On January 3, 2024, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol declared martial law, accusing the Democratic Party—South Korea’s majority party in the National Assembly—of being “anti-statist” and “collaborating with North Korean communists to destroy the country.” Yoon deployed airborne troops to neutralize the National Assembly and the National Election Commission, attempting to consolidate power by establishing an emergency legislative body to replace the Assembly. While the Democratic Party of Korea has faced criticism for nefarious anti-free market legislative practices, Yoon’s illegal coup d’état was a shocking political disaster, unimaginable in a developed country.
Fast forward to January 15, 2025: Yoon became the world’s first sitting head of state to be arrested by his own investigative agency. Accused of treason, Yoon now faces impeachment and the possibility of life imprisonment—or even the death penalty—if convicted. His political party—People Power—risks dissolution for its complicity in his attempted coup.
The Korean experience serves as a stark reminder of the perils of compromise. Rothbard and Mises consistently warned against alliances with vested interests that erode core libertarian values. The Korean crisis illustrates that even a single step away from private property rights and free markets can lead to catastrophic outcomes. While political contexts vary across nations, the principle remains universal: liberty cannot thrive where principles are sacrificed for expedience.
As libertarians reflect on this case, the message is clear: the path to freedom lies not in compromise but in steadfast adherence to the ideals of individual liberty, private property, and free markets. Anything less risks undermining the very foundations of liberty itself.
Libertarians are learning the lesson of partnering with he statist conservatives. They get dragged down with the conservatives when the conservatives go rancid, which they seem to do quite often. The author of the article quotes Mises, Rothbard and Rockwell as saying that the libertarians need to stick to their principles and not get entangled with the statists, no matter which country they are in. It is a lesson that it is better to learn and not forget. After all, statists do statism and there is no escaping that fact.