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Why do we segregate men from women in sports?

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This article does a good job explaining Cuba : https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/07/cubas-model-vindicated . The explanation for NK police-state level spending is the contradictions in their economic organization and their supposed political goals. What is even stranger is that even with a Stalinist police-state, they still have a huge black market. So either they are incredibly incompetent or the state actually supports the capitalist informal economy.

I cannot, I simply observed that Cuba has much less military spending despite being right next to the beast, while NK is in a far safer position, but somehow requires much more military spending. I just pointed out this obvious discrepancy.

After reading my entire post, this is what you chose to respond to? Cuba has a very good counterintelligence agency, but they are not militarized to the extent that NK is. Cuba spends just 2-3% of their GDP on military.

True. And if you consistently applied Marxism to North Korea, you would find that is an exploitative capitalist country which provides the material basis for repression.

Free speech is a poor example unless we’re talking about the DPRK

Why? Even Cuba places restrictions on internet, print, public discussion etc.

There is a respect in which socialism is more fragile. Having a distinct goal (i.e. communism), it is capable of failure. A liberal society doesn’t really have a goal other than its own survival.

I don't buy this "we are so fragile, we need to repress OUR OWN people to do a communism" bit. I don't buy it at all. The main reason for repression is the massive contradiction between the alleged goal (communism) and the actual practice (exploitation and alienation).

That aside, the issue isn’t fragility so much as the enemy being so powerful (e.g. the wealthiest country in the history of the planet) that leaving small cracks to be exploited can still be extremely hazardous.

They are right next to the actual most powerful country in the world that actively supports them. They have nuclear bombs. They have artillery aimed at South Korea, that can destroy half the country's infrastructure. North Korea is not under existential military threat. They are far more secure than Cuba so their repression is much less justifiable.

I'm not going to stan countries just because they call themselves communist. Third world countries are known for having corrupt governments that exploit their people. This doesnt magically become not true if such countries reorganize their economies to be state owned, while still maintaining the basic capitalist mode of production.

The dictatorship of the proletariat (which is not a dictatorship in our colloquial understanding of the word, but actually means mob-rule or tyranny of the majority), serves to repress the bourgeoisie, NOT the people themselves.

xDDD ebin!!11 so true :D le Xi should gulag libs like me!!

How do you figure NK is a profit based ecconomy that doesnt repress free markets ?

Literally the very existence of commodity-production implies profits exist. But apart from that technicality, from what I've read of NK, they have some nominally state-owned enterprises that are actually privately owned. They have foreign businessmen running their own businesses, including entire special economic zones with South Korea and China. They have a substantial black market : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jangmadang.

Also trying to be a country in autarky with a single trading partner under world capitalism while your country isnt that resource rich and never really recovered from the fall of the USSR doesnt bide very well with abollishing commodity production and money.

Once again, you need to actually explain why. Like give an actual economic reason instead of just asserting that it's true. And what do you even think abolishing commodity-production means? It doesnt mean achieving automation or a highly developed economy. It simply means that goods and services are no longer produced for the purpose of earning money from their sale. When private ownership of profit is already (theoretically) banned, what is even the purpose of having commodity production?

Communist countries have not abolished commodity-production not because it's difficult, but due to pure opportunism. Abolishing commodity-production is an act of radical egalitarianism. It would make it impossible for exploitation to exist in such a society, short of naked and clear expropriation.

They arent trying to “develop productive forces” dengist style, idk what you are talking about.

I never said they were doing it Dengist style. They've been liberalizing since 1995, in a very hamfisted way that is not producing the economic benefits that China or Vietnam got.

Their economic system is similar to Cuba , just under much worse conditions, worse starting point and worse natural resources and even bigger forced focus on Military spending

Yes, Cuba has also been liberalizing. Cuba also has markets, the profit motive, black markets, lack of price calculation etc. Maybe they should reduce their military spending as Cuba seems to be doing fine despite being right next to USA.

The USSR under stalin didnt abolish commodity production either and it didnt work on labor vouchers so idk your point and “liberazing” like China at this point wpuld turn them into a much worse Vietnam

Never said the USSR did, I said they followed certain policies(that I listed in that same sentence) that actually worked to bring economic growth and is the biggest reason why ML became so popular. And why exactly would liberalizing turn them into a worse Vietnam?

No project at any large scale has abolished commodity production and surprise surprise North fucking Korea wont be the first to do so or even able to do so

Yes, and I don't expect them to do so, not because they are technically incapable, but because their rulers have no political reason to do so. You asked for a hypothetical solution and I gave one, I didn't say NK will actually do it.

If you're gonna do socialism, you need to actually do socialism instead of half-assing it, making your own weird economic system, and not even achieving economic growth for all your efforts. At the very least, stop pretending your society is even remotely based on Marxist principles. Do you think Marx would be like "critical support for the DPRK" when he actually sees all the black markets, regressive taxation, profiteering etc.

Consoles are the biggest scam in digital entertainment.

How much repression is justified? Is freedom of speech fatal to the socialist state, is it really that fragile?

Well I don't know, maybe the DPRK can do what Marx recommended and abolish the profit motive through price calculations and labor-vouchers? And no, before you say it, it is not necessary to "develop productive forces" before abolishing commodity-production. I see this said by MLs all the time, without a single shred of scientific economic evidence or explanation as to why it is true.

If they're gonna be a Stalinist state, they should at least do stuff like price calculation based on labor, running the economy as a single firm, vigorous repression of markets etc. Those policies actually resulted in the fastest industrialization in history. Instead, North Korea has been liberalizing for decades. If they're gonna liberalize they may as well follow the China method.

Good job completely missing my argument. Maybe get rid of your own siege mentality where anyone who critiques existing socialist attempts is "anti-authoritarian" or CIA agent etc.

Authority on its own is not a virtue, there is such a thing as implementation. For example, Cuba, despite being right next to USA, is far more democratic, less repressive and better than North Korea economically and socially. China is even better than Cuba in their pragmatic implementation of socialism, and so on. Both China and Cuba are "authoritarian" but implemented their methods of repression and protection in a far better manner.

What capitalists say in the press, and even our own opinions of socialist countries have zero effect on them. It is idealist and egoist to believe otherwise. The idea that I should "just give up and keep doing capitalism" seems reasonable to you because you are simply unable to think of an alternative to the methods implemented by Marxist Leninist states. You suffer from a "Socialist Realism" so to speak.

And finally, if you read Marx, you would know that these states haven't even begun abolishing exploitation or removed alienation.

It is not a controversial statement to say that it possible to develop methods of governance that don't involve the level of repression North Korea has, while still maintaining sovereignity.

I'm officially too old for zoomer humor to even make sense, let alone be funny

Visit a doctor, problems with pooping are too risky to just wait until it goes away.

1 : In purely economic terms, risk is a cost, not a reward. Companies spend money to minimize risk.

2 : Morality is not the basis of our economic system. You can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't say "greed is good" and "self-interest is supreme" and then be like "it is immoral for workers to be greedy and pursue their self-interest".

3 : Economic planning, even under capitalism, is far more efficient when workers are rewarded the full possible amount of the profit share. The artificially low price of labor discourages labor-saving innovation and reduces economic growth and prosperity.

4 : In the modern age, there is almost a total disconnect between owners and managers of large busines. The people who actually take decisions involving risk are different from the people who own capital. It is only in small businesses where owners take risks.

5 : There is no way to calculate the economic value of risk-taking. It is not an objective quantity.

6 : Morality is a form of false conciousness like religion. Morals don't exist in the real world any more than ghosts or fairies. They are not material object nor do they refer to any real social relations between people. We don't base any of our actions on morality. We don't avoid killing or stealing because of metaphysical moral imperatives, but material things like "we go to jail for killing" or "we get negative emotions in our brain for stealing". Saying someone "deserves" something is a moral argument. We don't say workers "deserve" the full value of their labor, we simply encourage them to exercise their self-interest.

I think this is one of the biggest problems with socialist strategy. We must figure out a way to take power without developing a siege mentality and paranoia after the inevitable capitalist backlash. This siege mentality actually plays into capitalist hands as it prevents socialist states from developing the flexibility, pragmatism, free discussion and experimentation needed to succeed.