- NASA (via Wikimedia Commons)
- Korean peninsula at night
For a stark image of how well the Kims have done developing North Korea this past half century, versus their capitalistic, democratic brethren to the south, you need only look at this satellite image of the Korean peninsula at night. That is, assuming industrial development and electricification is your measure of quality of life.
There are of course two stories here: South Korea’s economic growth has been as remarkable as North Korea’s economic stagnation. It would be an absolutely fascinating social experiment to see what might happen over the next half century should the Kim regime fall, and the two Korea’s unify.
That darkness is what Occupy Seattle would create with their ‘everything for everyone’ chant.
@2, right, exactly. Freeing up billions of dollars from the money-hoarders and releasing it back into the economy would somehow destroy our electrical infrastructure.
Good thing this is the internet and you don’t have to justify your comment with – you know – logic.
oh noes!! light pollution! I hate that!
It’s even more amazing considering it is a complete reversal in fortunes. During the Japanese Occupation all development was concentrated in the North. The South was an agricultural backwater. For the first couple decades after the Ceasefire the North had all the money and the South was horribly poor.
North Korea hasn’t really been communist since the 70’s.
And I don’t mean that in an “I’m a trotskyite trying to defend communism against Stalin” kind of way.
Come on, Goldy. It’s not communism’s fault, North Korea is a totalitarian dictatorship. You know that.
Freeing up billions of dollars from the money-hoarders”
Well that’s because you’re an idiot and think those billions of dollars are stuffed under someone’s mattress somewhere and not invested in the economy seeking returns. But if you’d rather have all that wealth in the hands of the ‘people’, ie. the State, this photo is a fine example of the end result.
I’ve recommended it before on Slog, but the book Nothing to Envy is a great look at both the economic and social failures of North Korea. The darkness you see across the Korean Peninsula isn’t the result of a lack of industrial development, but of the failure to maintain that infrastructure, to the point that the copper wiring of their electrical systems have been stripped and sold, throughout the country.
“It’s not communism’s fault, North Korea is a totalitarian dictatorship”
You should put that on a t-shirt and where it with your fellow morons at Occupy a Tent next time you march down Pike St chanting ‘everything for everyone’.
“wear it”
@12 don’t blame me, blame big fingers and iphone’s spellcheck.
What this is a picture of is millions of people living in thrall to tyants in abject want.
@12 They have a carbon footprint, it is made up of inefficent small charcoal fires–millions of them. There are of course fewer cars and domestic appliances, so their footprint is not as large as an industrialized nation, but what they do use is extra smoky.
Unification of Germany not fascinating enough for you?
It would be an absolutely fascinating (and horrible, based on what we haveso seen) social experiment to see what might happen over the next half century should the Kim regime NOT fall, and North Korea continue on as a fascist state.
@9, you clearly have no idea what you’re talking about. Look at any Denmark, Finland, Norway, etc. And Democratic Socialist country. The happiest countries on the planet.
But you know, if you want to cram the square peg of reality into the round hole of your ideology, nobody’s gonna stop you.
How do you deprogram 43 million people? East Germany was nothing compared to North Korea. There was still some level of information flow and exchanges between East and West and the East was not nearly as poor as North Korea. Nor was the USSR a complete cult.
The DDR’s infrastructure was also far more up-to-date than the PRK’s – and reunification nearly crippled Germany. Thirty years later, they’re still feeling the after-effects.
The only thing North Korea has to offer the South is the potential revenue from selling off all that Soviet-style military hardware to Kim Jung-Il wannabes in other parts of the world.
Nothing to Envy is a great and well-written book but is focused in Chongjin, one of the cities that was hit the hardest from the 1994 famine, so it’s not a great look at the overall picture of what’s happening/has happened in the DPRK. A better and more comprehensive look at that famine is a book by Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland; Famine in North Korea: Markets, Aid, and Reform.
The biggest mistake made by journalists and politicians alike is assuming that life in the DPRK is stagnant and hasn’t changed since the ’94 famine (or before). A good book to read (if slightly outdated now) is North of the DMZ by Andrei Lankov, a Koreanist who has the unique experience of growing up in the USSR, studying in the DPRK as a student, and now living/teaching as a professor in South Korea (permanently based in Australia, though). He writes regular columns about live in both North and South Korea for the Korea Times (English version).
@16 So a communist state with no private property and all resources owned by the state is now fascist? Thanks for the laugh.
@16 If you want marginal 50% tax rates on the middle class and high suicide rates, move to Finland, Demmark etc. just good luck getting work papers.
Of course, you probably agree with the Occupy Seattle morons chanting ‘everything for everyone’ every time I see them shuffling down Pike St blocking traffic.
18 & 19: Correct, plus in East Germany, the army wasn’t an 800 pound gorilla. How the South would de-program and integrate the North Korean Army would be a huge issue. If that wouldn’t be bad enough, the Chinese prefer the status quo…
@18,19 are correct here – its telling when the train cars today in the Pyongyang metro are old stock from the DDR, in some cases built in 1957. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyongyang_M…
China lights up and it’s Communist. It’s not Marxist. North Korea is Stalinist.
That’s funny, the less state economic control and greater private property rights in China, the wealthier it is has become. 70% of the Chinese economy is in private hands (source: Economist), in North Korea 90% of the economy is owned and controlled by the state.
That’s why there’s lights in China idiot.
But keep blocking traffic on Pike St. chanting ‘everything for everyone’.
What this image illustrates is the extremity of austerity measures taken by a deranged theocratic regime. A heavily enforced curfew in a State where the cult of the Eternal Leader is imposed in some of the most dystopian ways imaginable.
17: “Look at any Denmark, Finland, Norway, etc. And Democratic Socialist country. The happiest countries on the planet.”
Try “Look at [small, geographically-insulated, racially-homogeneous nations with millenia of tradition, high IQs and oingoing strong social networks that are currently free-riding on America for security guarantees]. The happiest countries on the planet.”
Fixed that for you.
“austerity measures”
The austerity of socialism and communism you mean. Where everyone is equally poor.
But I bet Occupy Seattle’s chant “everything for everyone” would heartened the cruel economic planners of North Korea.
@14 if all the things that America enjoys were produced with our borders you bet your ass we would be spewing thousands of times more shit into the atmosphere from all the factories required to produced the immense amount of electricity to do everything from power home to powering the machinery to run all of the factories.
I call bullshit on your claim that any western states treat the environment any better or more efficiently. Right now we are just subsidizing it out to all the poor eastern countries which produce all of the pollution that we benefit from.
Are you really that ignorant or blindly nationalistic about the west? That is just sad.
How does some act ‘nationalistic’ about the ‘west’?
But we should give the North Koreans a medal for having small carbon footprints. Amazing how environmentally friendly the poverty is.