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How does North Korea End?

Maybe NK is just waiting for a Deng Xiaoping. It might take a long time, but they could get to where China is now by keeping the one party state but instituting some change from the top, calling it "New Communism" or some such.
 
tomwaits said:
Maybe NK is just waiting for a Deng Xiaoping. It might take a long time, but they could get to where China is now by keeping the one party state but instituting some change from the top, calling it "New Communism" or some such.
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That is the other thing.... the other way out. A gradual redefining of the whole thing until it resembles something else entirely. Kind of like how Cuba is going.


Usually I like having an argument in these kind of threads. But with this situation I just don't have a clue. I play every option out in my head.... declaring war to status quo... and they all seem like bad options.

It's a weird thing.... if enough time was aloud to pass you would almost notice an evolutionary change. They stamp out any hint of rebellion within the population.... any hint of free thought (it seems)... it almost seems that trait is being bred out of the population... given enough time.
 
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Caper said:
It's a weird thing.... if enough time was aloud to pass you would almost notice an evolutionary change. They stamp out any hint of rebellion within the population.... any hint of free thought (it seems)... it almost seems that trait is being bred out of the population... given enough time.
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Heaven forbid! But fears like that have proved exaggerated in the past. If the population was converted into mindless robots, the ruling elite would have no pool of relatively sane and competent people available to carry out complex tasks, and the state would simply cease to function. The ruling family appears already to have travelled some distance along the road to non-functionality.
 
tomwaits said:
Maybe NK is just waiting for a Deng Xiaoping. It might take a long time, but they could get to where China is now by keeping the one party state but instituting some change from the top, calling it "New Communism" or some such.
Click to expand...

Caper said:
That is the other thing.... the other way out. A gradual redefining of the whole thing until it resembles something else entirely. Kind of like how Cuba is going.


Usually I like having an argument in these kind of threads. But with this situation I just don't have a clue. I play every option out in my head.... declaring war to status quo... and they all seem like bad options.

It's a weird thing.... if enough time was aloud to pass you would almost notice an evolutionary change. They stamp out any hint of rebellion within the population.... any hint of free thought (it seems)... it almost seems that trait is being bred out of the population... given enough time.
Click to expand...

In China, the leaders could offer prosperity to legititimize their rule. North Korea has no chance to do the same because there already is a Korea which is very prosperous in the south.

North Korea's leadership derive their legitimacy from protecting its people from a hostile outside world. This is why it constantly stokes up the ludicrous rhetoric about the Yankee Imperialist Agressors, the reactionary flunkies of the South Korean government and the Imperial Japanese. With these enemies parked on its borders it can argue that it needs total submission to the Kim cult and military-first sacrifices. If it were to begin to tone it down, and talk about peace, give up its nukes etc... then it would effectively have no legitimacy anymore.
 
angrysoba said:
In China, the leaders could offer prosperity to legititimize their rule. North Korea has no chance to do the same because there already is a Korea which is very prosperous in the south.

North Korea's leadership derive their legitimacy from protecting its people from a hostile outside world. This is why it constantly stokes up the ludicrous rhetoric about the Yankee Imperialist Agressors, the reactionary flunkies of the South Korean government and the Imperial Japanese. With these enemies parked on its borders it can argue that it needs total submission to the Kim cult and military-first sacrifices. If it were to begin to tone it down, and talk about peace, give up its nukes etc... then it would effectively have no legitimacy anymore.
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Who says they have to start talking about peace? I thought we were talking about internal policy. They can keep up the wacky threats for all I care. Institute some economic change and call it "Our New Strategy of Defeating the Imperialists." Any good politician knows how to be creative. Honestly, I doubt most North Koreans care about whether the state is following orthodox Marxist policies, they just want to be fed.
 
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tomwaits said:
Who says they have to start talking about peace? I thought we were talking about internal policy. They can keep up the wacky threats for all I care. Institute some economic change and call it "Our New Strategy of Defeating the Imperialists." Any good politician knows how to be creative. Honestly, I doubt most North Koreans care about whether the state is following orthodox Marxist policies, they just want to be fed.
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Well the Songun policy was adopted because of the failure of the rice harvests. With little food other than what can be grown by hand and what is given in aid, North Korea will have trouble implementing reforms. South Korea suggested the North should end its collective farm system though but the North reacted very badly to the good advice.

The fact that rice has to be harvested by hand is a factor of another serious problem, no fuel. Without fuel it is difficult to run machines.

The North did allow some changes in its economic system. They essentially turned a blind eye to the markets that grew up during the famine. It is against the official policy of the regime but they pretend it doesn't exist. The only time there was anything like a serious revolt was when North Korea had a "currency reform" and wiped out the savings that some people had made.
 
tomwaits said:
Who says they have to start talking about peace? I thought we were talking about internal policy. They can keep up the wacky threats for all I care. Institute some economic change and call it "Our New Strategy of Defeating the Imperialists." Any good politician knows how to be creative. Honestly, I doubt most North Koreans care about whether the state is following orthodox Marxist policies, they just want to be fed.
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There is one problem - people who are teetering on the edge of survival tend to be placid. They don't have almost anything to loose, but if they were to rebel, they would quickly loose even basic subsistence and die. In addition, they spend almost all their energy on mere survival and have little left for resistance.

I would contrast this with situation in Greece, where people are still sufficiently fed, clothed and sheltered and have enough left over to fight for what they perceive are their rights.

McHrozni
 
Craig B said:
That sounds like a very silly way of solving the problem, Scott. By the way, are such spouses permitted to migrate to China, or is the Chinese partner obliged to reside in N Korea, and if so, on what terms: citizen, resident alien, or what?
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My understanding is that the wives go to China. North Korea gets very few immigrants.
 
Two phrases from Tokugawa era Japan (1603 -- 1868) remind me of what I suspect the situation must be like for the average North Korean farmer:

"Peasants should be neither dead nor alive." (Tokugawa Ieyasu, founder of the Tokugawa dynasty)

"Sesame seeds and peasants are very much alike. The more you squeeze them, the more you can extract from them."
 
shuize said:
Two phrases from Tokugawa era Japan (1603 -- 1868) remind me of what I suspect the situation must be like for the average North Korean farmer:

"Peasants should be neither dead nor alive." (Tokugawa Ieyasu, founder of the Tokugawa dynasty)

"Sesame seeds and peasants are very much alike. The more you squeeze them, the more you can extract from them."
Click to expand...
I think we can say it's even worse than that. Your comparison is too kind. The average peasant under the Shogunate was probably not much less well off than his European counterpart, who in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was typically a serf, with few rights, and entirely familiar with being squeezed. The Enclosure Acts squeezed the English peasantry out of existence during that very time.

But can we now say that the average wage earner in N Korea has a standard of living roughly equivalent to his or her Western or Japanese equivalent?
 
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