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If NK didn't fall apart from losing somewhere around 10% of their population in the 90's famine, what could possibly make it fall apart? They've been out of mon

If NK didn't fall apart from losing somewhere around 10% of their population in the 90's famine, what could possibly make it fall apart? They've been out of money for a long time. They've been imprisoning just about everyone and shooting people left and right for a long time. It's a lot worse there than any western novel about disutopians ever imagined. I don't think it's falling apart any time soon, especially now that the regime is nuclear armed.

hga 11y ago
I can't see how the DPRK is anything but meta-stable, but we have so little visibility into it we just don't know. 3 generations of a single family's dictatorship is remarkable in modern times, usually one of the power bases upon which the regime stands swerves it from such a thing. The nuclear arming just helps with outside threats, I would think, and no one with the means really wants to destabilize them. As I understand it South Korea shudders at the thought of trying to integrate such a population into their country, one which is on average a foot shorter and significantly less intelligent due to pervasive malnutrition. That even the Army is filled with malnourished men says something significant, and, yeah, indicates more stability that you'd expect on general principles.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > 3 generations of a single family's dictatorship is remarkable in modern times Looked at that way, maybe. OTOH, authoritarian one-party-rule revolutionary regimes lasting on the order of 75 years (e.g. Mexico under the exclusive rule of the PRN/PRM/PRI, the USSR) don't seem as unusual, whether with regular turnovers in power to nonrelated successors (e.g., Mexico), irregular transfers of power to nonrelated successors (e.g., USSR); I don't see any compelling reason that one-party revolutionary regimes that practice irregular succession to related leaders would have particularly different lifespans.
  - hga 11y ago
    I think they still have to be counted as relatively uncommon in modern times, unless you or others can think of more than those two notorious long lived examples. Does the PRC count? Even then, the DPRK is coming right up to that rough max lifetime, if per Wikipedia you count 1948 for its founding and 1922 for the USSR, the PRI et. al. a bit longer, but then again it wasn't quite the same thing.
    - dragonwriter 11y ago
      > I think they still have to be counted as relatively uncommon in modern times, unless you or others can think of more than those two notorious long lived examples. Does the PRC count? The Soviet and PRI regimes are convenient because they started earlier than the DPRK regime, they've ended and their lifespan is, for that reason, known. The PRC, Castro's Cuba, and a number of other one-party (mostly, that I can think of, Communist; the PRI regime is an outlier there) revolutionary states that are a bit younger than the DPRK and are still functioning exist, as well. I think that such regimes become naturally less stable when the whatever misery existed in the pre-revolutionary and revolutionary period (including any major international war on the territory of the country around its formation) and was relieved -- even if replaced new miseries -- by the institutionalization of the revolution has passed from living memory. > Even then, the DPRK is coming right up to that rough max lifetime Sure, I wouldn't be surprised if the next couple decades saw the collapse (as one-party states) of most of the remaining early-cold-war era regimes, the DPRK particularly included; the DPRK is the one I'd expect to collapse most messily, too.

hga 11y ago

I can't see how the DPRK is anything but meta-stable, but we have so little visibility into it we just don't know. 3 generations of a single family's dictatorship is remarkable in modern times, usually one of the power bases upon which the regime stands swerves it from such a thing. The nuclear arming just helps with outside threats, I would think, and no one with the means really wants to destabilize them. As I understand it South Korea shudders at the thought of trying to integrate such a population into their country, one which is on average a foot shorter and significantly less intelligent due to pervasive malnutrition. That even the Army is filled with malnourished men says something significant, and, yeah, indicates more stability that you'd expect on general principles.

dragonwriter 11y ago
> 3 generations of a single family's dictatorship is remarkable in modern times Looked at that way, maybe. OTOH, authoritarian one-party-rule revolutionary regimes lasting on the order of 75 years (e.g. Mexico under the exclusive rule of the PRN/PRM/PRI, the USSR) don't seem as unusual, whether with regular turnovers in power to nonrelated successors (e.g., Mexico), irregular transfers of power to nonrelated successors (e.g., USSR); I don't see any compelling reason that one-party revolutionary regimes that practice irregular succession to related leaders would have particularly different lifespans.
- hga 11y ago
  I think they still have to be counted as relatively uncommon in modern times, unless you or others can think of more than those two notorious long lived examples. Does the PRC count? Even then, the DPRK is coming right up to that rough max lifetime, if per Wikipedia you count 1948 for its founding and 1922 for the USSR, the PRI et. al. a bit longer, but then again it wasn't quite the same thing.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > I think they still have to be counted as relatively uncommon in modern times, unless you or others can think of more than those two notorious long lived examples. Does the PRC count? The Soviet and PRI regimes are convenient because they started earlier than the DPRK regime, they've ended and their lifespan is, for that reason, known. The PRC, Castro's Cuba, and a number of other one-party (mostly, that I can think of, Communist; the PRI regime is an outlier there) revolutionary states that are a bit younger than the DPRK and are still functioning exist, as well. I think that such regimes become naturally less stable when the whatever misery existed in the pre-revolutionary and revolutionary period (including any major international war on the territory of the country around its formation) and was relieved -- even if replaced new miseries -- by the institutionalization of the revolution has passed from living memory. > Even then, the DPRK is coming right up to that rough max lifetime Sure, I wouldn't be surprised if the next couple decades saw the collapse (as one-party states) of most of the remaining early-cold-war era regimes, the DPRK particularly included; the DPRK is the one I'd expect to collapse most messily, too.