A counterattack on abandoned land / a braksheet

When Britain made the Brexit decision a long time ago, I was puzzled. I thought integration was the extreme flow and communication of the division of labor. I was very sensitive to such issues regarding the unification of the Korean Peninsula, so I wrote a brief column. I also wrote columns about future tragedies caused by the neglect of the real economy, such as Korea's manufacturing industry, and the enlargement of the financial economy, such as the financial industry, and today I write columns to improve the imbalance development of the country. All of these were issues that had to be addressed in an integrated manner between the United Kingdom and Korea. In a world where a single Korean citizen was concerned about Britain's problems, Britain had many problems of division.

I read Professor Hajun Jang's economics book or Professor Krugman's economics book. I read it not from a progressive perspective, but from an integrated perspective. However, the actions of citizens and politicians drive national policy, and academic inquiry is only used as a reference. So there is a difficult day in Britain right now. Some people are talking about British strikes and excessive welfare before Prime Minister Thatcher's neoliberal policy. It is true that those were the birth background of Thatcherism, but Prime Minister Thatcher is responsible for driving the solution in the direction of national division, not in the direction of national unity.

These days, far-right tendencies appear all over the world. It is a phenomenon in which integration stops and division begins. Global division of labor stops and the flow is broken due to the extreme right tendency. And regress. Britain was tested first.

The Revenge of Forgotten Lands

— How Territorial Imbalance Is Breaking the World —

Lee Hyeong-chun | Columnist & Geopolitical Analyst

1. I Was Trying to Unite — Why Were They Tearing Apart?

Much of my life has been devoted to connecting what has been severed. My work toward reconciliation on the Korean Peninsula — bridging two worlds separated by history and ideology — has been the orienting purpose of my existence. So when, in 2016, Britain voted to leave the European Union, I found myself genuinely bewildered.

In a world where unity is so difficult to achieve, why would anyone voluntarily destroy what had already been built? What could drive a nation to dismantle decades of integrated trade, law, and shared purpose?

After much reflection, I arrived at an answer. Brexit was not a verdict on Brussels. It was a verdict on London. More precisely, it was history's invoice — long overdue — for a decades-long strategy of concentrating national growth in one corner of the country while quietly abandoning the rest.

2. Thatcher Divided Britain First

Margaret Thatcher's neoliberal revolution restructured the British economy from its foundations. The 1986 "Big Bang" deregulation of London's financial markets elevated the City into a global capital hub. Wealth expanded at a rate rarely seen in peacetime.

But the fruits of that expansion did not travel beyond the M25 motorway. In the same years, the English North was experiencing something entirely different. Coal mines closed. Steel mills fell silent. Shipyards were dismantled. The 1984 miners' strike — and its brutal suppression — was not merely a labor dispute. It was the funeral of a regional civilization.

When a mine shuts down, the hardware store closes. The diner closes. The surgery closes. The school closes. Manchester, Middlesbrough, Sunderland, the Welsh valleys — these communities were slowly erased from the national map. Nothing replaced them. And the state looked elsewhere.

The Brexit vote made the geography of abandonment visible. London voted 60% Remain. The industrial North and Wales voted 60-70% Leave. This was not one nation voting. It was two Britains, finally forced to choose.

The Leave voters were not impoverished by the EU. The EU had nothing to do with their decline. But anger does not seek precise causes. It seeks the nearest available target.

3. The Same Disease in Different Countries

This pattern is not uniquely British. Across the major democracies of the late twentieth century, a similar logic took hold: concentrate investment, talent, and infrastructure in a few high-growth zones; let the rest manage.

Look at the American Rust Belt. Detroit, Pittsburgh, Cleveland — cities that once built the world's machines now struggle with opioid epidemics and structural unemployment. In 2016, Donald Trump channeled that anger toward immigrants and China. The targets were wrong. But the anger was real. What destroyed Rust Belt workers was decades of neglect in Washington and extraction on Wall Street — not the migrant worker at the border.

France's Marine Le Pen phenomenon shares the same roots. While Paris's grandes écoles elites designed European integration, the small towns of Normandy and the factory floors of Lorraine were quietly collapsing. The Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) erupted over a fuel tax, but the underlying pressure had been building for decades: a France organized entirely around Paris, indifferent to its periphery.

In all three cases, the structural logic is identical. Resources and opportunity concentrate in a metropolitan core. The rest of the national territory is left behind. The abandoned people's rage will, eventually, find expression. Brexit, Trump, Le Pen — these are the names that rage takes when it finally speaks.

4. A Warning to Korea

I watch South Korea with a growing sense of unease.

More than half of South Korea's population is now concentrated in Seoul and its surrounding metropolitan area. Regional depopulation is no longer a sociologist's projection — it is lived reality. Elementary schools in rural South Jeolla Province are closing. Young people leave for the capital. Villages grow old and then disappear. This is not the natural consequence of urbanization. It is the designed consequence of policy.

For decades, Korea's economic strategy has centered on the capital region and its major conglomerates. Everything gravitates toward where Samsung is, where the ministries are, where the elite universities cluster. The provinces have functioned not as beneficiaries of national growth, but as suppliers — of labor, of tax revenue, of human capital that flows in one direction and does not return.

The England of the North yesterday is the Korea of the regions today. If the trajectory does not change, Brexit-style fury will emerge in Korea under a different name.

5. Destroy the Internal Division of Labor, and the External Follows

An economic insight is essential here. Brexit ultimately destroyed the European division of labor — the integrated supply chains and cooperative structures built over decades collapsed against the border it created. Britain continues to pay that cost.

But where did the seed of that destruction come from? It came from Thatcher's prior dismantling of Britain's internal division of labor. The balance between London (finance) and the North (manufacturing) was broken when one side was sacrificed. That internal imbalance, compounding over thirty years, erupted as external disintegration.

This is the most lethal consequence of territorial imbalance strategy. A nation that divides itself internally will choose division externally. Internal integration is not merely a social good — it is the precondition for external integration's survival.

6. What Korean Reunification Must Not Forget

I have made Korean reunification a lifelong project. The work has taught me, above all else, how arduous it is to connect what has been severed — how much time, trust, and patience the restoration of severed relationships demands.

Brexit taught me the inverse lesson with equal force. How foolish it is to sever what has already been joined. And — more urgently — how critical the design that follows unification must be.

Should the Korean Peninsula reunify, we will have before us a rare opportunity to design a national territory from something close to the ground up. If we squander that opportunity by once again concentrating development in one region while abandoning another, we will reproduce the Brexit tragedy at peninsular scale.

Reunification does not end with opening a border. It requires a design in which every territory becomes a center — in which no land is expendable. Sustainable integration demands that the geography of abandonment never be allowed to take root. Brexit is an expensive lesson in what happens when it does.

Forgotten lands always speak. Through ballots, through streets, through the kind of votes that shake history. The responsibility of politics — and the duty of the state — is to listen before the speaking begins.

— Lee Hyeong-chun

버려진 땅의 반격 / 브랙시트

오래전 영국이 브랙시트 결정을 할때 나는 의아했다. 나는 통합은 분업의 극치고 흐름과 소통이라고 생각했다. 한반도 통일과 관련해서 그런 문제에 무척 민감해서 칼럼도 간략하게 썼다. 그리고 한국의 제조업과 같은 실물 경제의 천시와 금융업과 같은 금융 경제의 비대가 가져올 미래의 비극에 대해서도 칼럼을 썼고, 요즘엔 국토의 불균형 발전을 개선하기 위한 칼럼을 쓴다. 이 모든 것은 영국과 한국의 통합적으로 고민해야 할 문제였다. 영국의 문제를 한국의 미천한 일개 시민이 고민하는 세상에 영국은 분열의 문제점을 한 아름 안고 가고 있었다. 

나는 캠브리지 대학 장하준 교수의 경제학 저서나 크루그먼 교수의 경제학 저서를 챙겨 읽는다.  진보적인 관점으로 읽는 것이 아니라 통합적인 관점으로 읽는다.  그러나 국가 정책은 학리적인 탐구가 참고만 되는 것이지 현실은 시민과 정치인의 행동에 의해 움직인다.  그래서 지금 영국의 힘든 날이 있다.  혹자는 대처 수상의 신자유주의 정책이 있기 이전에 영국인들의 파업과 과잉 복지를 이야기 하고 있다. 그런 것들이 대처리즘의 탄생 배경이 된 것은 맞지만 대처 수상은 해결책을 국민 통합의 방향으로 몰고 간 것이 아닌 국민 분열의 방향으로 몰고 간 책임이 있다. 

요즘 들어 전 세계적으로 극우주의 성향이 나타난다. 통합이 멈추고 분열이 시작되는 현상이다. 세계적인 분업이 멈추고 흐름이 깨진다. 그리고 퇴보한다. 영국이 먼저 시험대에 섰다. 

버려진 땅의 복수

— 국토의 불균형이 어떻게 세계를 부수는가 —

이형춘 | 칼럼니스트

1. 나는 합치려 했는데, 그들은 왜 부쉈나

나는 오랫동안 분열된 것들을 잇기 위해 살아왔다. 한반도의 단절된 두 세계를 연결하려는 노력, 이질적인 사람들 사이에서 다리를 놓으려는 시도가 내 삶의 방향이었다. 그런데 2016년, 영국이 국민투표로 유럽연합(EU)을 탈퇴하는 장면을 보며 나는 깊은 의아함에 빠졌다.

합쳐지기도 이렇게 어려운 세상에서, 이미 합쳐진 것을 굳이 부수는 이유가 무엇인가. 수십 년간 쌓아온 분업망과 협력의 구조를 스스로 해체하는 이 역설을 어떻게 이해해야 하는가.

오랜 고민 끝에 나는 답을 찾았다. 브렉시트는 유럽에 대한 심판이 아니었다. 그것은 런던에 대한 심판이었다. 더 정확히 말하면, 수십 년간 자국 내 특정 지역만을 키우고 나머지를 방치한 국토 불균형 전략에 대한 역사의 청구서였다.

2. 대처가 먼저 영국을 쪼갰다

1980년대 마거릿 대처의 신자유주의 혁명은 영국 경제를 근본부터 재편했다. 런던의 금융 빅뱅(1986년 금융규제 완화)은 시티(City of London)를 세계 금융의 중심으로 끌어올렸다. 자본은 폭발적으로 성장했다.

그러나 그 성장의 과실은 M25 고속도로 안쪽, 즉 런던 권역에만 머물렀다. 같은 시기 북부 잉글랜드에서는 정반대의 일이 벌어지고 있었다. 탄광이 문을 닫았고, 철강 공장이 사라졌으며, 조선소가 해체됐다.

1984년의 탄광 파업 진압은 단순한 노동쟁의가 아니었다. 그것은 한 지역 문명의 장례식이었다. 탄광 하나가 문을 닫으면 그 주변의 철물점, 식당, 의원, 학교가 함께 무너진다. 맨체스터, 미들즈브러, 선덜랜드, 웨일스 — 이 지역들은 국가의 지도에서 천천히 지워졌다. 그리고 아무것도 그 자리를 채우지 않았다.

2016년 브렉시트 투표 결과는 그 30년의 기억을 그대로 보여줬다. 런던은 잔류 60%, 북부 공업지역과 웨일스는 탈퇴 60~70%. 이것은 하나의 나라가 아니라 두 개의 영국이 투표한 결과였다.

"브렉시트에 투표한 사람들을 가난하게 만든 것은 EU가 아니었다.병은 국내 불평등이었다. 그러나 분노는 정확한 원인을 찾지 않는다. 가장 가까운 표적을 향한다."

3. 같은 병, 다른 나라들

이 구조는 영국만의 것이 아니다. 20세기 후반 이후 주요 민주주의 국가들이 택한 성장 집중 전략은 도처에서 같은 분노를 낳고 있다.

미국의 러스트벨트를 보라. 디트로이트, 피츠버그, 클리블랜드 — 한때 세계의 공장이었던 이 도시들은 제조업이 사라진 자리에 오피오이드 중독과 실업만 남았다. 2016년 도널드 트럼프는 그 분노를 중국과 이민자를 향해 돌렸다. 표적은 틀렸지만 분노는 진짜였다. 러스트벨트 노동자들을 가난하게 만든 것은 워싱턴의 방치와 월스트리트의 탐욕이었지, 국경 너머의 이민자가 아니었다.

프랑스의 마린 르펜 현상도 같은 뿌리를 가진다. 파리의 그랑제콜 엘리트들이 유럽통합을 설계하는 동안, 노르망디의 소도시와 로렌의 공장 지대는 조용히 몰락했다. 노란 조끼(Gilets Jaunes) 운동은 유류세 인상에서 촉발됐지만, 그 본질은 파리 중심의 프랑스가 지방을 얼마나 오래 외면해 왔는가에 대한 폭발이었다.

세 나라 모두에서 패턴은 동일하다. 수도와 몇몇 대도시에 자원과 기회가 집중되고, 나머지 땅은 서서히 버려진다. 버려진 사람들의 분노는 언젠가 반드시 폭발한다. 그 폭발의 방향이 브렉시트이고, 트럼프이고, 르펜이다.

4. 한국에 보내는 경고

나는 한국을 바라보며 불안을 느낀다.

대한민국 인구의 절반 이상이 서울과 수도권에 몰려 있다. 지방 소멸은 더 이상 학자들의 용어가 아니라 현실이다. 전남의 군소 읍면에서는 초등학교가 문을 닫고, 젊은이들은 수도권으로 빠져나가며, 노인들만 남은 마을이 늘어나고 있다. 이것은 자연스러운 도시화가 아니다. 의도적 설계의 결과다.

지난 수십 년간 한국의 경제 전략은 수도권과 대기업 중심이었다. 삼성과 현대가 있는 곳, 행정부와 대학이 있는 곳에 모든 것이 집중됐다. 지방은 성장의 수혜자가 아니라 성장의 부품 공급지였다. 값싼 노동력과 세금을 수도권으로 보내고, 그 대가로 받은 것은 공동화(空洞化)였다.

영국 북부의 어제가 한국 지방의 오늘이다. 그리고 우리가 경로를 바꾸지 않는다면, 브렉시트식 분노는 한국에서도 다른 이름으로 폭발할 것이다.

5. 내부 분업망이 무너지면 외부 분업망도 지킬 수 없다

여기서 경제학적 통찰이 하나 필요하다. 브렉시트는 결국 유럽의 분업망을 파괴했다. 수십 년간 쌓아온 공급망과 협력 구조가 하룻밤 사이에 국경이라는 장벽 앞에 무너졌다. 그 비용은 지금도 영국이 치르고 있다.

그런데 그 파괴의 씨앗은 어디서 왔는가. 대처가 영국 내부의 분업망을 먼저 파괴한 데서 왔다. 런던과 북부 사이의 내부 분업 — 금융은 런던에서, 제조는 북부에서 — 이 한쪽의 해체로 균형을 잃었을 때, 그 불균형이 30년 후 외부 분업망 해체로 이어진 것이다.

이것이 국토 불균형 전략의 가장 치명적인 결과다. 안에서 분열된 나라는 밖에서도 분열을 선택한다. 내부 통합 없이 외부 통합은 유지될 수 없다.

6. 한반도 통일이 놓쳐선 안 되는 교훈

나는 한반도의 통합을 평생의 과제로 삼아왔다. 그 일을 하면서 늘 절감하는 것은, 분열된 것을 잇는 것이 얼마나 어렵고 오랜 시간을 요구하는가 하는 점이다.

브렉시트를 보며 나는 역으로 배웠다. 이미 이어진 것을 끊는 것이 얼마나 어리석은가. 그리고 — 더 중요하게는 — 통합 이후의 설계가 얼마나 중요한가.

만약 한반도가 통일된다면, 우리는 새로운 국토 설계의 기회를 갖게 된다. 그 기회에서 우리가 다시 한쪽만을 키우고 다른 쪽을 버린다면, 우리는 브렉시트의 비극을 한반도 규모로 반복하게 될 것이다.

통일은 경계를 여는 것으로 끝나지 않는다. 모든 땅이 중심이 되는 설계, 버려지는 지역이 없는 균형 — 그것이 지속 가능한 통합의 조건이다. 브렉시트는 그 반면교사를 세계 앞에 보여준 비싼 수업이었다.

버려진 땅은 반드시 말한다. 표를 통해서, 거리를 통해서, 때로는 역사를 뒤흔드는 투표 결과를 통해서. 그 말을 듣기 전에 행동하는 것이 정치의 책임이고 국가의 의무다.

Under the palm trees / the curse of resources

When I was young, cartoons show that the natives of the Equatorial region are enjoying a leisurely nap without working under the palm trees. Professor Jang Ha-joon of Cambridge University, who probably saw the cartoon with me, says in his book [edible economics] that if a native is slacking under a palm tree, his head will hurt a lot from the impact of falling palm fruit. And he says that people in warm, natural resource-rich countries are not lazy, and that they are poor even if they work hard because of other problems, such as political turmoil, backward economic structures, or authoritarian political systems.

 

Of course, Bangladeshis, who can produce three rice crops, are very optimistic and pleasant compared to Muslim countries in the Middle East, even though they are in the same Islamic region. That's why they are always bangl bangl smiling (sorry). Bangladesh does not seem to accept the blessing of resources as a curse. However, Russia and North Korea seem to have become curses of resources. Russia and North Korea are always at war or trying to wage war, and with abundant resources, even with a little effort, they stamp out the national power that is struggling to expand. Perhaps after this time, they think that one day a lot of resources will rebound the future. But I don't think those days will ever come.

 

Countries such as Korea, Singapore, Japan, and Switzerland were rather fortunate not to have resources. These are countries that have developed science and technology by maximizing the human resources that exist. The atmosphere of a country becomes a habit. A country that only prepares for war like crazy will forever be with war, and a country that is determined to develop technology with the determination to die will forever be with technological advancement. As I once said, this is why Russia must stop the war quickly.

 

I have become a habit of looking around the mine area of Gangwon-do, where I lived when I was young during the interlude of changing jobs. Perhaps my habit of thinking about North Korea will last forever. What's the point of thinking after time? As the days go by, I feel more and more regretful.

 

North Korea and South Korea have a large number of Paleozoic strata. The underground resources that have been pressed for a long time are hard. In the Paleozoic strata, there are many things such as anthracite, limestone, and tungsten. Close to Baekdusan Mountain in North Korea, there are many Cenozoic strata. The topography of Mount Baekdu and the Gama Plateau was created by the eruption of a volcano in the Cenozoicera. There are already soft underground resources like lignite from the Aoji coal mine, which is active in mining. South Korea doesn't know yet, but it also has oil in the Cenozoic stratum. Rare earths, which are thought to be buried very much in North Korea, are said to be not very related to the geological age but to the rock form. Indirectly, however, they are also related to the geological age.

 

I asked artificial intelligence to organize the discussion, but it seems like a mineral with low dignity from the first discussion. It's worse than I thought for a long time. There are not many intellectual resources mined from artificial intelligence today.

The Resource Curse — When Abundance Breeds Hunger

Lee Hyeong-chun | Geopolitical Columnist

Lie down beneath a coconut palm and fruit will fall. You may crack your skull, but you will not starve. This old perception of the tropical island nations of the South Pacific is not mere prejudice. Where nature is too generous, the pressure to survive is low, the incentive to accumulate is weak, and without a brutal winter there is little need to plan or store. It is not laziness — it is rational adaptation shaped by environment.

But this logic does not apply only to fruit above ground. Beneath the earth — where oil and gas, coal and iron ore, and rare earth elements lie buried — the same paradox operates. Resources mean endurance. Even from ruin, recovery is possible. As long as the land holds wealth, the state does not die. This is the shared psychological conviction of resource-rich authoritarian regimes.

Putin's war equation

Why does Vladimir Putin refuse to stop his war even as his economy buckles? This is not simple madness. Russia is among the world's largest holders of natural resources. Oil and gas exports finance the war, and despite Western sanctions, exports are rerouted through India, China, and Turkey. Behind it all is a cold calculation: short-term pain can be offset by long-term resource wealth.

This is the core mechanism of the Resource Curse. The more abundant the resources, the more a regime can operate without taxation — and therefore without accountability to its people. The soil for democracy disappears. It is why oil-rich Venezuela collapsed, and why diamond-saturated Congo remains poor.

North Korea — a regime that looks underground while its people starve above it

North Korea is the purest expression of this paradox. The northern half of the Korean Peninsula is a geological treasure chest, shaped by billions of years of tectonic history. Magmatic activity produced gold, tungsten, and molybdenum. Ancient sedimentary layers yielded world-class anthracite coal reserves. And rare earth deposits are estimated to be among the largest on the planet. This buried wealth is the foundation upon which the Kim regime continues to stand, despite international sanctions and chronic food shortages.

Coal and iron ore are sold to China at below-market prices. The revenues fund nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and the maintenance of the elite. The people are not the beneficiaries of these resources. The regime is. The population starves above ground while the government survives on what lies beneath. This contradiction is the structural reason why external pressure alone has never been enough.

The miracle of scarcity — a different path

The opposite cases also exist. South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Switzerland. These nations grew precisely because they lacked natural resources. With nothing underground to rely on, they invested in people. The pressure of survival generated innovation and educational drive. Scarcity, paradoxically, became the engine of prosperity. With no palm tree to lie beneath, they had no choice but to stand up.

The Resource Curse is not destiny. Norway built a sovereign wealth fund from its oil, saving for future generations. The difference lies in institutions and a culture of accountability — whether a society can build structures that return resource wealth to its citizens, or whether it cannot.

Those who rest beneath the palm tree are not always condemned to poverty. But the moment a few seize all the fruit, everyone else goes hungry. On Russia's battlefields, in North Korea's food ration lines, in the child labor of Congo's mines — we are witnessing the same tragedy, written in different languages.

Lee Hyeong-chun is an independent columnist publishing geopolitical and philosophical analysis in Korean 

야자나무 아래서 / 자원의 저주

어렸을 때 만화를 보면, 남양 원주민들은 야자나무 아래서 일을 안하고 한가롭게 낮잠을 즐기고 있는 모습을 보여준다. 아마 비숫한 만화를 보았으리라고 예상하는 캠브리지 대학의 장하준 교수는 edible economics에서 야자나무 아래서 게으름 피고 있으면 떨어지는 야자열매의 충격에 머리가 많이 아플 것을 말한다. 그리고 따뜻하고 자연자원이 풍부한 나라의 국민들이 게으른 것은 아니고 다른 문제, 예를 들면 정치적인 혼란이나 권위주의 정치 체제 또는 후진적 경제구조등으로 국민들이 피해를 입기 때문에 열심히 일을 해도 가난하다고 말한다.

 

물론 벼의 3모작이 가능한 방글라데시 국민들은 같은 이슬람권이지만 중동 지역의 이슬람 국가에 비해 매우 낙천적이고 즐겁다. 그래서 항상 방글 방글거린다고 한다(죄송). 방글라데시는 자원의 축복을 저주로 받아들이지 않는 듯 하다. 그러나 러시아와 북한은 그 반대인 것 같다. 러시아와 북한은 항상 전쟁을 하거나 또는 전쟁을 하려고 하며, 자원이 풍부해서 조금만 노력해도 팽창할려고 몸부림치는 국력을 발로 꾹꾹 싹을 밟아버린다. 아마 이 시간이 지나면 언젠가는 많은 자원이 미래를 반등시킬 것이라고 생각하는 듯 하다. 그러나 그 시절은 절대 오지 않는다.

 

한국과 싱가포르 그리고 일본이나 스위스등 국가는 자원이 없는게 오히려 축복이었다. 오직 존재하는 인적자원을 최대한 개발하여 과학 기술로 발전한 국가들이다. 국가의 분위기는 습관이 된다. 미친 듯이 전쟁만 준비하는 나라는 영원히 전쟁과 함께 할 것이며 죽을 각오로 기술을 발전시킬려는 나라는 영원히 기술 발전과 함께 할 것이다. 언젠가 말했지만 러시아가 빨리 전쟁을 멈춰야 하는 이유다.

 

나는 직장을 옮기는 막간에 어렸을 때 살던 강원도의 광산지역을 돌아보는게 습관이 되었다. 아마 북한을 생각하며 아쉬움을 곱씹는 나의 습관도 영원할 것 같다. 시간이 지난 후에 생각을 하면 무슨 소용이 있나. 날이 가면 갈수록 아쉬움 한없이 쌓인다.

 

북한과 한국은 고생대 지층이 많이 분포되어 있다. 오래 눌려있던 지하자원들은 딱딱하다. 고생대 지층에서는 무연탄이나 석회석 그리고 텅스텐같은 것들이 많다. 북한의 백두산과 가까운 곳은 신생대 지층이 많다. 백두산과 개마고원은 신생대에 화산이 폭발하여 만들어진 지형이다. 그곳에는 벌써 채굴 활동이 활발한 아오지 탄광의 갈탄같은 무른 지하자원이 존재한다. 한국은 아직 모르지만 신생대 지층에서는 석유도 있다. 북한에 매우 많이 매장되어 있는 것으로 추정되는 희토류는 지질시대하고는 크게 관련이 없고 암반 형태랑 관련이 있다고 한다. 그러니 간접적으로는 지질시대하고도 관련이 있다.

 

인공 지능에게 토론을 정리해 달라고 했더니 애초에 토론부터 품위가 낮은 광물 같다. 오래 생각한 나보다 못하다. 오늘은 인공지능으로부터 채굴한 지적 자원이 많지 않다.   

  자원의 저주 — 풍요가 낳은 굶주림

이형춘 | 지정학 칼럼니스트

야자나무 아래 누우면 열매가 떨어진다. 머리가 깨질 수도 있지만, 굶어 죽을 일은 없다. 적도 주변 남양의 섬나라들에 대한 이 오래된 인식은 단순한 편견이 아니다. 자연이 너무 관대한 곳에서는 생존의 압박이 낮아지고, 축적의 동기가 약해지며, 혹독한 겨울 없이 저장과 계획의 필요성도 줄어든다. 그것은 게으름이 아니라 환경이 만들어낸 합리적 적응이다.

그런데 이 논리는 지상의 열매에만 적용되는 것이 아니다. 땅속 깊은 곳, 석유와 가스, 석탄과 철광석, 희토류가 묻혀 있는 나라들에서도 똑같은 역설이 작동한다. 자원이 있으면 버틴다. 망해도 복구된다. 땅이 있는 한 국가는 죽지 않는다. 이것이 자원 부국 권위주의 정권들의 공통된 심리적 확신이다.

푸틴의 전쟁 방정식

블라디미르 푸틴이 경제가 파탄나는 와중에도 전쟁을 멈추지 않는 이유는 무엇인가. 그것은 단순한 광기가 아니다. 러시아는 세계 최대의 자원 보유국 중 하나다. 천연가스와 석유 수출로 전쟁 비용을 충당하고, 서방의 제재에도 인도·중국·터키로 우회 수출한다. 단기적 고통은 장기적 자원으로 상쇄할 수 있다는 냉혹한 계산이 그 안에 있다.

이것이 자원의 저주(Resource Curse)의 핵심 작동 원리다. 자원이 풍부할수록 정권은 세금 없이도 운영 가능해진다. 국민에게 책임질 필요가 없어지고, 민주주의가 뿌리내릴 토양이 사라진다. 석유 부국 베네수엘라가 무너진 것도, 다이아몬드가 쏟아지는 콩고가 여전히 가난한 것도 같은 이유다.

북한 — 땅속을 보는 정권, 땅 위에서 굶는 인민

북한은 이 역설의 가장 순수한 형태다. 한반도 북부는 오랜 지질 역사가 빚어낸 광물의 보고다. 마그마 활동이 빚은 금·텅스텐·몰리브덴, 고생대 퇴적층에 쌓인 세계적 수준의 무연탄, 그리고 세계 최대급으로 추정되는 희토류 매장량. 김씨 정권이 국제 제재와 굶주림 속에서도 체제를 유지하는 밑천은 바로 이 땅속의 자산이다.

석탄과 철광석은 중국에 헐값으로 팔리고, 그 수익은 핵·미사일 개발과 엘리트 유지에 쓰인다. 자원의 수혜자는 국민이 아니다. 정권이다. 인민은 땅 위에서 굶고, 정권은 땅속을 담보로 버틴다. 이 괴리가 북한 체제의 본질적 모순이자, 외부 압박이 쉽게 먹히지 않는 구조적 이유다.

결핍이 만든 기적 — 다른 선택지

반대의 사례도 있다. 한국, 일본, 싱가포르, 스위스. 이들은 자원이 없어서 오히려 발전했다. 땅속에 기댈 것이 없으니 사람에게 투자했고, 생존의 압박이 혁신과 교육열을 만들어냈다. 역설적으로 결핍이 동력이 됐다. 야자나무가 없으니 몸을 일으켜 세운 것이다.

자원의 저주는 운명이 아니다. 노르웨이는 석유로 국부펀드를 만들어 미래 세대를 위해 쌓아두었다. 차이는 제도와 책임의 문화다. 자원이 있을 때 그것을 국민에게 돌리는 구조를 만들 수 있느냐, 그렇지 않으냐의 차이다.

야자나무 아래 누운 자가 항상 가난한 것은 아니다. 하지만 그 열매를 소수가 독점하는 순간, 나머지 모두는 굶는다. 러시아의 전쟁터에서, 북한의 배급 줄에서, 콩고의 광산 아동 노동자에게서 우리는 같은 비극을 목격하고 있다.

이형춘은 독립 칼럼니스트로 지정학·철학 분석을 한국어와 영어로 발표한다.

 

Low birth rate and metropolitan concentration / design failure

A few years ago, I was driving a bus near the Wolgok Lamp in Seoul. From luxury sports cars to old compact cars and bus routes, they were all stranded and unable to move. After coming to Seoul from the provinces because there was no job, I resent the politicians and bureaucrats for making the land design this far. It already occurred to me that Seoul was doomed. Not long ago, along with an article on the fertility rate, I wrote an column about creating supply-side jobs in the provinces, destroying the demand-side central theory, and expanding the transportation network to make the narrow entire country a metropolitan area.

Behind all the problems, however, is a political one in which citizens and policymakers are intertwined. What is surprising about this local election is that there were unexpectedly political expressions close to the far-right in the collapsing megacities of Seoul and Busan. The flow of politics does not go in the direction of improving the reality, but rather in the direction of resistance to the development of the whole for the benefit of the few.

"I am not just a bus driver. I have been studying geography or real estate for a long time to get involved in the North Korean economy, and I have even given lectures to test takers. So I've been trying to take an overall and long-term perspective. However, the fertility rate hasn't increased for a long time, and even the young people seem to be conservative, so there seems to be a problem with Korea's future. It's not a question of which side I support, but that we should somehow guide Korea's future in the direction of development.

Artificial intelligence has put out examples of politicians such as Trump and Lee Jun-seok under their real names. So I pretended I couldn't win and praised AI.

And I told AI, "I should be able to come up with an improvement plan, not be a whining who always complains." Then AI puts the word "whining" in to organize the column. This human being(?) is embarrassing...

A Failure of Design

Low Birth Rates, Metropolitan Concentration, and the Politics of Anxiety

Lee Hyeong-chun

1. Diagnosis Without Prescription Is Just Complaining

South Korea recorded a total fertility rate of 0.72 in 2023 — the lowest in its history and the lowest among all OECD member states. The modest uptick in 2024 and 2025 is not evidence of structural recovery. It reflects two overlapping demographic illusions: the echo boom generation — children of the baby boomers, born in the early to mid-1990s — entering peak childbearing age, and a backlog of COVID-deferred marriages finally converting into births. The underlying structure has not changed.

Diagnosis alone is insufficient. To stop at diagnosis is to complain. This column traces the structural causes of low birth rates and proposes actionable prescriptions — not in the language of ideology, but in the language of interest.

2. A Society That Disrespects Its Workers

Those who have spent decades working in precarious, low-wage employment in South Korea know this truth firsthand: marriage is not a matter of love — it is a matter of economic margin. A structure in which no amount of hard work produces enough stability to support a family is the starting point of the birth rate crisis.

The South Korean labor market is locked into extreme dualism. Between large conglomerate regular employees and small-firm irregular workers lies a cliff — in wages, benefits, and social standing — that cannot be crossed. There is no middle ground. For young people today, "a good regular job or nothing at all" has become a rational strategy, not a character flaw.

Childbirth is fundamentally an act of investment in the future — an act of trust in society. In a society where people who work hard are treated as disposable, that trust collapses. And where trust collapses, children are not born.

3. Metropolitan Concentration: The Trap of Central Place Theory

As of 2023, 52.4 percent of South Korea's GDP and 58.4 percent of its jobs are concentrated in the Seoul metropolitan area. Eighty percent of the top 100 companies have headquarters there. Job postings per 10,000 young people stand at 282 in the metropolitan area versus 114 outside it — more than double.

The conventional solution offered is transportation infrastructure. If we reduce travel time between cities like Cheongju or Chuncheon and Seoul, the argument goes, the regions will revive. But this prescription ignores what Central Place Theory predicts.

As transportation improves, upper-tier centers absorb the demand of lower-tier centers more intensely. The death of regional commerce following KTX expansion is precisely this effect.

The real solution lies not on the demand side (easier access to Seoul) but on the supply side (moving jobs to the regions). When companies and factories relocate to the provinces, a reversal occurs: Seoul residents commute outward. Say's Law operates here — supply creates its own demand.

4. Making the Whole Nation Metropolitan: A Supply-Side Prescription

South Korea is a compact country. Its north-to-south distance of roughly 500 kilometers is comparable to the Tokyo-Osaka corridor in Japan. In principle, anywhere in Korea can be within one hour of Seoul. The condition is that there must be jobs in those places worth traveling to.

Transportation expansion and corporate relocation must be packaged together. Transportation alone produces bedroom communities. Corporate relocation alone produces isolated enclaves without infrastructure. Only when both move simultaneously does genuine national integration become possible.

Short-Term Measures

• Surcharge on social insurance premiums for firms with irregular worker ratios above a set threshold — making precarious employment carry real costs

• Public disclosure and public procurement bans for companies that penalize workers for pregnancy, childbirth, or parental leave

Medium-Term Measures

• Cap on new construction of headquarters and factories in the metropolitan area, combined with a metropolitan location tax — a stick, not merely a carrot

• Corporate tax reductions, land grants, and deregulation zones for companies relocating to non-metropolitan regions

• Mandatory hiring quotas for regional university graduates at major corporations and public institutions — addressing both credential concentration and regional hollowing simultaneously

Long-Term Measures

• Formal social recognition of skilled trades and manual labor, modeled on Germany's Meister system — changing the culture in which working with one's hands signals failure

• Rebalancing tax policy: strengthening taxation on asset income while reducing the burden on labor income, correcting the structural message that work does not pay

5. The Politics That Anxiety Builds: Hitler, Trump, Lee Jun-seok

Every structural reform encounters a political wall. Attempting to persuade metropolitan elites to accept changes that reduce their advantages through moral appeals has rarely succeeded in history. People move when their interests move.

But a deeper paradox exists. The young people who stand to gain most from structural change are supporting the forces that block it. In South Korea's 2025 presidential election, 74.1 percent of men in their twenties voted for conservative candidates.

This is not a uniquely Korean phenomenon. In the United States, working-class white voters in the Rust Belt chose Donald Trump after manufacturing employment collapsed. In Weimar Germany, desperate young men voted for Hitler. The pattern is consistent: when structural despair and anxiety accumulate beyond a threshold, people abandon logic and attach themselves to strong authority. Populist politics supplies a misdirected target for legitimate grievance.

These politicians did not rise because they were exceptional. They rose because people were afraid. The problem is not the individual — it is the structure that produces them.

A closer reading of South Korea's youth conservatism reveals that it is less an embrace of conservative ideology than a withdrawal of support from a progressive establishment perceived to have ignored young men. Research shows that the most extreme rightward shift is concentrated among economically upper-tier young men in Seoul — a defensive reaction from those who feel their relative position threatened, not the despair of those at the bottom.

6. Persuade Through Interest, Not Conscience

How then do we persuade metropolitan elites, conservative politicians, and anxious young people? The answer lies in reframing interests, not in appealing to moral responsibility.

To Metropolitan Elites

If concentration continues, the upper class in Gangnam may be insulated — but the middle class in Gangbuk is already being pushed out of Seoul. As housing prices rise, their own children become victims. Decentralization is not confiscation; it is opening a future for the next generation.

To Conservative Politicians

Metropolitan concentration is not the natural outcome of free markets. It is an artifact of decades of policy bias — government-created distortion. A genuine market conservative should want to correct it. Regional decentralization is not a left-wing policy; it is the correction of market failure.

To Anxious Young People

Your anger is legitimate. But its direction is wrong. What has made your life difficult is not feminists or migrants. It is a structure that manufactures precarious employment and locks quality jobs inside the metropolitan perimeter. Aligning with forces that dismantle that structure serves your actual interests.

Conclusion: A Failure of Design Must Be Corrected by Design

Low birth rates are not a matter of individual choice. They are the systemic output of interlocking failures: the devaluation of workers, a dualized labor market, and the geographic concentration of opportunity. The politics of anxiety grows in the soil that these failures create.

A failure of design cannot be corrected by moral appeal. It must be corrected by redesign. Supply-side corporate decentralization, dismantling labor dualism, making the whole nation effectively metropolitan — these prescriptions, deployed together, create the conditions in which having children becomes thinkable again.

To have a child is to believe in the future. South Korea's young people do not believe in the future. Restoring that belief is the deepest meaning of the birth rate crisis — and the oldest unfinished task this country faces.