Asiatic Mode of Production as Method: The Discourse of Democracy and Modernity in Korea

Abstract

One of the most significant and vexing theoretical issues surrounding democracy throughout Asia is the Asiatic Mode of Production. For Korean promoters of democracy, the theory of Asian absolutism and Asian stagnation were concepts that had to be discredited. This article examines the Asiatic Mode of Production debate that arose between Marxists in Imperial Japan and colonial Korea, who overcame theories of Asian exceptionalism. The paradigm of Asiatic Mode of Production as enemy of democracy, moreover, goes beyond the Asian context, being taken up by contemporary European theory. Through Deleuze and Guattari’s and Spivak’s allegorical appropriation of “the Asiatic,” I will demonstrate the unified domain of democracy and the Asiatic. Finally, I critically examine the increasingly positive assessment in South Korea and China of pre-modern Asian society and the assertion of “alternative modernities”.