[PEN-L:27347] RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: Re: TV and income disparity

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

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

I wrote:
> > 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?

Louis' answer (see below) isn't really an answer. He seemed to be blaming _all_ of North Korea's plight on imperialism, on external events and systems. I would say that imperialism has been a major or even _the_ major cause of NK's problems, especially after the fall of the old Soviet Union and the drying up of aid & protection from them. But I asked if it's possible that the self-appointed and self-perpetuating elite (or ruling stratum) of NK helped to create those problems.

His response is to quote some fine stuff by Marty Hart-Landsburg that I've read before, that says up to 1965 or so, NK was doing really well (at least according to the standards of industrialization, ignoring issues of democracy and the like). That doesn't say anything about how NK did after 1965 or so. It also doesn't deal with the relative role (or non-role) of internal and external forces.

It's important to remember that by the standards of industrialization, the old SU did pretty well until 1965 -- or even later (1980?). So it would be a mistake to generalize from events before 1965. The old SU didn't collapse simply due to external factors (US imperialism). (If one believes that only external forces are crucial, then it's one step away from the bogus Reaganite claim that US militarism under their hero forced the SU to spend a lot of resources on the military, causing its collapse.) No, there were internal problems: the planning system didn't work very well, while the top-down nature of political, social, and economic rule squelched the flow of information and instructions from the rank and file workers and consumers that might have made the planning system work better. When the old SU ran out of a surplus of labor-power and when raw materials became less abundant, suddenly the limits of the system became more severe. It's these internal problems that allowed and encouraged the self-appointed internal elite to decide to bring in capitalism...

(Among other things, the old SU was pretty good at producing the same item in large quantity, but never good at producing high-quality goods. I remember when I was discussing the import of a Soviet nuclear power plant into Cuba with some Cubans in the late 1970s (pre-Chernobyl), the argument of mine that hit the hardest was that I doubted the quality of the Soviet product.)

By analogy, if we want to understand NK's problems, it's a mistake to simply look at external causes, especially when the people there don't seem to have any control over their government: remember that power corrupts unless those who wield it are held responsible democratically. (How else could the leadership of the country be passed to Kim il Sung's son, in imitation of a feudal lord?)

Jim Devine

Louis quotes:
> 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
>