The Lee Jae Myung government’s 'Newspeak'

The author is an editorial writer at the JoongAng Ilbo "The cost of success." Kim Yong-beom, chief presidential policy secretary, used those words as the title of another lengthy Facebook post on Sunday. In his explanation, today's "three highs" — high interest rates, high inflation and a high dollar-won exchange rate — are supposedly "the unavoidable cost of Korea's leap into a new stage of economic growth." Kim argued that the three highs, normally interpreted as warning signs of economic distress, should instead be understood not as "signals of crisis" but as the "friction noise" accompanying national advancement. Confusion arises, he wrote, when people misread those sounds as evidence of danger. He added that using "outdated grammar" to interpret a "new era" inevitably leads to misguided responses and insisted that what Korea now needs is "the insight to recognize changed realities." The language itself was striking: "cost," "friction noise," "misreading," "grammar," "interpretation," "insight." Put more plainly, the message seemed to be this: People simply fail to understand the government's economic achievements and mistakenly treat them as policy failures. Since the era of the three highs has become the new normal, citizens should accept a dollar-won exchange rate above 1,500 and gasoline prices exceeding 2,000 won per liter ($5 per gallon) without complaint. Whether this represents, as the ruling party claims, the Lee Jae Myung administration's economic philosophy or merely, as the opposition argues, rhetorical maneuvering to conceal policy failures is beside the point. Nor is it necessary to dwell on why one of the president's closest economic advisers continues to provoke controversy through personal social media posts instead of quietly offering policy guidance behind the scenes, particularly only weeks after confusion surrounding the proposed national dividend policy. More unsettling is the way Kim attempts to redefine reality through language itself. His argument recalls "Newspeak," the propaganda language used by the authoritarian state of Oceania in George Orwell's "1984" (1949). Orwell warned that those who control language ultimately control reality. By eliminating dangerous words and replacing them with politically convenient expressions such as "Freedom is slavery," power can reshape public perception. Kim's remarks carry a similar undertone. The word "crisis" disappears while the suffering caused by the three highs is redefined as a mere "cost." Few Koreans are unaware that soaring prices, interest rates and exchange rates place severe pressure on households, especially low-income families. Imported goods become more expensive, grocery carts grow lighter and debt burdens increase steadily. For many people, daily life itself becomes painful. Yet once a senior official reframes that hardship as a "cost," the three highs are no longer treated as policy problems the government must solve. Instead, they become burdens ordinary citizens are expected to endure for the sake of broader economic goals. The implication is difficult to ignore: Individual suffering may simply be viewed as an acceptable by-product of achieving government-defined success. A seemingly unrelated controversy involving Starbucks reveals a similar pattern. President Lee recently criticized the company over marketing connected to the May 18 Gwangju Democratization Movement, drawing accusations that the administration was excessively politicizing the issue. If Starbucks Korea intentionally promoted the event in a mocking or hateful way, criticism would be justified. Even if it resulted merely from negligence, companies should bear responsibility for creating unnecessary social conflict through careless messaging. Declining sales or damage to brand credibility would naturally follow. But a different issue emerges when the president personally condemns a company before the facts are fully established. Shortly after the controversy surfaced, ...