[Marxism] Difference between "state capitalism" and capitalism revealed

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

NY Times, May 16, 2009
North Korea Demands Higher Pay at Industrial Park
By CHOE SANG-HUN

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said Friday that South Korea must leave 
a joint industrial park unless it unconditionally agrees to higher wages 
for Communist workers and other demands from the North.

The two countries have run the complex in the border town of Kaesong 
since 2004, hoping that it will serve as a pilot project for economic 
integration. About 100 South Korean factories hire relatively cheap 
North Korean labor to make shoes, electronic parts and kitchen utensils 
there.

But the project has been caught up in political feuding over the past 
year, as a new South Korean government has taken a harder line against 
the North, and the North has heightened tensions with Seoul.

It remains unclear whether the North intends to force the shutdown of 
Kaesong through its demands, or whether the cloistered nation is merely 
seeking more money as the United Nations pursues tighter economic 
sanctions after the North’s April 5 rocket launching. North Korea’s 
leaders have also grown wary of capitalist influence spreading to the 
rest of their tightly controlled society from Kaesong.

On Friday, North Korea said it was nullifying all existing contracts on 
land use, taxes and wages at Kaesong.

It said it had given “special favors” to the South Koreans at Kaesong at 
the first summit meeting between the two Koreas in 2000. The meeting led 
to economic aid to the North with no strings attached, a policy the 
current president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, wants to end.

North Korea said Friday that it had no reason to continue the 
preferential treatment and was drawing up a new set of contracts.

“The South Korean companies must unconditionally accept what we notify 
them. Or they are free to leave Kaesong,” said a statement carried by 
the North’s official news agency, KCNA.

A South Korean government spokesman, Kim Ho-nyeon, said: “This 
fundamentally threatens the stability of the Kaesong complex, and it is 
not acceptable at all. If they follow through on their threat, they will 
have to take responsibility for all the consequences.”

Earlier Friday, South Korea proposed talks for next week to discuss the 
fate of a South Korean worker detained in Kaesong on charges of 
denouncing the Communist government. During a brief discussion last 
month, North Korea refused to talk about the condition of the man, who 
has been held since March 30 without access to South Korean officials.

The North instead began demanding higher wages for 39,000 North Korean 
workers at Kaesong, who are now earning about $75 a month.

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