Description
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.
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.
New Politics and Economy in the Digital Age (양장본 Hardcover)
$55.00