Rethinking Neo-Liberalism Neither Market Nor Government Is Omniscient and Omipotent "The 40-year-old prevalent orthodoxy known as the Washington consensus in favor of free markets has come to an end,"So said British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in a recent intervie with The Guardian. Brown's virtual declaration of an end to eocnomic neo-liberalism deserves special attention not only as Britain is one of the co-founder, along with the United States, of market fundamentalism, but because he will be the host of the Group of 20 (G-20) summit, which will discuss how to save the world from a looming depression on April 2. Even without the British leader's emphasis, however, major capitalist capitals of the world, from Washington to Tokyo, are soul-searchin over what's gone wrong with their market-is-everything philisophy, trying to at least harmonize government regulations with free-market entrepreneurship, if not completely turning toward big-government policies. One noticeable - or, the only - exception is Korea, in which the conservative Lee Myung-bak administration is speeding up its march toward neo-liberalistic reforms of sweeping deregulation and privatization. The government will soon allow the nation's family-controlled conglomerates to resume their reckless expansion into all kinds of businesses, including banking, turning this country's economic clock back to the late 1990s, when the chaebol's insatiable appetite for expansion drove the economy to the brink of state bankruptcy. When Malaysia tried to nationalize some commercial banks during the Asian financial crisis, the U.S. government ridiculed it, but is now taking exactly the same path as the Southeast Asian country, by taking up to 80 percent of its biggest commercial banks. Seoul, on the otehr hand, is anxious to privatize its biggest development insitution, the Korea Development Bank, which tried in vain to acquire the now-defunct Lehman Brothers as part of its pre-privatization strategy to grow bigger. All this shows that even the Western governments, which once stood at the vanguard of global, financial and shareholder capitalism, are now shifting toward greater governmentl regulations and enhancing their public functions. Markets are by their nature bound to seek short-term, commercial gains, which shoul be rectified and supplemented by t long-term, public function of governemnts. Neither the market nor the government can know everything and do everything alone, but should complement and cooperate with each other. The Lee administration should reaize the changes in "global standards." It may not be easy for President Lee and his aides to sharply veer away from their deregulation credos, maintained since their campaign days. But they must show the courage to accept the great shifts in historical trends, even though it may be a hard political sell to their conservative supporters. Korea's breakneck industrialization and economic growth have forced the nation to directly transit an authoritarian poverty to neo=liberalistic, limitless competition, skipping the stage of the welfare state, leaving its people exposed to extreme gaps of wealth. The widespread consensus is that the Lee adminstration could deepen this phenomenon if it sticks to its adminstrative direction, heightening social tensions to a boiling point in the near future. Seoul is scheduled to play host to the next G-20 summit in 2010, which will also likely discuss greater financial regulations and public welfare. We are curious how President Lee will be able to explain the disparity between what he practices at home and preaches globally.