Discussion of “Wither North Korea” by Young Back Choi

1. Discussion of “Wither North Korea” by Young Back Choi Discussant: Cameron M. Weber cameroneconomics.com

2. “Wither North Korea” Choi’s paper is analytical historical in nature and describes how and why the ‘cult of personality’ developed in N. Korea through today’s third generation of dictatorship under the Kim family. Of special interest for this reviewer is Choi’s description of the caste system created by the dictatorship, “a strange amalgam of the Marxist-Leninist conception of the capitalistic class structure and a feudal conception of the heredity of one’s social station by bloodlines”, including to wit a divine right to succession for the Kim clan. The Special Caste bloodlines are families who supported socialism in N. Korea and/or supported Kim the elder, approx. 1% of the population.

3. “Wither North Korea” Choi writes that today’s situation is close to that during the collapse of communism in the early 1990s, when observers first saw potential for a Korean reunification. Choi himself wrote of this earlier situation in Choi, editor, Perspectives on Korean Unification and Economic Integration (2001). [Choi also wrote the “Economy in Korea” entry for the New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics (2008).] Grandson Kim Jong-un “looks increasingly like a bumbling fool over his head” and if he “stays the course, the chance of sudden collapse of N. Korea is now greater than ever before” (emphasis added). Devine hereditary succession is a delusion as his mother is from Japan, and, the economy has been marketizedand dollarized preventing central control.

4. “Wither North Korea” Choi’s arguments appear irrefutable. (And with this discussant’s level of expertise on Korea, it would be a pretense of knowledge to try !)

5. “Wither North Korea” However, it would be nice to see citations (beyond common-sense and the author’s personal knowledge) for statements such as, “Massive amounts of food and medical aid had been given since then on humanitarian ground for the starving in N. Korea….However, the food aid was mostly siphoned off to replenish the dwindling supply of the military and kept the loyal caste fed. The rest of the population for whom the aid was intended had only a small fraction of the aid.” And, Through the internationally-created Korean Peninsula Development Organization (KEDO), “KJI received over $500 million worth of fuel oil, during the time of critical shortage, and hundreds of millions of dollars in wages for N. Korean laborers at the construction sites, all of which went into KJI’s personal coffer.”

6. “Wither North Korea” Full Definition of WITHER 1: to become dry and sapless; especially:  to shrivel from or as if from loss of bodily moisture 2: to lose vitality, force, or freshness <public support for the bill is withering> Full Definition of WHITHER 1:to what place <whither will they go> 2: to what situation, position, degree, or end <whither will this abuse drive him> From h-m.com

7. “Wither North Korea” Does Choi intend “wither” or “whither” in the title of his paper? The argument for sudden collapse would imply “whither”, however a slow historical collapse would imply “wither”. As in Engels Anti-Dühring 1878, “The state is not ‘abolished,’ it withers away” (Part 3, Chapter 2). What is the author’s view on this question? Thank you.

8. “Wither North Korea” On “Western Propaganda” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJsN8o8AO9I