• sadfacenogains [none/use name]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Your argument would be true if

    (i) The DPRK wasnt exploitative itself (ii) The DPRK is perfect and there is no valid internal dissent that would ever arise

    The state has no incentive to not just crush dissent since the population is unarmed. NK statistics clearly show their economic growth is stagnating, and they living standards are quite poor. Even Kim Jong Un admits their five year plan failed.

    And anyone who actually read Marx would point out that exploitation is not absent from NK, because of the presence of commodity production, inflation, hidden and regressive taxation etc. Unless people in NK are somehow innocent lambs that must never be corrupted, there is also no reason to have restrictions on freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, restrictions on internet etc.

    North Korea is not even good at developing productive forces, so what's the point? They are being outclassed by Vietnam, Indonesia, Laos etc. Clearly the DPRK is doing a terrible job, and unfortunately any dissent is impossible.

    Sorry for not participating in Juche worship

      • sadfacenogains [none/use name]
        ·
        4 years ago

        A proletarian state is supposed to be oppressive against the bourgeiosie, not against the proletariat. So such a thing surely not self-evident or "goes without saying". Furthermore, exploitation is not a necessary condition of states, it is literally the first things that a proletarian dictatorship should abolish.

        The whole point of socialism is that workers must earn the product of their labor. This is not achieved when you have non-objective prices, inflation, regressive taxation, and straight up corruption. You can't pretend that "oh this is all self-evident or this is all necessary to protect the people". I notice defenders of AES state always ignore the obvious exploitation that goes on in these states or pretend as if its not important.

        Internet restriction is a dumb thing. It is practically non-existent is China as anyone can use a VPN, and Cuba is too poor to be able to provide free access to the internet anyway. The correctness of a measure is not "China and Cuba do it too so its good".

        From a cursory wikipedia overview of the economy and politics, I see that the latest trend is in liberalization of politics in terms of increased cultural exchanges and foreign consumption. Apparently they are changing their industrial and agricultural policies towards liberalization too. If they liberalize and become something like China or Vietnam, that would make the decades of Juche quite pointless