Written by : Lee, Chang Hoo

Summary : Introductions to Three main principles of political phenomena.

1. The principle of three kinds of dangers to man's existence : Explanation of the essential factors that determin political phenomena.
2. The principle of organization : Explanation of the spatio causal interactions on political phenomena
3. The principle of social changes : Explanation of the temporal causal interactions on political phenomena.

   Suggesting the 3,1 structure of systematical explanation on political phenomena.

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"May I ask you a question? I've so far heard others say that the politics is useless at all for the actual political activity. What do you think of this opinion?"

I asked this question to the lecturer when I was freshman at the first lecture on the introduction to politics as soon as he allowed questions. Then the lecturer smiled hesitating for a moment, and said ;

"In fact, yes, that's true. I agree with them on that it is not helpful whether one knows politics or not at all to his political activity, actually."

If politics is useless at all for the political activity, it means that politics is an useless science either. Then why was the lecturer major in politics? But I didn't ask the next question because I thought it unnecessary. And I am still unsatisfied with the political theories as much as I have felt at first and during my study of many kinds of politics by now. Thus I made my mind to write this theory on political phenomena.

My theory on political phenomena I'm trying to suggest in this page were basically degigned to get such a good practical effects as the economical theory(particularly, the capitalistic market theory) has. But it does not accept the economics as the theoretical model. To explain this with more terms, I am just trying to suggest a theory so practical that man can judge and determine his political actions according to this theory at least as he can his economical actions according to economical theories.

Against my argument above, someone would indicate the limitations and the theoretical problems of the economics. But, however many theoretical problems they may be able to find out of economics, they could not but admit that the economics is most advanced and practical theory among given social sciences in many aspects.

I can suggest many practical cases supporting my arguments.

Almost people in departments concerning economy of all countries must have enough knowledge of economics in order that they can afford their tasks. On the other hand, economical policies cannot be established without considering principles of economics. Sometimes there occur disputes among scholars on whether it is necessary to increase the currency for the progress of economy or not, which, however, is always based on the principles of economics. That is, one scholar argues that it is required to increase currency considering some principles of economics while another argues that it is necessary to decrease, both of whom never ignores the economics. They don't agree with each other only on what is variable and what is constant, and on what conditions we should consider significant now, within the same theoretical system. From the micro perspective of view, knowledge of the economics is helpful even for owners of a retail shop or a company who buy and sell something for themselves. The shopkeeper would be able to think that oil will get more expensive in case there begins a war in Gulf, and to predict inflation and fluctuation of currency. And those judgements are evidently helpful for shopkeeping.

Comparing with the economics, how practical are the other social theories, particularly the politics?

The candidates for Congressmen do not predict his success with the knowledge of politics even if he is goot at the politics. The most significant variable for his success as politician or stateman is whether he has enough money and whether he is familiar to many and influential people enough or not. All of these considerations are not theoretically based on economics at all. In addition to that, the existing politics does not help us undertand and predict what social effects and changes would be caused by a given national policy either. If you were to suggest some theoretically systemized understandings and predictions, these should be based on economics. The other explanations, even if with theoretical and scientifical terms, must be so unsystemized and nontheoretical one that we can eliminate all of the theoretical covers from the whole explanation into a mere common sense.

We can also see the limitation of validity and the low level of systemization in the politics itself.

The capitalistc economics can at least suggest consistent explanation of the international and domestic economy, and on the macro and micro economy based on the same principles. No other social theoris can do so, and neither does the politics. The theoretical foundations for the international and domestic politics are different from each other. There is no evident relations theoretically systemized between explanations of the political process and of the power, for example. However, the economics can explain systematically theoretically what kind of relation, and how an intimate relation lies between the behavior of a housekeeper and the macro economical phenomena of international area, while the politics cannot suggest systemized theoretical explanation on the relations between a behavior of a congressman and the macro political phenomena in international area.

In fact, someone may argue that it is also possible to explain the relations between a behavior of a congressman and the international political change. Yes, it is possible. But that must be one not based on the systemized universal principles on political phenomena, but merely on our common sense resulted from unsystemized experience. We can suggest and understand at once easily the political explanation that an irrationality of a congressman caused a failure of his party in election followed by the contracted political power on determining the foreign policy and then this affair resulted in the change of the diplomatic policy against a particular country. However, what principle of the politics does it use? Is there any principle in politics which is not organized occasionally, but which is helpful for us to explain the almost general political phenomena consistently?

Then, everyone will get anxious to know what kind of principles there are in the politics. I mean such principles of supply and demand in the economics as determine the price of commodity, for example. This is very what I complain of concerning the given politics, and there's none as such, so far as I know. Almost contents of the existing politics are historical discription of a certain political affair, depits of a political system or complainants of difficult investication on the politics. If we could find out a more theoretical contents, they should be categorizations and definitions of various political factors. However, in this case too, they don't explain why they should be categorized as such, and it is impossible to understand the theoretical foundation for those categorizations. Same with almost definitions. They argue that a political power can be usually characterized to have unlimited quality, residual quality, uniting quality, and coercive quality, which can be easily understood. but so what? Rarely, very rarely, there is an universal propostion in the politics, which then is too universal that it can not give any a definite information on political phenomena : for example, there is always the output resulted from a certain input. A distinctive exception exists and this is the Marxist political economics. This is a theory on general social phenomena quite well theoretically systemized, but unfortunately failed to apply to the actual world in spite of its consistent and powerful explanations. That's why Est Europe failed in the current political competition.
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Since I began with such complaints like above, I will try to suggest a completely new kind of theory that gives comprehensive and universal explanation on the political and also the general social phenomena. I am planning to do it not only through the discussion of its methodology and the proof of its possibility, in fact it's not my main project, but also essentially through creation of the very universal explainable theory.

The basic condition of a good theory is usually that it be able to explain various kind of phenomena with only a few principles.
The physics of Newton is a good example. As you know, the Newton physics can explain and predict every movements and physical changes in the universe with only three basic principles. Thus, the new theory of political phenomena that I'm trying here pursues such a level of explanation as an ideal model. I have of course stated above that my theory pursues the explainable capacity of the economics, but that pursuit be limited within the aspects of ffectiveness and actuality of a social theory. The actual structurization was designed according to the model of physics. But I couldn't succeed in explaining the whole phenomena with the mathematical equations yet, which I will complete next time.

My political theory explains phenomena based on three principles, and this resulted not only from the fact that Newton physics is the ideal, but also from the other reason that will be explained later. And those three principles are based no another more fundamental principle. This shows 3¡¤1 structure : this means that my theory explain phenomena with three materials(Àçî¦)
respectively named the heaven, the earth and the human. This 3¡¤1 structure was designed intentionally by a half and naturally and inevitably by the other half. When I made my mind to design a new political theory I began to study the traditional philosophy of Korea at first and came to find out the important implication of 3 and the structure of 3¡¤1. The main reference
was the "Han philosophy" of doctor Kim, Sang-il. However, I also tried not to attach myself only to such a this philosophical viewpoint vainly. What I tried was to prospect the world for a possibility of its interpretation based on the traditional philosophy of Korea, although there exist some limits on it.

Now I'd like to introduce briefly the result of my trial.

The basic and essential principle required to explain the political phenomena and also to explain the general phenomena including it is "the principle of pursuing existence". This principle means that "everyone gets into actions in order to survive and exist, of which the extension composes and makes the structure of the general social phenomena." This principle lies in man himself and make him possible to exist. By the way, the world itself is disinterested at all in man relatively who is always trying to exist on the other hand. That is, the world is always natural, i.e. "just as it were". The world is full of the strict and cool causality of nature itself. I call this "the principle of being", for, as far as I think, the figure of nature can be described all as "what is is and what is not is not". This is equivalent to the "principle of power" which means that the strong win the weak.

Since the general social phenomena result from the interactions between the man and the world, those three principles which govern and determine general political social phenomena emerge from them. The first among them is the "principle of three dangers". This implies that in order to exist man eliminate all of dangers from the three directions : from the outside, from the inside and from man himself. The second is the "principle of organization". This principle implies the following : the power and strength of man or of a group always determines who can exist, when each of them is trying to expand his existence and interests within interactions among them, thus people naturally come to make groups and to make their social power greater through them for their common existence. The third is the "principle of change and stability". This implies that everything changes eternally and as a whole while man alone tries to create what is required for his living, i.e. stability. This third principle says that the nature and society changes from a state to another state continuously while man also goes on creating stability for his existence in that circumstance, which all advances from one political crises to another eternally that people can not but face. After all, these crises results from the conflicts between fundamental changes and a passing stability. On the other hand, the creations of groups and a particular orders of man for man's existence create the political phenomena. In this way, those three principles are interrelated with one another.

Let me explain those arguments like above more precisely.

At first we can deduce from the 'principle of three dangers" the most important three factors which determine politic-social phenomena. There have been quite much debates on what are the important factors among various ones that help us understand social phenomena so far. Marx argued that only economical factor is most important and another ones are based on it. Another scholars suggested that more factors containing economical one, but each argument was different from another with no standard to determine which argument is more acceptable. My principle of three dangers suggests an answer that political or physical(Pungbaek) factor, economical(Woosa) factor, and idealogical(Unsa) factor are important and basic. However, what is more significant and valuable is that my theory also suggests a kind of matetheory which explains why these three factors must important and basic in understanding social phenomena.

You shall see that Pungbaek, Woosa and Unsa factors interact one another and how they produce whole political social phenomena in next chater. But I'd like to emphasize in advance that it is not all that these factors interact one another. You will also see and understand how these three factors interact, how different each effect is from another and how we can confirm or verify effects of the three factors with historical cases as examples. We can predict political changes in the macro political perspective and even manipulate the political phenomena with this theory. In the micro political perspective we can understand how the individual political subject's activity is limited on one hand, and how micro phenomena are interrelated to macro ones on the other hand. All of these would make us easy to make political decisions.

By the way, these three factors of Pungbaek, Woosa and Unsa are not only elements that determine the whole social phenomena, but also kinds of various interactions that constitute the each part of social phenomena ; categories. Thus, pungbaek, woosa, unsa factors can be understood as three main forms of social force or social power. Human activities in political social phenomena assume these three kinds of form, pungbaek, woosa, and unsa and the man, who is the subject in the phenomenon, make use of military or physical power, commodities or money and the symbols or knowledge. In addition to that, supposing the whole social phenomena can be regarded as the network of interactions constituted of various intentional force, all of them are same in that they are the forces influencing on political body, therefore the whole phenomenon can be analyzed quantitively.

Secondly, the principle of organization makes it possible for us to understand the establishment of each political unites, differences of political behaviors inside/outside of it and their interrelations. The first principle of them dangers make us understand the resource and categories while the second interrelations of macro/micro areas of whole political phenomena. That is to say, the first shows essential and logical structure of political phenomena which the second spatial structure. What the third principle shows is the temporal structure of political phenomenon. Thus we can understand the establishment of a country and its behaviors with the second principle, i.e. that of organization. Understanding country, which is the most important political body in modern world, we now come to understand why international political phenomena are different from domestic political and how these phenomena are interrelated. On the other hand, the principle of organization is also important to understand the political power with. We can understand why political power is required and made, how it behaves in particular conditions and what it finally produces considering those three main factors focused the principle of organization. Furthermore, construction of political machinery and actual relations among them are to be explained according to this principle of organizations.

Thirdly, the principle of change will explain political social changes. Explaining this third principle I'd like to suggest to switchover our understanding in politics like Copernicus. The stable political process has been understand as different from the dynamic political change and each of them has been studied in separate ways so far. Of course, this tendency is due to the fact that every scholars have been proceeding each by each and failed in uniting all of them into one, however, as far as I think, there is also another significant reason behind it that all have thought the stable political process is more fundamental than changes. I'd like to convert this understanding. Although anothers have tried to understand political changes supposing that stable process be essential and more fundamental, K now try to understand how the stable process is possible
presupposing that changes are essential and more fundamental.

According to my opinion, we can explain how the stable political process is possible pointing to it that man flattens some spots in slopes of mountains and hills in order to get ground, gardens and places on which to build their houses. The slopes are to the political changes what the flattened spots are to the stable process. It is not less reasonable to regard the political change as undamental basic frame of political phenomena although we may find stable process more often than changes than to regard the earth full of slopes rather than of plains although there are so many plains in the world. In addition to that this principle of change is most helpful not only in understandings of macro perspective political changes but also of various aspects of micro perspective political phenomena. All of the significant and trivial changes in various aspects of micro phenomenon cannot be explained without this third principle.

After I explain precisely these three principles each by each in next chapters, I will also provide many analysis of various actual political phenomena explaining much more precise relations among these principles. By the way you must keep in mind that those three principles come from one fundamental one ; the principle of pursuing existence that everyone gets into actions in order to survive and exist in disinterested nature, shortly to say, that everyone intends to exist in nature. This can be considered as a meta-principle of those three. Thus this make it possible to unite or separate, and control or limit the three principles. This is why the whole theory of this book has 3¡¤1 structure. You shall see and confirm understand these relations and structure in many analysis of phenomena.

Therefore, what I pursue in the political theory at last is the universal theory that can be applied in every temporal period and every cultural situation. Quite many people may demand such a theory as, however, is difficult to get. I now think that such an object is not so hard to get. However, I'd better confess in advance that my theory may not be complete and sophisticated enough. But I wish the essential point of my thought must have very significant and revolutionary implications.

What I'm trying to suggest in this book is a system of general principle on social political phenomena. Thus, I will not argue for what everyone in our political community should pursue. Neither will I suggest a sort of political ideology like liberalism or communism. I will just explain how factors of those isms works in phenomenon and what they cause and change instead. Such self-limitation, I hope, will not diminish the value of my theory in politics.

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