The Juche Idea and its Role in the North Korean Political Economy

Abstract

There is a pervasive assumption that north Korea is about to experience extensive changes: as a communist country it faces inevitable collapse due to its inferior economic performance compared to capitalist societies — as shown by the downfall of the old Soviet bloc and the PRC’s espousal of capitalism. Aside from the simplistic view of developments in the PRC, the assumption seems to combine two illegitimate contentions. The first is that there is some telos in history that drives societies away from immanently flawed planned economies toward immanently flawless market economies. The second is that economic crises inevitably lead to far reaching change. Both these contentions curiously mirror the cod-Marxist argument that capitalism will inevitably give way to communism and that economic crises will provide the occasion.