New Politics and Economy in the Digital Age

In an era of digital transformation driven by the Fourth Industrial Revolution and ultra-high-speed wireless communications, this book examines the four global existential threats to humanity’s survival and provides multifaceted political and economic insights to navigate them. The author breaks down these global challenges into world-dividers—such as the threat of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and the onset of Cold War-2—and world-unifiers, such as Climate Collapse (Global Boiling) and infectious pandemics, to dissect the core of today’s global turmoil.

Divided into two parts across 14 chapters, Part One (Chapters 1–8) explores human condition amid technological progress and existential crisis. Beginning with a comparison of the worldviews of Rudyard Kipling and Rabindranath Tagore, along with insights from Darwinian evolution and human nature, it examines the emergence of “new humans”—cloned humans, Homo Electronicus, and Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI)—and the social ramifications they bring. It further critiques Karl Marx’s class struggle theory and Thomas Piketty’s inequality formula (r>g), while issuing a stern warning about the Doomsday Clock through the lenses of the Fukushima nuclear disaster and climate catastrophes. Additionally, it establishes five litmus tests—term limits, freedom, time, the economic system, and the nature of mass movements—to rigorously distinguish democracy from dictatorship.

Part Two (Chapters 9–14) redefines the concepts of the state and sovereignty for the digital age and analyzes stark geopolitical rivalries. After expanding traditional qualifications of a state into cyberspace and outer space, it contrasts political and economic outcomes through two primary paired models: Korea versus North Korea, and the United States versus China. It highlights the legacies of South Korean leaders—Syngman Rhee’s nation-building, Park Chung-Hee’s economic development, and Kim Dae-Jung’s democratization—in contrast to the tragic failures and oppressive rule of North Korea’s three-generation Kim dynasty, while evaluating strategic competition (MAED) between the U.S. and China alongside major variables such as Donald Trump’s second term.

This book serves as a vital guidebook, offering a clear roadmap for how humanity can safeguard liberal democracy and human dignity amid the crossroads of technological revolution, new cold war dynamics, and environmental crises.

Acknowledgements
Introduction

Part One Four Kinds of Human and Surplus Human

Chapter 1 uman Struggle for Existence: From the Border Skirmish to the Invisible Germ War
Chapter 2 Human Beliefs
Chapter 3 Human Evolution
Chapter 4 Three New Humans and Two Fictional Humans
Chapter 5 Artificial Super Intelligence and Surplus Humans
Chapter 6 Nature Rebels against Humanity in the 21st Century
Chapter 7 Live Democracy and Retrograde Dictatorship I
Chapter 8 Live Democracy and Retrograde Dictatorship II

Part Two New Politics and Economy in the Digital Age

Chapter 9 Tree of States I
Chapter 10 Tree of States II
Chapter 11 The Republic of Korea and North Korea
Chapter 12 Korea’s Authoritarian Era and Kim Dae‒Jung’s Resistance
Chapter 13 US Response to China’s Challenge I
Chapter 14 US Response to China’s Challenge II Summary and Conclusion
Notes
Index