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I think they're Communists and Korean Nationalists and one of the last hold-overs from WW2 (and their rhetoric shows it). They are under constant imperial attention and can only secure things for their people with threats and bluster. Many blame them for this but what else were they supposed to do? Their revolution was halted by Americans unilaterally setting up "South Korea" which was a carbon copy of the recently thrown off Japanese Imperial Occupation, and secured basically all of the flat farmlands (despite this the South was given food aid by the North up until the famine of the late-80's). America then proceeded to kill around a third of the Northern population and was only stopped by the Chinese. Since they couldn't win in Korea they put up massive sanctions that only didn't crush the nation because great nations like the USSR existed.
I don't like the Kims, and I don't like the line the WPK follows, but unlike many other soviet satellites they did not trade in their party cards for lucrative futures as oligarchs (which would be much better than being a North Korean military man). And despite their failings they are all that stands between the people of Korea and the abysmal results of any "shock therapy" that would be forced on them should the DPRK fall apart.
Huh, ok interesting. That's slightly different from what most people who defend the DPRK say,because most people won't even mention the Kims' as sort of a cop-out.
I don't like imperialism either, but I don't think the North Korean military junta are communists in any way for sure, and I completely denounce the entire regime. But fair enough, I was just wondering.
Their adherence to theory is irrelevant. It's where they stand that matters. And for now (for now being a critical caveat) they are literally the only ones standing in the way of the privatization of North Korean means of production and a direct worsening of the status of every Northern Korean not poised to steal the wealth of the nation. I support the DPRK because I care about the would-be victims of imperialism more than I care about making a political point against a tiny, and relatively insignificant, backwater regime.
My position isn't that strange or new for that matter.
Also re: the Kims. They are overblown. The only one who had uncontested power was Kim il-Sung, and the latter two Kims have been elected to make the military regime seem more legitimate, as though they have a connection to the raison d'etre of the DPRK. This is the same rationale as is used by calling the Kims the leaders of Mt. Paetku, it is a direct connection to the legitimacy of the DPRK government in Korean terms.
Well I certainly don't think imperialist powers being in control of the country would be a good thing at all. But under the regime, the workers are not in charge of the means of production. The means of production is owned by the military junta with Kim as the figurehead, and the junta profits off of the resources. Then, they give a small amount of wages to the worker. Isn't that capitalism since the junta acts as the CEO and extracts surplus value from the labor of the North Korean workers, whom they have no choice but to sell their labor to the regime?
Also, I'm curious on your stance on nationalism because you said in an earlier post that they are Korean nationalists. Are you aware of their ideology regarding race?
But I do agree about what you said about the Kims. You're right, Kim Jong Un does not have ultimate power, there are certain factions in the top ranks of the military. That's why it's a junta because it's a group of top military officials who rule and profit from the country's resources. Hence why Kim had his uncle killed, because his uncle was making disproportionate amount of profit from a certain lucrative area.
I understand defending a region against imperialism, but why not support proletarian revolution instead of saying "well at least they aren't imperialists"?
I mean, if I'm being honest, conditions in the North are so horrendous, that imperialism would make their lives slightly better. That's an awful thing to have to say, and again, I am against imperialism. But throwing around leftist slogans doesn't do much when you have perhaps a small bowl of rice a day, if that. Ya know?
EDIT: If you don't wanna debate this, that's fine, no worries. But I'd definitely be down if not. I love debating these things, and for some reason it's frowned upon to make threads called "stance on____" whether it be Stalin, Mao, or the DPRK. So yeah lol
I say go for it. It is a pain in the ass that takes very consistent verbosity to have to deconstruct the political spectrum and relevant but frequently abused terms, but it's worth a shot.
North Korea is a major boogeyman for U.S. propaganda not in the sense that all the problems are made up, but in how it is represented as "communist", and if you can convince even one person to second-guess that propagandistic representation it might be worthwhile. It's up to you, though.
"I'm a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will." - Antonio Gramsci
"If he did advocate revolutionary change, such advocacy could not, of course, receive constitutional protection, since it would be by definition anti-constitutional."
- J.A. MacGuigan in Roach v. Canada, 1994
Fucking her, and yes you should let assholes that think they have the power feel uncomfortable. Push buttons son or you'll have no good memories. University is when the learning starts.
Brospierre-Albanian baseball was played with a frozen ball of shit and tree branch
"History knows no greater display of courage than that shown by the people of the Soviet Union."
Henry L. Stimson: U.S. Secretary of War
Take the word “fear” and the phrase “for what, it’s not going to change anything” out of your minds and take control of your future.
[I]Juan Jose Fernandez, Asturias
"I want to give a really bad party. I mean it. I want to give a party where there's a brawl and seductions and people going home with their feelings hurt and women passed out in the cabinet de toilette. You wait and see"
They have no democratic control but they profit off the nationalized means of production. This is why North Korea, despite its poverty, has better health stats than richer nations like Indonesia and India (neither of which are subject to sanctions and get big time support from international capital). Yes this lack of democracy is bad, but at least there is no bourgeoisie.
It is exploitative but there is no super rich in North Korea. The Kims live palatially but for North Korea. In terms of contrast he's like a trust fund kid in Austria. Not a good sign but not super wealth that comes from exclusive benefit of private property. Which is another point, private property is not legal in the DPRK. Even if the military is given benefits over everyone else this does not mean that the lack of private property fails to protect North Koreans from more extreme exploitation.
Long story short, not a pretty picture, but not capitalist exploitation by a longshot.
Songun and Korean racism are overplayed. Basically all East Asian countries are racist by western standards, and polls have shown racism is endemic in South Korea as well. This is just a point people like to make about the DPRK as though it cannot be held up in comparison to its neighbors.
And most likely he was making a power grab. But a power grab doesn't mean capitalism and it doesn't mean military officials are stealing the nation's wealth. As I said before these men you are accusing of gross exploitation are the ones best poised to seize these national resources if they were to break apart the DPRK. All they'd have to do is trade over a Kim and claim they were capitalists now and they'd be fabulously wealthy oligarchs instead of military men who will get a soldier's pension in the end. This is important.
There is no proletarian revolution brewing in North Korea. If there was, and it was legitimate and not stupid enough to want to break apart the DPR, I'd support it. We are materialists, we deal with what we have not what we'd like.
Again, most East Asian (and especially South Asians) have major food insecurity. Japan and China (to a lesser degree) are the only exceptions. Health and food stats from North Korea are actually better than wealthier nations like Indonesia who are free from sanctions.
And for what possible reason can you believe imperialism will be better? Instead of getting a small bowl of rice a day they'd have to sew sneakers all day for a quarter. Hopefully they have enough family members to all work so they can chip in together for a medium size bowl of rice for them all to share. Nothing but death and misery will come from the North being brought down by imperialists. Not to mention all the rare earths mining that will inevitably occur which will have disastrous effects on northern ecology.
Honestly I can't believe anyone would say anything so stupid as imperialism could make anything better.
I like to talk about the DPRK because it is a major stumbling point for many Marxists. The place offends so much of our western sensibilities and we know so little that conjecture is the only type of story you ever get about them. Many choose to follow the liberal media or try to make communism sound better to their liberal friends by saying "fuck Best Korea", but it is not a marxist position, it is anti-proletarian. The people are what matters, and any nation where the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie has been broken must be defended against encroaching imperialism. We are not moralists, we are Marxists.
How has "the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie been broken" in North Korea? Is there not still a class of people who work for a wage and generate surplus value? And is there not still a class of people who own the means of production? "The people are what matters" - which people? Is class analysis no longer applicable when discussing U.S. imperialism? If so, why is this only the case for U.S. imperialism?
"to become a philosopher, start by walking very slowly"
I may not agree with his politics but Kim Jong Il knows his stuff.
http://www.amazon.com/Art-Cinema-Kim...ma+kim+jong+il
http://www.amazon.com/Art-Opera-Kim-...ra+kim+jong+il
In all seriousness I think that you should try to explain what communism and socialism is, then explain what state capitalism and fascism is, then link state capitalism and fascism to North Korea while explaining that it has nothing to do with communism or socialism.
Economic Left/Right: -10 (<- That means I am left wing)
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian -9.08 (<- That means I am libertarian
From: http://www.politicalcompass.org/
"If you saw my real picture, you might wet yourself....with laughter, I might add." - Comrade Dodger
That would to be a misuse of fascism which can best be defined as:
The empowerment of the most reactionary sections of the bourgeoisie in the defense of Private Property by any means necessary.
Ultimately being a fascist isn't so much an ideology (despite the big metaphysical webs they construct) but a defense mechanism of the liberal bourgeoisie. The DPRK cannot be accused of this. State Capitalism is closer to the mark but the DPRK lacks access to most global markets (import or export) so their capitalism is pretty weak. And trying to discuss the relationship between the DPRK and Communism is enough information to fill books and isn't really suitable for an essay.
Honestly I think he should scrap the whole North Korea angle altogether. Sourcing will be hard, the subject matter is dense, and ultimately he's turning it into a teacher who doesn't know that communism is a left-wing ideology. And really he is wrong, North Korea is a lot of bad things but it is not right-wing. It takes more courage to accept the failures of your own side than to blame them on your adversaries.
i think your reasoning here is very wrong, if NK would've transformed like the east european states it would've been swallowed by SK, just like the gdr was swallowed by westgermany, and that means that the rulers of NK would've been done away with since the south would've taken over. so no oligarchic positions for the kims and the other rulers of NK or in other words keeping the system means keeping the power and all the nice stuff that comes with that.
All i want is a Marxist Hunk.
It is true that labor produces for the rich wonderful things – but for the worker it produces privation. It produces palaces – but for the worker, hovels. It produces beauty – but for the worker, deformity. It replaces labor by machines, but it throws one section of the workers back into barbarous types of labor and it turns the other section into a machine. It produces intelligence – but for the worker, stupidity, cretinism.
Wer hat uns verraten? Sozialdemokraten!
Dude the leaders of the USSR like Gorbachev didn't become oligarchs either. I'm not talking the top brass, I'm talking the guys who do all the work for the top brass and who nobody knows by name. They are in control and could break the DPR apart if they wanted, and are situated to get massive resource grabs. I don't think they'd mind being a part of the South Korean government after that. Also I don't see what the "nice stuff" is about being military man in Korea. It's equivalent to being a well-paid worker.
