this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2024
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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.
What do you mean, it's going great. They're even selling ammunition to Russia and sending troops over to help. From what I heard their shells even explode sometimes.
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.
The isolation may have delayed the impact of covid, but they were hit hard with it when it did get in. They cut off food imports as part of this effort and people were starving. Kim turned down vaccine offers on a couple of occasions, though they may have gotten the Russian vaccine.
Most of those are some wild comparisons. With all due respect, but the average North Korean "lay resident" is most def not "reasonably well off" compared to their counterpart in most of the places you listed (if that is indeed what you're claiming). Obviously Gaza is a hellhole right now, but saying that North Koreans are better off than people in Argentina, Croatia, Albania, or even Haiti, is just pure nonsense. And there is no active war zone in the Western Balkans while North and South Korea are still technically at war. The historical comparison to colonized and oppressed peoples also seems arbitrary and illogical.
Just the fact that they've got basic utilities - electricity, running water, paved roads, public health clinics - puts them head and shoulders above the undeveloped third world.
Koreans haven't exchanged fire in over 70 years. Albanian insurgents revolted in Macedonia as recently as 2001. And extremist violence at the border persists to this day
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodo_League_massacre
Only if you aren't familiar with your history. The crack up of the Korean peninsula follows a deliberate Strategy of Tension that Cold War (and colonial before that) governments employed to suppress large restive populations for centuries.
My dude, what are you even saying.
Of course they have basic utilities in the Balkans. They most definitely have access to the same basic utilities we are used to in the EU and the US. Newsflash - the Western Balkans are no longer part of the "undeveloped third world". Contrary to what you say, "extremist violence" at the borders between these countries is extremely rare and border crossings are entirely peaceful 99.999% of the time. We can talk about border scuffles between Kosovo and Serbia, or inter-ethnic tensions throughout the region, but even that is nothing compared to the level of militarization and animosity at the 38th parallel.
I should know - I've travelled to every single Balkan country this past year, including Kosovo and Montenegro, as part of a border police exchange program, and enjoyed my stay at all of them.
The two Koreas haven't exhanged fire in over 70 years? Go read the list of border incidents on Wikipedia and tell me again how they haven't exhanged fire. Just this tear alone there has been artillery shelling in the border zone. For god sake, one country is actively testing nuclear ICBMs over the skies of the other one, and you want to compare that to the Western Balkans?! Ridiculous.
At this point I'm convinced you've never travelled to or studied the history and national policies of the countries you're talking about. In other words - you're quite obviously talking out of your arse.
They had it in Yugoslavia and then they were demolished in the wars. The modern states are hobbled by debt accrued during the rebuild and still plagued by border violence. There's no single interstate grid, the highway system is littered with checkpoints and blockades, and the disparate countries have lost their pre-collapse industrial capacity to the bombings of the 90s.
Then I'm sure you stopped off at Obrovac Aluminum Plant and Obrenovac Thermal Power Plant, critical backbones of the old economy that were never fully repaired, much less reintegrated into the regional economies. Perhaps you had a ride in one of the surviving locally manufactured automobiles, once a common export of the region but now functionally impossible to assemble due to the fractured political landscape?
What were you policing in this now peaceful and bountiful utopia, btw? Crime, I'm sure, is way down from the Tito era, right? And arms smuggling? That's not a thing anymore, is it?
Sure. You played cops and robbers in Kosovo for a few weeks and now you're an expert. I just spent half a decade at a hedge fund, watching my bosses pick Eastern Europe clean, asset by asset and industry by industry.
You're so smart, bro. You should write a book about your experiences.
My friend, you are trying to argue that there are no basic utilities in the Balkans in 2024. Some basic research or even just contacting literally anyone who lives there will prove you wrong. It's so rudimentary and ridiculous - I have no idea how you have the gall to continue arguing something so absurd. Not to mention your ludicrous claim that North Koreans are better off than people in Southeastern Europe.
ridiculous
You're demonstrably wrong about most everything you claim and anyone can do a quick google search to see for themsevles (including you). Yes, there are interstate grids - you can go see them now if you wanted to. The highway systemS (there is more than one) are not "littered with checkpoints and violence". You can literally go and see for yourself. And the biggest problems with debt have little to do with the "liberal capital" you mention previously but they do have a lot to do with large-scale Chinese infrastructure projects. And even then, no Balkan country has adebt to GDP ratio of anything close to 100%. Do tell me again about this hedge fund you worked for - did you use numbers?
Any self-respecting expert from the region would call you out for being either delusional or simply trying to push an ideology regardless of facts. You are clearly regurgitating information about countries you've never been to and know nothing about. Where you got that information - well frankly, who cares. But it does resemble the propaganda of the old school socialist parties in the region who keep prattling off about how good things were before 1990 and how bad things are now when in fact the vast majority of politco-economic metrics clearly show the opposite is true.
In conclusion: you have no idea what you're talking about and anyone with an internet connection can confirm that.
Edit: Oh, and about that book. I don't write books of my personal experiences but I am a co-author of multiple books with comparative analysis in the region alonside other independent experts. Based on a lot of fieldwork. That is how I know you are spouting nonsense.
If you want to claim you've been to the Balkans but you refuse to acknowledge the destruction of its largest infrastructure projects, that's entirely you being ignorant for your own sake.
Nope, you just don't know the characteristics of the infrastructure you're talking about. Because if you did you would know a lot of those plants and manufacturing capacity were ineffective and propped up by a authoritarian systems. They were always a lost cause.
I haven't just been to the Balkans. I've lived there. I have work partners from all over the region and we talk everyday of every week about the.political and economic situation of the region.
That is how I know you are not versed in these matters.
And its obvious you are just grasping at straws at this point because you've made no attempt to refute my specific claims in the same.manner I refute yours. Because how could you - any basic desk research would clearly demonstrate you are wrong.
If you're seriously interested in the subject, I think you'd do well to look into the Yugoslavian automotive industry and its subsequent collapse.
Yeah, its too bad Balkan countries stopped producing cars after 1990 due to the sudden and mysterious lack of electricity, water, sewage and waste disposal. Then again, there's barely any roads or highways in Southeastern Europe to drive them on anyway. And the ones that do exist are barely usable because of the violent radical gangs patrolling them.
But hopefully one day the locals will be better off. Maybe even have basic utilities. Like North Koreans.
Unironically
Of course. Here's hoping the ongoing war in the Balkans ends soon and peoples in the region can have peaceful relations. You know, like North and South Korea. Or Ukraine and Russia. Or Israel and Palestine.
And if any of this doesn't make sense, I suggest you look up the history of the Yugoslavian automotive industry before and after the fall of the SFRY. Then it'll all fall into place. Unless you're in the Balkans, in which case you wouldn't be reading this because you don't have access to the internet. Unironically.
We've been tantalizingly close to a break through in North / South tensions. Hopefully, the collapse of the Yoon government means reconciliations can continue.
But one thing you don't see is terror attacks along the border. That's critical to a future reconciliation.
No doubt, there is a clear and unmistakable trend toward demilitirazation and reducing nuclear tensions on the Korean Peninsula these past few years.
The real issue is Serbia testing ICBMs and threatening Romania with nuclear warfare. Apparently the secret biological experiments the US has been conducting on Vucic are making him go crazy. Textbook example of a strategy of tension.
Reality truly is stranger than fiction.
Ah, yes. The Serbian space program.
They'll be sending their first satellite into orbit soon. You'd think they'd need basic utilities to do that but no - its all held together by duct tape and wishful thinking.
With the help of their neighbors in Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, and Montenegro, it seems. Amazing what Slavs can do when they're united, rather than at each others' throats.
Okay, now repeat that in Korean.