[SpaciousBox]

Hey guys,

I've been thinking (dangerous, I am aware) and I'm having trouble discerning how North Korea is not a Fascist state. Hear me out, and then explain where I’m going wrong.

1. North Korea exists with an absolute dictator and ruling elite within a heavily militaristic society that revolves around a personality cult.
2. It is meritorious, with those who serve the nation best being rewarded with better housing and a higher quality of life.
3. The economy is centralised, but the ethics are right wing, with very strict rules for what you can and cannot do. Everything must be in service to the nation, and the great leader.
4. It is imperialist, and has built up a very strong attitude of nationalism and social darwinism (this may be more of a by-product of its isolation, but is still a present reality of the state)
5. It accepts the need for a ruling class.
6. Everyone works for the good of the nation, organised from the centre in a top down manner. Heavily authoritarian with a very fascist "vibe" eg; treason punsihable by death, worst crimes are those against the state, freedom is a bad word, etc.

The one difference I can notice is how many of you support state-corporations, rather than a total command economy, but I wasn’t aware that having social guilds was a requirement of being fascist, when compared to the communist equivalent of economic organisation, which North Korea borrows heavily from. They seem something that are different in name and policy only, and actually function quite similar in reality.

What am I missing?

[fuser]

Fascist North Korea

There are much better way to criticize North Korea rather than going the sensationalist way.

It is meritorious with those who serve the nation best being rewarded with better housing and a higher quality of life.

Serving nation is not based on meritocracy, beside without private sector, isn't it obvious that most well off people would be the ones who are serving the country/government best.

Everything must be in service to the nation

How you come to that conclusion? not able to criticize the North Korean regime is not equal to everything must be in service of the nation.

It is imperialist,

and has built up a very strong attitude of nationalism and social darwinism

Social darwinism? Please provide some source for it, I don't think its right at all.

It accepts the need for a ruling class.

Every ideology have a need for ruling class, communism (in transition state) do require ruling class and they are quite open about it, its not something specific to fascism.

Heavily authoritarian with a very fascist "vibe"

What is fascist vibe?

freedom is a bad word

and how is it associated with fascism?

[Rei Murasame]

I wasn’t aware that having social guilds was a requirement of being fascist, when compared to the communist equivalent of economic organisation[...]

It is a requirement!

Fascism cannot get off the ground without the cultivation of industrial social guilds in a system of corporatist political exchange along with employers groups; this is mediated by an ascendant state which imbues the middle class bureaucracy with political power.

Without that, it is hard to see how fascism could be built. It's one thing to try to do fascist socialisation (the path of national-labour) and maybe fail at it, which is to say it's possible to be fascist and fail to build the system and thus collapse.

It's a different thing entirely to have just never attempted it.

North Korea never attempted it. North Korea is not fascist.

They seem something that are different in name and policy only, and actually function quite similar in reality.

Emphatically no.

[Preston Cole]

Most of the things that would push North Korea to the fascist range are a result of its isolation. Its heightened militarism is not a result of a fascistic ideological drive: that militarism is inherently valuable, merely that militarism is a means to NK's ends, e.g. unification of the peninsula.

Ideologically speaking, NK is still an anti-fascist workers' dictatorship operating on a fundamentally anti-corporatist principle of class warfare. Fascist regimes would never end up in a North Korean-like state because they would never isolate themselves, and they would never embark upon utopian equalizing processes which result in millions of deaths, famines and a weak populace.

It is meritorious, with those who serve the nation best being rewarded with better housing and a higher quality of life.

Being a basically communist state, I must disagree with this. Sure, the rich-hunting days are over, but that doesn't make its resulting end-nationalism meritocratic given what type of people it currently holds.

4. It is imperialist, and has built up a very strong attitude of nationalism and social darwinism (this may be more of a by-product of its isolation, but is still a present reality of the state)

I wouldn't call it imperialism so much as defense-militarism. If it were imperialist, it would never have isolated itself. On the issue of social darwinism, how do you figure? Everyone in that worthless state is hopelessly malnourished for the following half-century (assuming reunification will take place this decade). The so-called "strong" over there couldn't hold out to an SK-US offensive. Social darwinism in isolation is senseless.

What is redeeming about North Korea is its revisionist anti-Marxist nationalism, but any fascist will tell you that it's a perverted nationalism mainly because its drive is fundamentally communist, egalitarian and materialist. I certainly hope South Korean nationalism, which has a healthy conservative and in some aspects far more fascist nature (see Park-chung Hee), will eventually triumph over the NK's version. The Korean nation is now divided because some communist clowns in the North want to keep it divided based on that old "anti-imperialist," isolationist and egalitarian rhetoric. They will one day admit that their communist ideology will further divide their country, by the force of arms if necessary. Why South Korea and the US didn't decide to storm the place following the collapse of the USSR when the NK's nuclear arsenal was non-existent (or was it?) remains a mystery to me.

[Section Leader]

North Korea isn't anywhere close to being fascist, they describe themselves as the last true bastion of socialism against "imperialism" and endlessly witter on about South Korea's human rights violations in the 1970s (the North's human rights violations are of course fully justifiable because they are destroying the enemies of the proletariat).

[Potemkin]

Why South Korea and the US didn't decide to storm the place following the collapse of the USSR when the NK's nuclear arsenal was non-existent (or was it?) remains a mystery to me.

For precisely the same reason the capitalist-imperialist powers pulled out of Soviet Russia in 1921, and why 'Operation Unthinkable' was never implemented after 1945: even if they won, they would then become responsible for the well-being of millions of starving peasants and desperate refugees in a war-ravaged nation. As things are, it's the NK regime which has that responsibility and expense, and can be conveniently demonised as a result. SK even sends resources and money to the NK regime to keep it afloat. Do you really think the SK government wants to see millions of starving refugees flooding south across the border following the collapse of the NK regime? Like fuck they do.

[Orestes]

There actually are scholars who claim that between the 60's and 90's NK had a sort of Corporatism.

One is Bruce Cumings (author of The Hermit Kingdom) - The Corporate State in North Korea. He defines it as being close to Neo-Socialist Corporatism, distinct from the Fascist ("the pathological model" ) and other incarnations.

A second one is Charles K. Armstrong - The Nature, Origins, and Developement of the North Korean State (p. 44 onward).

Both of them discern some resemblences to Corporatism in Romania.

I also found this sympathetic assessement of Juche ideology from a Naz-Bol perspective, where it is interpreted as possesing a couple of Nietzschean and Right-Heglist elements, but this strikes me a bit as a case of seeing what they want to see.

[Preston Cole]

Corporatism in Romania.

Not sure what you're referring to.

[The Immortal Goon]

Being a basically communist state, I must disagree with this.

It's not even not "explicitly Marxist" it's anti-Marxist in that the state military - not the working class or even "the people" or anything else - is the driving force of their state, in theory.

Dear Leader needs to be a military genius, so if he uses the military to defend the glorious fatherland, then he's cut his teeth and won the esteem of all of the happy people of Best Korea. Hail the new leader!

Baku – APA. North Korea revised its Constitution, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said on Monday, APA reports.

It dropped all points related to Communism. One of the officials said the country’s leadership made changes because of “difficulties to realize Communism ideals”.

The Communism was replaced with "military first" ideology securing Kim Jong-il’s role as chairman of the National Defense Commission. "The chairman is the highest general of the entire military and commands the entire country," said the new text.

The previous constitution in 1998 said the chairman oversees matters of state only.

The Constitution was changed in April, 2009, but it was announced five months later.

And [url=analysis]more[/url].

This said, I would really assert that North Korea is at best a military dictatorship. Not fascist, not socialist. Not a monarchy as some have claimed. A plain old military dictatorship.

[Orestes]

@Preston

Check out pages 45, 54, and 55 in the second link. Is this legit ?

[Preston Cole]

Actually, yes, now I remember. It's referring to Carol II's fascist experiment in the late 30s. Although, after a few pages of reading, I still don't understand how North Korea resembles any kind of corporatism in the socioeconomic sense. The passages you've mentioned only explain how Kim Il-Sung bolstered his personality cult and militarization. I guess I have to read some more.

Thanks for the link, though, it's a interesting read.

[Orestes]

I suppose often when they refer to Corporatism this means the Corporatist narrative ("Nation as hierarchical family", "Concentric circles of dependence", etc.), not always actual material arangements. Still, even mere propagandic declarations like that matter ideologically.