It must be emphasized, however, that the meaning of political ideology in the Korean political context is quite different from that in the Western European context. Korea has never experienced a genuine class struggle, and the idea of a socialist economy as an alternative to a capitalist one remains foreign even to many workers. For this reason, many scholars are reluctant to employ the “left-right” distinction in the Korean context. Instead, they prefer to use more general expressions such as “progressive-conservative” and “liberal-conservative”, as are used in the United States.