senor boogie woogie wrote:Also, what is bad about North Korea besides the horrendous repression of the people is that their economy is Communist and just doesn’t work. If North Korea was a normal country with a normal government and economy, it is rich in mineral resources and can sell that and then take that revenue to buy more than enough food for the population.
In a modern economy, having access to mineral resources and easy access to ocean trade is practically a guarantee of economic success. Especially in this part of the world next to the big economic powerhouses of China and Japan. It is very much more important than food, in terms of economics.
That combined with a highly educated and industrious population like the Korean people and living in a temperate climate.
But as you say, NK is cut off from the rest of the world, even cut off from China, and their economy is not the most efficiently managed due to the Communist system.
In actuality, after Japan left Korea, due to the dire poverty left behind in SK, and due to NK getting subsidies from the Soviets, NK actually had a greater economic output than SK until around 1965 to 1968. And there was plenty of widespread poverty in SK in 1960. (The Korean war from 1950 to 1953, in which the U.S. was involved in, did not help)