estate class society. This means the real estate issue is hard to resolve without well-prepared policy. So why, without ‘policy action’ in which the relevant ministries draw up a comprehensive plan, set a meticulous order of work, and cooperate step by step, does the president as an individual try to handle matters by mobilizing public opinion on social media? Did he think that attacking property owners would drive money into the stock market? It looks slapdash. If you reduce real estate to a simple money matter, you may suppress the market for a while, but something else will eventually blow up.

The stock market is no different. Stock prices rise, but the exchange rate becomes a problem; investment is fanned, but household debt turns risky. Prices go up while wages stay flat and employment contracts. In the end, the pain is shifted to those who do not invest in stocks. Other matters are similar. After long emphasizing a nationalist issue like confiscating the assets of pro-Japanese collaborators, the agenda disappears the moment they turn away. The Ministry of the Interior and Safety, which is not a party to the clash of opposing interests, talks about a boycott and then changes its tune. Governing by stirring a kind of ‘emotional anger’ that neither takes responsibility nor can be implemented is not befitting a government. Unless it works in the language of law and institutions, rules and procedures, rather than the language of emotion, government action threatens the freedom of citizens.

What, after all, are the policies of President Lee Jae Myung? From the perspective of who benefits, it looks like a Samsung regime. Calling it a Naver government or a chaebol republic would not be strange. The president is particularly solicitous of the heads of the conglomerates. Overseas tours accompanied by them keep increasing.

Watching the Democratic Party leader flatter the middle class by saying they made money from stocks thanks to President Lee, I cannot tell why he did not simply become a businessperson instead of a politician. What is more worrying is whether it is acceptable to wreck the ‘work ethic’ like this. Without devotion to work and a sense of responsibility, no society or organization can be happy or endure long. If you lead society like this, who will throw themselves into the work entrusted to them? Who will choose a communal life that cares for those around them instead of a life that follows money?

I am also curious what the ruling camp thinks of candidate Ha Jung-woo or nominee Han Seong-sook from Naver. They become lawmakers and serve as prime minister? Have they convinced themselves that there is sufficient ‘causality of appointments’ suited to those roles? When nominating Han Seong-sook as prime minister, President Lee said she is “someone who only needs to work,” which is insulting. The prime minister is not a servant who only works. It is the most political position, required to give responsible answers to the 300 lawmakers in interpellations to the government.

Viewed through the relationship between capitalist values and democratic values, the Democratic Party and the Lee Jae Myung administration are a new conservative force dominated by the capitalist spirit. The ‘New Lee Jae Myung’ group, which seeks to build a conservative Democratic Party in the name of centrism, represents this. This is the emergence of a new conservatism distinct from the old conservatism of anti-communism and pro-Americanism. No less extreme than the former old conservatives who pledged to hunt down the reds is the latter ‘New Lee Jae Myung’ new conservatism that promises to help you make money. They seem to see us as capitalist human beings like themselves.