The Kim dynasty is still going strong, three generations in. Odds are that the Kims and probably a number of people at the top would be worse-off if things changed. From their perspective, things probably are going pretty well in North Korea.
Of course, the standard of living of the North Korean public is pretty horrendous, the economy is undeveloped, and North Korea doesn’t have a lot of international clout. If your metric is whether the typical person in society is living well or whether the country is powerful, wealthy, or secure, then things aren’t going very well.
Odds are that the Kims and probably a number of people at the top would be worse-off if things changed.
I mean, when you compare North Korea to the poorer parts of the periphery that capitulated to neoliberal capital - Haiti, Liberia, the former Yugoslavian states, Argentina right now, the Philippines, Lebanon or Iraq or Gaza - even the lay resident is getting out reasonably well off. They aren’t living in an active war zone, they’ve got a backwards but still functional economy, and they’re even making inroads on foreign trade at long last.
The xenophobic siege mentality of the Kims appears to have spared them a far worse fate, just by keeping the country isolated from shit like COVID and The War on Terror. They never got the windfall of the 20th century industrial economy, but they also didn’t get systematically wiped out like American Natives or Black Angolans or Rohingya Muslims.
Depends upon how you measure “well”.
The Kim dynasty is still going strong, three generations in. Odds are that the Kims and probably a number of people at the top would be worse-off if things changed. From their perspective, things probably are going pretty well in North Korea.
Of course, the standard of living of the North Korean public is pretty horrendous, the economy is undeveloped, and North Korea doesn’t have a lot of international clout. If your metric is whether the typical person in society is living well or whether the country is powerful, wealthy, or secure, then things aren’t going very well.
NK never had Internet. The people never lost anything. Everyone in Russia is online. They might not have toilets, but they have mobile data.
I mean, when you compare North Korea to the poorer parts of the periphery that capitulated to neoliberal capital - Haiti, Liberia, the former Yugoslavian states, Argentina right now, the Philippines, Lebanon or Iraq or Gaza - even the lay resident is getting out reasonably well off. They aren’t living in an active war zone, they’ve got a backwards but still functional economy, and they’re even making inroads on foreign trade at long last.
The xenophobic siege mentality of the Kims appears to have spared them a far worse fate, just by keeping the country isolated from shit like COVID and The War on Terror. They never got the windfall of the 20th century industrial economy, but they also didn’t get systematically wiped out like American Natives or Black Angolans or Rohingya Muslims.