With the financial crisis that originated in the United States, the world is plunging into an economic crisis with no end in sight. The South Korean economy is said to be in a particularly severe state of crisis. But in response, the forces of Lee Myung-bak are using the crisis as an alibi and insisting to the last that it is not their responsibility. In the midst of all of this, they are beginning to look like right-wing bumblers suffering from “Red-baiting disease” and going on about “left-wing Commies.”

The crisis in the world economy, which erupted in the United States, is certainly a major condition that brought about the crisis in the Korean economy. But that is not all. As soon as it took office, the Lee administration enforced a misguided high exchange rate policy, sending as much as US$13 billion to the winds in just a few months. Even with this incompetence on vivid display, President Lee made statements denying the existence of a crisis, even unhesitantly repeating the absurd claim that “if you buy stocks now, you’ll be rich in one year.“ Is it not because of this incompetence and brazenness that people have been comparing President Lee and Finance Minister Kang Man-soo to the bankrupted U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers and calling them the “Lee-Man brothers?”

The problem doesn’t stop here. In social terms, Lee and his forces represent the nation’s uppermost class of the wealth, what is frequently called the gangbuja, or people with wealth tied to Gangnam real estate. Beginning with President Lee himself, they belong to the super-rich class, corresponding not to 1 percent of citizens but 0.001 percent. The current economic crisis is a crisis for citizens, one difficult to avoid not only for the working class and poverty class, but even the middle class. But the gangbuja, who have accumulated vast wealth through construction work and speculation, appear to be attempting to use this crisis of the citizens to amass even greater wealth. This has already appeared clearly in three ways: tax cuts for the rich, the easing of regulations in the capital region and the extremes of our construction state.

These three gangbuja policies represent an enormous barrier to the true advancement of the nation. The biggest problem here is the construction policy, which squanders enormous amounts of finances, destroys nature and hinders industrial development. One criticism of Lee’s forces is that they are presenting a “river servicing plan” and carrying out a Grand Waterway project that is potentially ruinous for the nation. In fact, large-scale regional development does not contribute in any substantial way to regional economies, since there is little of a “lingering effect” in which the money stays in the region. The money poured into large-scale regional development mostly returns to Seoul, and it is ultimately the gangbuja who get their hands on the lion’s share of it. The big regional development plans have the strong character of plans for the gangbuja that guide construction projects and speculation.

What we really have to do to get past the economic crisis is actively reform the backwards financial and industrial structures. No less than 14 trillion won in financing alone was allocated to redo the “river servicing plan,” which had already reached 97.3 percent of completion in 2006. If such a vast amount of money were used in areas such as education, welfare, culture and/or technology, South Korea could become a truly advanced nation. Our economic crisis right now is first and foremost a crisis of a backward construction state. As such, if the construction industry is not actively reformed, this country’s economic crisis will only become deeper. For the sake of the people suffering from the economic crisis, there need to be reforms to the financial and industrial structures of the construction industry for the gangbuja.

Lee Myung-bak and his forces seem really to be putting all of their efforts into taking the nation backwards. It also appears that the National Assembly, with the Grand National Party in power, has stooped to these means. Lee’s forces claim that taking the construction nation to the extreme is the road to survival. But the “shovel economy” only leads to backward movement. The “New Deal” for this era is reform to the construction state led by thegangbuja, the masters of construction and speculation.

The views presented in this column are the writer's own, and do not necessarily reflect those of The Hankyoreh.