Ah! Let's discuss this.

Juche did contribute to austerity / resource deprivation in the DPRK.

Juche did not contribute to resource deprivation, the sanctions and embargos of America and the imperial core did. The DPRK perhaps should have been less reliant on the USSR, but American's had destroyed nearly all of their cities, murdered at least 20% of the population, and unleashed widespread biological warfare (including anthrax and bubonic plague) against civilians.

The DPRK also resemble a hereditary monarchy in many respects.

I disagree with this firmly and would like to explain why. First, some info on the electoral process in the DPRK:

• The DPRK has county, city, and provincial elections to the local people's assemblies, as well as national elections to the Supreme People's Assembly, their legislature. These are carried out every five years.

• Candidates are chosen in mass meetings held under the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland, which also organizes the political parties in the DPRK. Citizens run under these parties or they can run as independents. They are chosen by the people, not by the "party".

• Side note: (in fact, the parliament in the DPRK consists of three separate parties as of last election, the Workers Party of Korea, the Korean Social Democratic Party, and the Chondoist Chongu Party).

• The fact that there is only one candidate on the ballot is because there has already been a consensus reached on who should be up for nomination for that position, by the people in their mass meetings. This is a truly democratic arrangement.

• As for the idea that they're carried out in view of the public, that's asinine and obviously not true if you view even one election in the DPRK, which in fact allows foreign observers of their election. You vote in a separate room from anyone else and are afforded privacy.

A video on the election in the DPRK from Voice of Korea.

Here is an Inter-Parliamentary Union document detailing the Parliamentary system in the DPRK

Just, as a general rule of thumb, the western media is NOT in any sense trustworthy in regards to their enemies.

pulled from [this :reddit-logo: comment that explains the DPRKs system well](

Second, the narrative that the Kim family is a dictatorship is one completely based in the western propaganda narrative. If Lenin had children, would you not expect them to be involved with the Soviet government? To directly refute the concept that the Kim's are a monarchy, let's review:

The DPRK's ruling leaders are not a "dynasty". You seem to be largely unaware of how their posts function or how they were elected.

From a :reddit-logo: comment by u/ComIntelligence

The best way to understand why Kim Jong-Il, then subsequently Kim Jong-Un were elected after the passing of Kim Il-Sung is to understand who all three are, what their history was like, and what rights and policies were put forth under their tenure.

Kim Il-Sung was a guerrilla warrior who fought against the brutal colonial Japanese and essentially is seen as a liberator from slavery. He lived under intense oppression by the Japanese fascists and fought personally to free his country from enslavement. Once he had freed his nation, he began granting basic rights and freedoms that the people of the DPRK enjoy today.

He then successfully dissolved the landlord classes through land reforms, leading to increased prosperity and a massive rise in equality for the proletarian classes. He dissolved the petty bourgeoisie and enacted a dictatorship of the proletariat, and fought tooth and nail against the Imperialist USA. All of the people in the DPRK I've spoken to see him as an incredibly positive figure of liberation, freedom, and equality.

Kim Jong-Il was elected by the Supreme People's Assembly, but it's important to note that he had been tutored by his father in statesmanship, economics, and Marxism-Leninism for nearly 30 years by the time of his election. The people knew him, he had reached a high rank within the Worker's Party of Korea through a life of dedication and work, and was trustworthy.

Kim Jong-Un was likewise trained and tutored by his father. He has a long background of service in the military and in the WPK. He was also elected by the Supreme People's Assembly. They are all qualified figures who were democratically elected based on their long histories of dedicated service to the country.

Their elections do not have to do with their blood, but instead with their dedication. Remember that Kim Jong-Il had quite a few other sons. Kim Jong-Un has distinguished his tenure as the First Chairman of the National Defense Commission with a construction boom, the securing of the vanguard party, and the discovery of the world's largest deposit of rare earth minerals. Korea is booming under his leadership.

The Korean people have never lived in their democratic people's republic in a time of security. They have always been under the threat of US Imperialism. Instability could spell doom for them. It could herald an invasion, the dismantling of their social programs, the destruction of everything they hold dear.

Read here for information about their electoral system.

I also recommend reading their constitution to get a better understanding of how the DPRK's government works.

here are additional resources:

• RESOURCE 1: Korea Resilient! Socialism in Democratic Korea by Vince Sherman
• RESOURCE 2: How to Think about Socialism in Korea
• RESOURCE 3: Understanding North Korea by Stephen Gowans
• RESOURCE 4: A Model of Democratic and Participatory Socialist Planning by /u/MasCapital on :reddit-logo:
• RESOURCE 5: Constitution of the DPRK
• RESOURCE 6: Socialist Korea: A Case Study in the Strategy of Economic Development by Brun and Hersch
• RESOURCE 7: Interview: Understanding and Defending North Korea
• RESOURCE 8: Democracy: US vs DPRK -- Towards the Annihilation of a Narrative
• RESOURCE 9: The secret genocide in South Korea you've probably never heard of

The treatment of prisoners also warrants criticism.

The only sources you will truly find critiquing the DPRK's prison system are :zenz: tier and funded by the state department. We agree that many prison systems deserve critique, however.

Finally, I don’t entirely buy arguments that it is necessary to isolate the general population to the degree that they are isolated in the modern DPRK. Communication outside of the DPRK is overly limited, imo, and it seems unnecessarily strict about entering/exiting the country, both for citizens and visitors. Free movement is important.

The DPRK is effectively cut off from any countries in the political orbit of the imperial core, especially the occupied southern part of Korea. They maintain, in many places, a completely open border with Russia and enjoy a decent amount of trade / travel with China.

This effort post includes multiple examples of people who have chosen to leave / defect from the DPRK, only to decide they want to return to the DPRK. When they try to return to the DPRK they are prevented from doing so by the American military and the puppet military of occupied Korea.

Visitors are understandably screened due to the amount of imperialist spies and CIA agents repeatedly caught posing as tourists.

TL;DR: I understand your hesitation and encourage you to be curious with this. Please review these sources and consider how they fit with your current conceptualization of the DPRK.