A Capitalist Lesson From North Korea

[Chris]

A Capitalist Lesson From North Korea reviews a WaPo report of interviews of 25 defectors from North Korea, LIFE UNDER KIM JONG UN.

..."In theory, North Korea is a bastion of socialism," writes reporter Anna Fifield, "a country where the state provides everything, including housing, health care, education and jobs. In reality, the state economy barely operates anymore. People work in factories and fields, but there is little for them to do, and they are paid almost nothing. A vibrant private economy has sprung up out of necessity, one where people find ways to make money on their own, whether through selling homemade tofu or dealing drugs, through smuggling small DVD players with screens called 'notels' over the border or extracting bribes."

"North Korea technically has a centrally planned economy," a 37-year-old university student told Fifield, "but now people's lives revolve around the market. No one expects the government to provide things anymore. Everyone has to find their own way to survive."

One young woman found her way by doing people's hair at her house. A 23-year-old bought beans from farmers, then paid couriers to get them to an aunt who sold them in a market in Pyongyang. A 46-year-old, officially an office worker, earned his living selling drugs and smuggling antiques. A 43-year-old, officially a doctor, says the monthly salary was "less than it cost to buy one kilogram of rice. So of course, being a doctor was not my main job. My main job was smuggling at night."

Even the education system has become market-based. "Technically, you don't have to pay to go to school," said a farmer. "But the teachers tell you that you have to submit a certain amount of beans or rabbit skins that can be sold. If you don't submit, you get told off continuously, and that's why students stop going to school."

The government has legalized some markets "retroactively," Fifield reports, and even takes a cut from some private earnings. Ordinary life is improving. But, she writes: "The ability to make money, sometimes lots of money, through means both legal and illegal has led to visible inequality in a country that has long touted itself as an egalitarian socialist paradise."

The special report shows—no doubt unintentionally—that capitalism is not a system imposed from above; capitalism is simply what happens when people are left to do what comes naturally... and sometimes even when they aren't.

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[Devil'sAdvocate]

Capitalism is simply what happens when people are left to do what comes naturally...

I don't think anyone ever debated that - when they are simply "left to do what comes naturally", they tend to do like any other animal does, even kill or rape if they feel it aids their survival.
It's only when discipline is imposed, either by the self, or from the outside, through law and regulation, that people do otherwise.

But where does an ascetic fit into this? It seems he does without, and whatever "comes naturally", he transcends it...