[PEN-L:27323] Re: RE: Re: Re: Re: TV and income disparity

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

> so the political monopoly of the North Korean communist
>party and its planning efforts had nothing to do with it? Kim il and his
>son had nothing to do with it?   Jim Devine

Martin Hart-Landsberg, Korea: Division, Reunification, and U.S.
Foreign Policy:

During the first two decades after division, many Koreans, perhaps
even a significant majority, viewed North Korea more favorably than
South Korea. Reflecting this sense of superiority, it was the North,
not the South, that made repeated offers for greater North-South
communication and exchange. The South Korean government not only
rejected these offers, it refused to make any counterproposals.
Perhaps even more revealing of Korean impressions of the two Koreas is
the fact that in 1960, some 450,000 Koreans living in Japan officially
selected North Korea as their "mother country," as compared with
165,000 that selected the South. This difference is even more
impressive because the great majority of Koreans living in Japan were
originally from southern Korea. Between 1959 and 1962, approximately
75,000 Koreans left Japan to permanently settle in the DPRK.

One reason that North Korea was able to confidently approach the South
and attract tens of thousands of Koreans from Japan was its economic
superiority. While South Korea struggled with recession and high rates
of unemployment during the 1950s, the North Korean economy generated
full employment and rapid growth. And even though new state-dominated
relations of production enabled the South Korean economy to grow
rapidly over the following decade, the North Korean economy continued
to outperform it in terms of employment, income distribution, and
growth.

North Korea's strong economic performance was the result of a thorough
state-directed transformation of Northern economic and social
relations. Although Japan did "industrialize" Korea, it did so in an
uneven way. In 1940, approximately 85 percent of Korea's heavy
industry was in the north while 75 percent of the country's light
manufacturing and almost all its agricultural production was in the
south. The division of the country left each side with half an
economy. The North Korean leadership responded to this historical
legacy by implementing a number of sweeping reforms which radically
changed workplace, gender, and ownership relations. It also launched a
series of economic plans-one-year plans in 1947 and 1948, and a
two-year plan covering 1949 to 1950--that were designed to create a
more balanced and self-sufficient economy. These initiatives were both
popular and effective.

North Korea's economic progress was temporarily interrupted by the
Korean War. At the end of the war, power production was only 26
percent of what it had been in 1949, fuel 11 percent, chemicals 22
percent, and metallurgy 10 percent. Agriculture was also in chaos
(primarily because of the massive U.S. bombing of the country's dikes
and dams).

Almost immediately after the armistice, the North began an impressive
rebuilding program, pursuing what Stewart Lone and Gavan McCormack
call "possibly the most centralized and planned economic development
strategy of any country in the world." A three-year plan was produced
for 1954 to 1956 that gave priority to the development of heavy
industry. The plan's targets were actually met some six months ahead
of schedule. A five-year plan was then drawn up covering 1957-1961,
and its targets were also met ahead of schedule. According to the
DPRK, its completion meant that the country had successfully built "a
base for the development of an independent national economy." A new
seven-year plan was launched in 1961, with the aim of modernizing the
country's newly created industrial base, as well as establishing more
technologically advanced industries.

In the postwar period, the state also completed the task of
eliminating private ownership of productive assets. Agriculture went
through a process of collectivization which proceeded in stages
between 1953 to 1958, a process largely driven by the destruction left
by the Korean War, which made the pooling of limited resources and
labor necessary for survival. Lone and McCormack describe the
collectivization experience as follows:

"Despite the urgency of the task of capital accumulation for
industrialization, the regime seems not to have squeezed the farmers
too hard, allowing them to experience gradually rising living
standards and reduced taxation levels, until the tax on the
agricultural yield was eliminated entirely in 1966. Irrigation,
terracing of hillsides, mechanization (large scale production and
allocation of tractors) and chemicalization (use of fertilizers) were
promoted on a large scale."

Urban handicraft as well as small-scale, privately owned enterprises
involved in commerce and industry also went through a similar process
of collectivization. By August 1958, the North Korean leadership,
basing its assessment on the extent of state ownership, announced that
the country had achieved "the socialist transformation of the
relations of production, in both the rural and the urban communities."

North Korea's economic achievements were truly remarkable.
Agricultural output grew by an average of 10 percent a year during the
1950s and 6.3 percent during the 1960s. By the end of the 1960s, the
government was able to declare that the country had achieved food
self-sufficiency. Industrial growth rates were even more noteworthy.
Gross Industrial Product in 1956 was almost three times what it had
been in 1953; in 1960 it was almost 3.5 times what it had been in
1956. As a result, industry's share of national income rose from 16.8
percent in 1946 to 64.2 percent in 1965. And by 1960, machine-building
had become the country's largest industrial sector. These achievements
were so remarkable that even Western economists began to speak of the
"North Korean Miracle." In fact, according to the economist Joan
Robinson, writing in 1965, "All economic miracles of the postwar world
are put in the shade by these achievements."



Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org