Alex Taek-Gwang Lee

Alex Taek-Gwang Lee, professor of philosophy and cultural studies at Kyung Hee University in South Korea, examines the deep tensions between Western Marxism, Stalinist orthodoxy, and the possibilities for communist thought today. In a powerful critique of Gabriel Rockhill’s work, Lee argues that reducing Western Marxism to mere CIA manipulation is historically reductive and ultimately serves as a gift to right-wing anti-communists. He traces the vital lineage from Georg Lukács’ theory of reification and class consciousness through the Frankfurt School’s critique of the culture industry, defending cultural and philosophical analysis as a necessary extension of Marxism rather than a betrayal of it. Lee develops his own original concepts of “weak technologies” and “planetary cybernetics” to diagnose how late capitalism has reified technology, desire, and subjectivity itself, while rejecting both nostalgic defences of actually existing socialism and liberal accelerationist fantasies. Drawing on Deleuze and his earlier works such as Communism After Deleuze and Made in Nowhere, he insists that communism remains a living, transformative idea—an ontological openness that demands we invent new people and new modes of existence against the current master signifier of capital. This dense, philosophically rich conversation reframes longstanding debates on the left and offers sharp conceptual tools for understanding AI-driven capitalism and the future of radical politics in the 21st century.