How do we know North Korea is totalitarian? How do we know it isn't? Is it socialist?

t. someone who is only one step away from advocating US intervention

The problem with Leftcommunism is that it always practically sides with imperialist powers, because your great other is every existing socialist country; this sheer contrarianism is forging your ideology the most.
libcom.org/library/ambiguous-journey-ante-ciliga-1898-1992-philippe-bourrinet
Such is the ideological destination of almost every leftcommunist ever

is this even a serious post? i'm not even going to faithfully respond to this shitpost in the case that you might literally be this unhinged of an unreasonable reactionary to everyone you meet.

REALLY GETS THE NOGGIN JOGGIN

Made up bullshit. It doesn't matter whether or not DPRK is totalitarian because "totalitarianism" is an ahistorical, anti-Marxist term invented by liberals for the sole purpose of casting the USSR and Nazi Germany as the same thing.

Not to be contrarian to all our NK loving friends but

Camp 13 is a pretty big indicator at least some sketchy shit is going on.

Prisons are required for the functioning of states.

We don't know, no one really knows.

The ethics of those prisons are up to debate just as America's prisons are.

Except, usually, it's the country you're trying to enter that detains you. In this case, the one that does it is the one that you're trying to flee. It's incredible how intellectually dishonest tankies are

Yeah and what percentage of their economy is exports? You do realize they are forced trade with China for oil, right?

DPRK itself is one of the most environmental-friendly countries in the world. They focus a lot on hydroelectricity and solar energy. You can read DPRK state media about this, read a Western source (theconversation.com/behind-north-koreas-surprising-compliance-on-climate-change-26013) or simply look at pictures of North Korean towns and villages.

when did this become a meme

Except the whole thing was a hoax.
edition.cnn.com/2015/01/18/asia/north-korea-defector-changes-story/index.html
What exactly is the difference between a prison and a prison camp anyway, besides adding a scary word?

North Korea is in a state of war. What do you think happens you run over to enemy territory in a war without permission? The reason you are usually being detained by the country you enter and not by the one you leave is because, well, they are not at fucking war.

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The methods going about it. Also I don't believe the camp is a hoax. There's too much witness corroboration on its location before satellite imagery actually photographed it.

That and afterwards, North Korea admitted it existed and said they would close it, but since that statement its only expanded. If I were to criticize one aspect of the regime, it's the size of its prisons relative to its population.

I don't think I'm out of order for criticizing terrible prison conditions in North Korea just as much as there are terrible prison conditions in Western nations, particularly the US.

Holy shit it's because they also have ONE OF THE WORLD'S LOWEST STANDARDS OF LIVING. Even in the article you showed me it admits that they are a "perpetually food-insecure nation". This isn't a hidden Sweden that literally imports garbage since they don't produce enough garbage to run their generators. Of course it's easier for the Norks to meet their emission targets!

HARD SAGE for delusional tankiddies

you mean a Russian-born who's been in the country way longer than you have?

Disgusting, please keep quiet

Satellite photos don't prove anything about the conditions though. They surely aren't the nicest prisons in the world but it would be honest to compare the prison quality of the DPRK with a country that has a similar GDP. When a country suffers economic hardship, it always the prisons population that feels it first. In the USSR, the deaths in gulags were also always the highest during the German invasion.

What does he actually claim? Quick Google research about it implies that it is nothing else but "Norks believe in unicorns xDDD" tier.

No, but it's the reports of people who escaped camp 13 before there was satellite photographs of it that give us a window into what it's like inside. And it's not a pretty window.

I have no reason to believe North Korea's prisons are luxury fucking spas

What a vulgar misinterpretation of what I said

They literally made it up for CIA cash.

Escapess I'm mentioning pre-satalite imagery said that breaking prisoners legs and making them walk on them without any medical help was a practice to people disobedient. You might be considered disobedient if you didn't punch at a hung prisoner with the rest of the prisoners.

Sometimes finger breaking clamps were employed for people suspect within the camp, which could be arbitrary.

I honestly don't have much reason to doubt these claims as the existence of Camp 13 wasn't merely rumor, it became fact from later satellite imagery, and admission from the state itself.

Are you saying either I don't have the right to criticize this without somehow also supporting Western nations? What rubbish.

Who? North Korea? What could they do with CIA cash by admitting its existence?

Didn't the amount of defectors who returned to the DPRK increase over the past years?
ibtimes.co.uk/nearly-6500-female-defectors-returned-north-korea-rare-pyongyang-data-reveals-1633515
I wonder what the North Korean defectors who didn't make it onto CNN but dwell in a Chinese border slum have to say about the hot takes here

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They probably didn't return out of any other reason to see their family again regardless. From a westerner's view out, you really have no right talking about the motivations of a highly complicated emotional situation for people who defected.

It isn't a video game. It isn't black and white.

lmao
>JUST LISTEN AND BELIEVE

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My god, the main source of these claims you are quoting HIMSELF said these claims were made up, I literally posted a CNN article that said that.
Criticize what? That prisons exist? You are facilitating anti-communist interventions when you criticisms are completely one-sided, this is the problem I have with most anarchist/ultraleft takes here, it's one thing to criticise prisons all over the world, but for some reason it's always targeted at actually-existing socialism, this is not whataboutism, it's just intellectual honesty to compare the prison situation in the DPRK to the prison situation in a country with a similar GDP/facing similar isolation.

I wasn't even talking about the US. Stop trying to make everything about burgerland.

That doesn't prove your horror stories.

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There's more than one. There's not just, one source. You know that, right?

The size of the prisons relative to their local population and the methods used inside them, why the government would be so secretive about it, etc.

No I'm not, I've said multiple times if you were listening that I criticize all states, especially the United States prison systems, as much as I criticize North Korea's.

You're asking me why? Ask yourself.

I'm sure re-education camps that just match where Camp 13 is, which again, previously was reported on before satellite imagery showed it existed, are just separate places altogether.

Juche being socialist is pretty debatable at this point.

Go resort to shitty memes now, I wish I could respond but the last time I posted a similar meme about anarchists and leftcoms I got banned.

Then post it, because the claims you made aligned 1:1 with the statements made by the guy who admitted to have lied. That doesn't make you look good.
Source? How would you avoid having prisons anyway? Anarchists had prisons.
I wasn't denying that. I said a satelite imagine doesn't prove that Camp 13 is Auschwitz.

It's a form of socialism, their subset of Marxism-Leninism tailored to Korean conditions. The whole self-reliance thing proved them right, btw. They are the only one out of two socialist countries that didn't collapse (despite even worse conditions). So I guess it has a point.

like how Dengism is a subset of Maoism applied to Chinese conditions.
I mean hey capitalism hasn't collapsed yet, despite awful conditions in some places either guess it really it's proved right too

Hardly comparable. Dengism is not a philosophy but an economic program.
Capitalism collapses all the time. It collapsed 2008 in the financial crisis. It collapsed in Syria which is now a war zone. It made Libya collapse. Greece is a failed state. It collapsed in Nepal. It destroyed the Ukraine. Should I go on?

The reason why capitalism as a global system hasn't been overcome as yet is because everytime it causes a collapse, communists don't fill the vacuum.

Juche is self-reliance. This means they weren't as a dependent on the USSR as literally every other socialist country. Therefore they still exist. Therefore it has been proven to be right. No amount of mental gymnastics can change that.

lmao that literally proves nothing. for all we know, it's no different than a community service sentence.

Social Democracy is more socialist than Juche tbh

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How so? I know there are some parts of Juche that seem pretty non socialist-y, like worship of the great leader and that kind of shit. But that stuff doesn't change the mode of production (whether it's capitalist or socialist). So in what way is succdem "more socialist" than Juche, economically?

He probably unironically thinks Juche is monarchistic

Only in the mind of a tankie

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Also forgot to mention the fact that they sell their citizens as cheap labor to Russia.

This is honestly one of the SU's downfalls tbh.

it's not even debatable, it's pretty clear
yes this seems very free and an improvement on capitalism

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my god, this man is right, capitalism is socialism, we were all deceived.
I swear tankies would have an easier time defending norway as being socialist

Totalitarianism is a buzzword and a non-critique of literally anything

pretty sure they were referring to the totalitarianism where the minority rule over the majority

And that makes a valid criticism because?

because socialism is meant to bring about more freedom, not concentrate power into a even fewer elite

No socialism exists to end the contradiction between use and exchange value, everything else is distraction.

you're just gonna ignore that plethora of other socialist political philosophies and just concentrate on one thing Marx said would be a characteristic of socialism? You're just gonna ignore that ending this contradiction was a result of abolishing private property and that it wasn't this alone that would create a better world?
What is the point of ending this if you end up with an oppressive regime? Why does ending the contradiction between use and exchange value make you so hard but being able to live freely and happily means shit? How deep are you in ideology my man?

Article 66: "… a person legally certified insane do not have the right to elect or to be elected." This sounds pretty undemocratic. What does it mean to be "insane"?

No matter the character of the regime that ends the contradiction between use value and exchange value, the overall quality of life will be so much objectively higher in this new society, that civil rights/alienation are a moot point, aren't you supposed to be a materialist? Your use of the word "freedom" is pretty fetishistic and spooky my man.

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forgive me for thinking getting gulaged and having a bullet to the brain isn't 'material' enough for you

this is actually a good point but that user will continue with ad hominem attacks because he's a lazy shitposter

It's not really though, even if the war is technically still on, NK hasn't actually been at war for half a century. Sure there's reasons for a heightened state of readiness but the curtailment of civil liberties is purely to protect the Kim's power.

Good question.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry_in_the_Soviet_Union

it's about as good as a point as the other user has presented. you'd think it would be easy to one-up a tankie, but so far everyone in this thread has failed. it might be because the lack of evidence on both sides along with the constant muddying of the waters by both sides but for something the user believes is so easy to attack he's doing a poor job

Again, you're fetishistic obsession with "freedom" is clouding your vision. I mean this in the kindest possible terms, socialism arises from bouj democracy, your idea of freedom is still bouj, you haven't changed your conception of freedom to an advanced socialist one, I'm concerned for you comrade.

explain to me again how stepping out of line of what our glorious leader has to say will get me killed isn't closer in line to feudalism but socialism?
Forgive me for wanting the freedom and equality to be part of a democratic society, where that democracy extends to every aspect of life, where the world's production is free to all and not just under the control of an elite.

What exactly is this grand socialist freedom you talk about? Does it require me to be a dog to some other ruler? What you're defending is doing exactly that

In a world without commodities, you would have no reason to be politically active at all, as the political body at work takes care of your needs better than you or anyone else ever could. Bouj freedom is freedom to express want, socialist freedom is freedom from want itself.

I agree with you about bouj freedom but come the fuck on

You know that's one of the methods of the DPRK to fuck with the sanctions, right? They have been quite inventive to evade them.

You might be surprised:
country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-9558.html

Socialism isn't the state quota, with that flag of yours you should know it very well. Norway is state capitalist at best, as a market, ergo overwhelmingly produces for exchange. North Korea has a cooperative economy, with production for use, except the Special Economic Zones which are really not important. The surplus the workers produce is socially allocated for human need.

It's faulty to ignore the material conditions that lead to the restrictions of civil liberties that may or may not exist in the DPRK. The country got the shit bombed out of them, suffers from lack of fertile land, and has the entire planet working to bring them down. Imagine a world in which the DPRK would be free to cooperate with other countries, engage in mutual trade to develop their productive forces and finish up their electrification.

Regarding the elections, the same thing applies what I've written before: Socialist elections are a fail-safe, not the central democratic process. The central democratic process in a socialist democracy is the nomination of candidates.

One last thing regarding the freedom of movement: Housing is free in DPRK, living space is allocated for human needs. In some aspects, DPRKs housing system seems to be superior to the capitalist world:
upi.com/North-Korea-moving-flood-victims-into-new-homes/2691479344309/
There is no homelessness. On the flip side, it is clear that the distribution of living space is a somewhat bureaucratic process (but be honest with yourself, how long do you need to find a place in capitalism with a medium-low income?), that takes a while. Basically you submit your preference where you want to live, and they process it. So your freedom of movement isn't actually restricted, simply because the process takes a while and sometimes your preference is impossible to realize. In capitalism it is the same: Freedom of movement is restricted by capital. So please get a proper materialist view regarding this as well. And I'm sorry, if you think you are entitled to live whereever and however you want, no matter your qualities, within a cooperative economy, you are a wrecker.

Oh, and the new apartments they built are not shitty at all. Look at the new apartments they build for teachers:
youtu.be/zQyQIBSWhBU

no, in fact it's the complete opposite of that
he debunks a lot of retarded bullshit the American media spews while going over the actual horrible shit that goes on in that country
ever since the 90s it's become a black market economy that's ruled by an illegalist upper class.

What logical basis would I have to believe it's remotely in the interests of the ruling class to have implemented socialism? Further, what logical basis do I have to assume a ruling party installed directly by Stalin's USSR wouldn't be Stalinist and subject to the same political decay, control, and nepotence that took place in every Soviet installed regime? What evidence is there at all that they're the one that got it right?

u got a source 4 tht tht isnt cia controlled liberal media??? :🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧 maybe an official statement frm pyongyang corroborating your every statement??? no?? huh guess the anti imperialists win again :🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧))

I know, but you got to see the whole picture. Central planning collapsed in the 90s, partly because of the Arduous March, partly because of the unique threating situation the DPRK faced: Developing a nuclear deterrence was top priority, which left the economy mostly on its own Songun.

Today is not the 90s anymore: The nuclear program is almost completed, and it is estimated that in 5 years they are going to have nuclear warheads that fit into ICBMs that can reach the West Coast of the United States. Therefore, we can currently see the state reattaining its control over the economy, computerizing it and cracking down on black marketeers. Kim Jong Un has announced to go back to the Byungjin, which the old system of his grandfather, socialist development of the economy while simultaneously developing their nuclear power. The National Defense Commission has been transformed into the Commission of State Affairs, merging military and civil development. Furthermore, advocates of Songun, like Kim Il-Sungs brother, have been purged.

So you see, the socialist development in the DPRK is a lot more complicated than a reductionist western view of "muh black market".

thanks doc!

are there no aspects of the DPRK that can be admired from a socialist/communist POV? why do so many leftists attack it without considering the material conditions they are working with?

I think most of them do because it's an absolutely undefendable position when you argue with liberals or conservatives. However I think it's a little bit silly when I see people bringing their attitude concerning public relations into Holla Forums. After all, we are amongst ourselves here, are we not? There is no reason to regurgitate liberal talking points on Holla Forums.

There are absolutely aspects that can be admired, but ultimately it's a dictatorship and there's no reason to think that the state will be dismantled under their current regime.

No state can be dismantled until the world revolution has been completed. You can find the very basic Leninist point also in the writings of Kim Il Sung. But I agree in so far that the aspects of the DPRK that are quite whacky (leader worship for example) would not exist in this form if it wasn't so isolated and forced into a permanent siege mentality.

Do you really think it's possible or even desirable to just say "fuck the state" in North Korea right now, under any leadership?

I guess you could do it if you wanted to be executed

the book I posted was an inside source, someone who's actually been to North Korea unlike you

wew, is your irony detector off? The guy you replied to was making fun of me, not of you.

Capitalism didn't "collapse" in 2008 retard. It was a crisis, sure, and I agree that crisis is inevitable in capitalist society but don't pretend that the capitalist mode of production actually collapsed during that time period. If we're going to count crisis as collapse then not only has virtually every socialist nation dissolved but collapsed many times over as well.

When did I claim capitalism was socialism?

Link?

edition.cnn.com/2017/06/07/asia/north-korea-trump-climate-change/index.html

Socialist economies don't have boom-and-bust-cycles.

I didn't admit SHIT you illiterate fuckwad

You're being so disingenuous as to imply a UN AID PROGRAM WHERE TECHNOLOGY
AND MONEY ARE GIVEN TO THE NORKS IS PROOF OF THEIR SUPERIOR ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY (theconversation.com/behind-north-koreas-surprising-compliance-on-climate-change-26013)

Even the alleged "good" of N. Korea you're so intent on showing me can only be brought to life through capitalist aid!

KYS

Why isn't the average citizen connected to the internet? There's your answer.

I hope that other user responds to this post because this conversation is pretty funny.

Well damn.

Have a pdf?

Fuck, I went camping out in the wilderness a few weeks ago, didn't even realize I was living in totalitarianism.