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It's obviously not the case that only workers or capitalists can be the ruling class because there are have been a range of class societies (i.e. modes of production) throughout history in which no capitalists or workers even existed, let alone occupied the position of the ruling class - under feudal society it was the landowners who were the ruling class with the same being true of slave owners in societies based on slave ownership, such as ancient Greece and Rome. However I do regard North Korea as a state-capitalist society, and you are obviously inferring that North Korea cannot be capitalist or have a bourgeoisie because capitalism relies on private property being owned by a bourgeoisie comprised of many individual owners, and in North Korea the economy is owned and run by the state.
I object to this definition of capitalism because what defines capitalism as a mode of production is not a particular legal superstructure (namely a legal superstructure that acknowledges private property and therefore allows any given individual to set up their own business and keep all of their profits without interference from the state, which is something people are obviously not allowed to do in North Korea, with the limited exception of the jointly-owned enterprises that have been set up recently in Chongjin and a number of other locations that the government has designated SEZs since the collapse of the Soviet Union, in which most of the enterprises are owned by North Korea in conjunction with the ROK and/or the PRC - how do you reconcile these SEZs with your claim that North Korea does not permit capitalism, given that, at this page of its website, the North Korean government boasts that it has the lowest wage rates and some of the most flexible working conditions in the whole of Asia?) but rather the working population being deprived of the products of their labour, and control of the means of production, with the result being that the conditions and pay of workers are subject to the control of an entity whose interests are oppossed to their own - what Marx described as wage-labour. It is this absence of democratic control that allows us to speak of there being wage-labour in North Korea, and hence of North Korea being a capitalist country. There is a bourgeoisie in North Korea in the form of a bureaucracy because it logically follows from the above that a bourgeoisie does not need to assume the "classical" form of private entrepreneurs but can instead take the form of an institution, i.e. the state, in the same way that the landowning elite in feudal societies partly took the form of the Catholic Church and other religious orders, as well as individual barons and dukes.
So, I'll ask you again, who/what is the ruling class in North Korea?
Let's see here:
I ask the OP why he said the stance on homosexuality of the DPRK was more advanced than the stances of some other states.
Socialist attacks me and Trotskyists in general as supporters of western Imperialism.
I wonder how the hell he could draw that idiotic conclusion from the question I asked.
Socialist further attacks me and infers some more idiotic crap from my response which to any other sane human being isn't inferable.
I call Socialist a troll based on his substitution of debating tactics with pure trolling.
And the above quote is his latest response.
Enough said.
While I do not question DPRK's credentials on this issue, I wonder if the people in general really have an institutionalised way to express any feelings or sexual lust for individuals of the same gender as themselves given the extremely rigid structure of contemporary North Korean society.
Sexual freedom in DPRK is generally restricted legally due to the hyper-Confucian philosophy of the government. I really wouldn't pay attention to such statements since the DPRK is notorious for making nice progressive statements and then doing the exact opposite when it comes to gender issues. Women in the DPRK are still looked upon as mothers and wives first and foremost still.
Is this some kind of sick joke?
Well, since DPRK is practically feudal anyway, you could very well argue they are on the mid-way to socialism. When they transformed themselves into a capitalist sweatshop, they would have gone two thirds of the way. ^^
It is allowed? I thought it was something everyone had an unquestionable right to do?
"In February 1991, while attending the National Grocers' Association, President Bush visited a model supermarket. When taken to the checkout counter and shown how to pass a couple of items over the scanner, he excitedly voiced his admiration for this "new technology." It was evident he had not visited a supermarket in years, if ever."
-Michael Parenti, "Against Empire"
You are denying that homosexuality exists in Pyongyang and in the countryside, which is simply absurd.
Do you want to even try and back that up? I don't think so.
Sadly you don't understand fully, so I will have to elaborate. First I'd like to add (I think someone already posted about it), Confucianism is a heavy influence on many Asians, including the Koreans. Not to mention the other heavy influence of Juche- that said you'd obviously notice a lack of homosexuality in individuals, and even for South Koreans, you barely see it.You are denying that homosexuality exists in Pyongyang and in the countryside, which is simply absurd.
Do you want to even try and back that up? I don't think so.
And finally, I doubt it's almost in existence, which I mean it still could exist, but only in real small numbers.
I'm open to the possibility of a workers state suffering from various symptoms of bureaucratic degeneration but this doesn't change the fact that it's a workers state, i.e. a state that exists in a society where the working class is the ruling class, and it certainly doesn't make it a state that's in the middle of a transition from bourgeois rule to the rule of the working class, which strikes me as a strange thing to say because it implies that there are periods when the state does not serve the interests of a particular class but serves the interests of multiple classes or even the interests of society as a whole, and therefore conflicts with the core of Marx's theory of the state, which holds that all states have a class character. I would argue that during the period 1920-1928, Soviet Russia was a degenerated workers state, and only became a state-capitalist regime in 1928 because the start of the First Five-Year Plan in that year marked the beginning of forced accumulation, i.e. the process by which the bureaucracy carried out the historic role of the bourgeoisie, by subordinating the rights and interests of the working population to the rapid development of the forces of production. It is this observation that forms the basis of Cliff's theory of deflected permanent revolution, according to which, in countries where the working class lacks a revolutionary leadership, and the bourgeoisie is also too weak to carry out its historic tasks (which is what Trotsky predicted would be the case in all countries that have entered the capitalist stage of development at a comparatively late stage in history as the bourgeois classes of these countries are frequently bound to the remnants of feudalism or the interests of imperialist powers and hence cannot carry out the role that Marx assigned to the bourgeoisie in the most developed countries) it is sometimes possible for a section of the intelligentsia or state bureaucracy to partially carry out the tasks of the bourgeoisie, especially economic development. By using this theory we can identify that governments like the PRC are/were basically the same as other governments that do not describe themselves as socialist or communist but also came to power during the post-war era with the objective of freeing themselves from the economic impacts of imperialism, with varying degrees of success, such as Nasser's regime in Egypt.
So, let me ask you again, is there a ruling class in North Korea, and, if so, what is it?
No, it is not. The industrial sector accounts for 43% of the North Korean economy (source) and even in the countryside, which is what you presumably have in mind when you assert that North Korea is feudal without a single bit of evidence, the dominant relation of production is wage-labour, because workers who are employed by state-owned collective farms and other rural enterprises receive a wage for their labour, whereas, under feudalism, peasants hand over part of their produce to the local lord or whoever the local representative of the ruling class happens to be (it could be the local church depending on locality - this is not important here except insofar as it demonstrates that the exploiting entiy can differ even whilst the form of exploitation remains the same) and are able to keep the rest - something that does not happen in North Korea except for the small private plots that peasants are allowed to keep for themselves, which are part of the capitalist economy because what is not consumed is sold as a commodity. Before you ask, no, the existence of a "monarchy" (it is not actually relevant that Kim Jong-il is Kim Il-sung son's because Marxists recognize that societies are dominated by classes, and that the ruling class can and generally does remain the same even when the individual who happens to be in charge of the state at a given time changes, or when the state changes from being authoritarian into a bourgeois-democratic state) does not make North Korea feudal, because feudalism is a mode of production, defined in terms of its relations of production, i.e. the way in which the ruling class goes about extracting and accumulating surplus value.
Last edited by BobKKKindle$; 18th October 2009 at 23:18.
So what are the multiple ruling classes that exist in North Korea? Do you think it's also possible for the bourgeois state to represent the interests of more than one class, let's say the interests of both the proletariat and the bourgeoisie at the same time?
1)Post good stuff about the DPRK
2)Get a shitload of thanks from specific comrades
3)Enjoy the tendency war
The official government statements can differ from the facts,you know.Originally Posted by OP
And in addition, neither did the USSR's authorities care about suppression of the homosexuals (Cubans did however).
Maybe these minor offers, matched with a greater living than capitalism,no unemployment and the illusion of socialism and self-management (sided with kick-ass propaganda and the idol worship of DPRK's demigod past general secretaries) keep the people of NK 'satisfied' and numb, and give reasons for OP and other supporters of failed 'workers' states to post such trivial matters - trivial, when opposed to the counter arguments for DPRK and other similar catastrophies.
The DPRK's population isn't even "satisifid" or numb like how most people put it. Most people look at Pyongyang and forget that the almost everyone there works for the government and represent the elite. Parts of the countryside have essentially overthrown the Stalinist government and have been running their own autonomous economies for years now. DPRK is actually having major problems controlling the new "farmers markets" that have risen within this decade. Quiet sad really considering how much support for Socialism existed during the independence period.
Right, so sharing information and learning about specific topics like homosexuality in DPRK is in fact my little plan to harvest thanks and start the "tendency war" ?
If you disagree with what is said, please say so - challenge it, counterargument it, bury it if you must. But please comrade, stay clear of such accusations.
The "tendency wars" of any sort are completely counterproductive and degrade all conversations and all topics.
I said the exact thing, I believe at least 3 times in this thread.
If you took time to read before you respond, you would spot it.
"Ideas do not need weapons, if they can convince the great masses." - Fidel Castro
[FONT=Verdana]some amateur leftist songs written by me: Brand new one: TOUR DE MARXISM , Stalingrad battle song , Greet us in Havana, Bolshevik Girl
cover stuff: [/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]Partisan (Leonard Cohen), Working class Hero (John Lennon)[/FONT]
And the "workers state" is the end of the process? That's hell of a slow transformation. I hope that there would be people left when it's becomes communism.
Are you the same socialist who used to be a really annoying (ultra)left communist?
Formerly zenga zenga !
I don't buy your shit about 'homosexuality does not exist with Asian people' which is what you're saying, it's a croc of shit, sorry but you're talking complete and utter bollocks.
And you could argue Fascism and the Catholic church was a massive influence on the Spanish, on Italians, you are simply not understanding that a 'people' cannot have barely any homosexuality, that is not the way people work.
It's quite badly discouraged, in fact LGBTQ rights in S. Korea seem pretty bad from what I can make out, it's not a good example to use at all.
Great, now show me proof that somehow there is no homosexuality in any nation?
You missed my point. All I was going at was that there were small numbers of homosexuals in the DPRK for several reasons, which I pointed out. That's the case I made, and there are many articles of reading related to this topic. Homosexuality in R of Korea are a taboo, the reason I pointed out South Korea was because of the relation to North Korea...
COMMUNISM !