한국 국회와 북한정권을 보면 인간의 本性에 대하여 근원적인 의문이 생긴다. "왜 最惡(최악)의 인간들이 권력을 잡는가". 이런 의문에 과학적인 답을 낸 사람이 위대한 자유주의 사상가 하이에크이다.

프리드리히 아우구스트 폰 하이에크는 1899년에 오스트리아에서 태어나 소련의 붕괴를 목격하고 1992년에 사망하였다. 1974년에 노벨경제학상을 받은 그가 쓴 책중에는 1944년에 나온 '노예가 되는 길'(The Road to Serfdom)이 특히 유명하다. 이 책의 主題는 '왜 히틀러나 스탈린과 같은 전체주의 체제가 탄생하는가', '왜 사회주의는 필연적으로 전체주의로 갈 수밖에 없는가' 따위이다.

이 책의 한 章은 '왜 最惡이 頂上(정상)에 오르는가'이다. 하이에크는 이 책에서 인간을 두 부류로 나눴다. 한 그룹은 높은 교육을 받은 知的으로 우수한 사람들이다. 이들은 교양이 있기에 생각과 취향이 다르고 어떤 특정한 가치관에 傾倒(경도)되지 않는다. 독재자들은 이들보다는 원시적이고 서민적인 본능을 가진 大衆을 노린다. 대중이 꼭 무식한 것은 아니지만 비슷한 풍습과 생각과 가치관을 共有하는 숫자가 많은 계층은 역시 低수준 계층이다. 이 계층은 독립성과 창조성과 너그러움이 결여되어 있다. 이들을 표적으로 한, 최다 군중을 지지자로 확보하기 위한 최대 공약수적인 정책과 戰略은 수준이 낮을 수밖에 없다.

독재자들은 이 低수준 계층만으로는 만족하지 않는다. 자신들의 지지기반을 넓히려 한다. 여기서 2단계 전략이 나온다. 양순하면서도 잘 속는 다른 대중을 추가로 확보하기 위한 선전戰이다.

<선동의 표적으로 선정된 그룹은 자신의 고유한 신념체계가 취약하므로 미리 잘 만들어놓은 가치관과 논리를 그들의 귀속으로 크게, 자주 주입시키면 그들의 열정과 감정을 흥분시켜서 전체주의 정당원으로 흡수할 수 있다.>

세 번째 전략은 네거티브 프로그램이다. 인간의 本性은 긍정적인 프로그램보다는 외부의 敵(적)에 대한 증오심이나 내부의 잘 사는 사람들에 대한 질투심을 중심으로 뭉치기가 더 쉽게 되어 있다. '우리'와 '그들'을 대칭시키고, 외부 그룹에 대한 단결된 싸움을 선동한다. 이런 선동은 대중을 한 덩어리로 묶어내는 신념을 만들어내는 데 필수적이다. 외부의 敵에 대한 투쟁심을 선동하는 것은 내부 지지층으로부터 무조건적인 충성심을 불러내기 위하여서도 필요하다. 나치는 내부의 敵으로서 유태인들을 설정, 그들에 대한 증오심을 선동하였고, 소련공산당은 地主들에 대한 적개심을 선동하여 지지층을 확대 강화했다. 북한정권은 미국을 증오의 대상으로 설정하였다.

하이에크는 전체주의자들이 선전매체를 이용하여 본능적 야수성을 선동하면 저변층 사람들의 지지를 쉽게 확보할 수 있다고 분석했다. 인간이 가진 열등감이나 파괴적 본능을 자극하기 위해서는 그 수법이 이들 저변층에 먹혀들 만큼 저질스러워야 한다.

한국의 좌파정권이 방송 등 선전매체를 총동원하여 벌여온 계층갈등 조장, 兩極化(양극화) 선동은 하이에크가 말한 바 전형적인 전체주의 수법이었다. 좌경적 저질문화 속에서는 그런 데 어울리는 사람들만이 출세한다. 비슷한 사람들끼리 모이면 개인의 양심은 함몰되고 집단적인 가치관에 종속된다. 그 집단적인 가치관이라는 것은 다분히 좌파적이다. 좌파적이란 것은 생산수단을 국유화, 私有재산권을 제약하겠다는 것이고, 계급투쟁설에 근거한 세계관이며, 私생활에도 개입하겠다는 것이다. 이것은 단순히 公的인 부문만 통제하는 독재가 아니라 私的인 부분도 통체하려 한다는 점에서 전체주의적이다.

개인은 양심이 있지만 집단은 없다고 한다. 사회주의, 전체주의 등의 집단주의는 인간 생명의 존귀성을 인정하지 않는다. 이 집단주의는 필연적으로 人權, 양심, 자유를 탄압하게 된다. 전체주의는 거짓과 폭력을 무기로 하고 사회 저변층을 앞세우므로 증오, 갈등, 분열, 욕설, 거짓말 같은 저급한 문화를 확산시킨다. 이런 분위기 속에서는 最惡의 인간들이 그 사회의 꼭대기에 올라갈 수 있다는 것이 하이에크가 한 예언이었다. 이 예언은 오늘날 한국 사회에서 대체로 적중하였다.
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October 12, 2011
S. Korean State Visit Highlights Bond Between 2 Leaders
By MARK LANDLER
WASHINGTON — When the state visit of South Korea’s president, Lee Myung-bak, begins on Wednesday, he will be feted at a White House state dinner, invited to speak to a joint session of Congress, and treated to a road trip to Detroit with President Obama, where the two leaders plan to tour a General Motors factory together.

For a visiting head of state, the carpet does not get any redder than that, and it suggests that there may be something mysterious and powerful at play between Mr. Obama and Mr. Lee: Call it a presidential man-crush.

In some respects, South Korea’s leader has had the kind of presidency Mr. Obama would like to have. With less strangling government debt and a society driven to transform itself, Mr. Lee has been able to pursue much of the “win the future” agenda that Mr. Obama has advocated.

South Korea, as Mr. Obama likes to point out, has a high-speed broadband network that reaches 90 percent of its people, compared with only 65 percent of Americans. A larger percentage of South Koreans than Americans graduate from college. At a time when financially struggling school districts here are laying off teachers, South Korea is hiring them to satisfy demanding parents.

Indeed, Mr. Obama cites Mr. Lee’s views on education in virtually every speech he gives these days, including one in Pittsburgh on Tuesday — holding up the hard-working Asian country as an example of what the United States needs to do.

The two men have also built a personal bond, with Mr. Lee being among a small number of leaders — Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey are two others — who seem to have pierced the president’s reserve. At a lunch in Seoul in November 2009, which aides said left a lasting impression on Mr. Obama, the two spent much of the time discussing education, not least the role of parents in schooling their children.

“They were discussing the place that teachers occupy in society,” said Daniel R. Russel, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser on Asia at the National Security Council, who attended the lunch. “It was very human, and it’s not that common at those rarefied heights of leadership to have a real conversation in which the two people can speak openly about an issue they both care deeply about.”

Mr. Obama, Mr. Russel said, also admires Mr. Lee for his determination to thrust South Korea into the front rank of world powers and his approach to his erratic neighbor, North Korea. While he has taken a tougher line than his predecessors toward the government in Pyongyang, he has also stopped short of military action in response to a string of belligerent acts, including the torpedoing of a Navy ship and the shelling of a South Korean island.

During that tense period, Mr. Obama met Mr. Lee at a Group of 20 meeting in Toronto, and declared afterward, “My personal friendship with President Lee and my admiration for him continues to grow.”

That kind emoting is rare for the president, who has been criticized in some quarters for not having the chummy relationships with foreign leaders that George W. Bush and Bill Clinton did. And the two leaders are not an obvious match: although both rose from modest circumstances, Mr. Lee, 69, spent most of his career running a construction and engineering conglomerate.

“When Obama deals with foreign leaders, he tends to be very transactional,” said Victor D. Cha, a former Asia adviser in the Bush administration who teaches at Georgetown University. “But there’s absolutely no doubt that he has really connected on a personal level with this leader.”

Mr. Lee has not had an easy time as president, but, of course, that may only serve as more common ground for the two presidents. Elected in late 2007 by a wide margin, with a pledge to revive the economy, he cast himself as a pragmatist — which is perhaps Mr. Obama’s favorite self-description.

Yet Mr. Lee has had an even rockier time in the public-opinion polls than Mr. Obama, first struggling with street protests over imports of American beef and, to this day, fending off criticism of his business ethics. Mr. Lee, however, does not have to worry about re-election by law, South Korean presidents are limited to a single five-year term.

A long delay by the United States in ratifying a free trade agreement has also frustrated South Korea and prompted a tense exchange between Mr. Lee and Mr. Obama at a Group of 20 meeting in Seoul in 2010. The Senate and House are scheduled to vote on the pact Wednesday, the day Mr. Lee is scheduled to land in Washington.

The Obama administration, however, has steadfastly supported Mr. Lee in his dealings with Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader, helping South Korea with an investigation of the sinking of its ship, the Cheonan, and staging naval exercises in the Yellow Sea to deter the North. And the administration took an immediate liking to Mr. Lee’s harder-line approach to the government in Pyongyang, which made offers of aid contingent on Mr. Kim abandoning his nuclear ambitions.

“The feeling was, ‘This guy’s approach on North Korea is right on the money, and it’s our approach,’ ” said Jeffrey A. Bader, who was Mr. Obama’s chief adviser on Asia at the National Security Council until April.

American officials said this support has allowed Mr. Lee to respond to North Korea sternly but without risking a deadly confrontation. Indeed, after quiet pressure from American diplomats, Mr. Kim has dropped a demand that North Korea apologize for sinking the Cheonan — which it denies doing — as a condition for any new talks between the North and South.

Now that those talks have resumed, the United States has also reopened contact with North Korea. A second meeting between the administration’s special envoy, Stephen W. Bosworth, and a senior North Korean official is likely to be announced after Mr. Lee’s visit, administration officials said.

Few Americans hold out much hope for a breakthrough with North Korea. But that will have little impact on Mr. Lee’s visit, which on the potential heels of Congressional approval of the trade pact, will serve as a reminder of the alliance between the United States and South Korea.

“Lee Myung-bak is the most dynamic leader in that region right now,” said Michael Green, a senior Asia adviser in the Bush administration. “There’s a lot to like about him for the White House.”




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