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I never said Koreans in general have a slave mentality. I was saying North Korea is akin to a slave society. In terms of the organization. The other Communist

I never said Koreans in general have a slave mentality. I was saying North Korea is akin to a slave society. In terms of the organization. The other Communist regimes were like this too.

tpm 2y ago
That's funny, because in that supposed slave society workers ('slaves') had more rights than in some capitalist societies. In fact the status of common workers was artificially elevated over anyone working with their brain like management, engineers, scientists or physicians. Lawyers were thought to be unnecessary and soon removed from the society. There were proverbs like 'everybody has work but nobody is working' (because everyone had to be employed, and essentially every employer was a state enterprise or bureaucracy, so no managers with good incentives and very little possibility to force people out), and 'the one who does not steal is robbing his own family' because again nobody in the state enterprises had incentives not to steal, even though it was of course a criminal offense. I know all of this because I lived in one and mention all of this to explain that this is not at all what I would imagine as a slave society. And it all failed not because 'slaves', it failed because (1) it was planned, and when it was clear the plan is failing, the plans were not shelved but doubled upon, 5-year-plan after 5-year-plan. And (2) it was planned from Soviet Union, centrally, with high preference on weapons, not on normal economy. So the economy was failing on very basic levels and it was not fixable from within, because again the incentives were all wrong. (3) the people had some ways to see that lives are way better in the West and they wanted that. (4) so the system tried to give them some of that but the economy got even worse, and it was either hardliners will take over and make the whole Soviet bloc like NK or (5) Gorbachov said he will not stop anyone leaving the Soviet bloc and that was the end. And I'm not contesting the fact that NK society is organised as a slave one. But it's not true about the other communist countries.

I never said Koreans in general have a slave mentality. I was saying North Korea is akin to a slave society. In terms of the organization. The other Communist regimes were like this too.

tpm 2y ago

That's funny, because in that supposed slave society workers ('slaves') had more rights than in some capitalist societies. In fact the status of common workers was artificially elevated over anyone working with their brain like management, engineers, scientists or physicians. Lawyers were thought to be unnecessary and soon removed from the society. There were proverbs like 'everybody has work but nobody is working' (because everyone had to be employed, and essentially every employer was a state enterprise or bureaucracy, so no managers with good incentives and very little possibility to force people out), and 'the one who does not steal is robbing his own family' because again nobody in the state enterprises had incentives not to steal, even though it was of course a criminal offense. I know all of this because I lived in one and mention all of this to explain that this is not at all what I would imagine as a slave society. And it all failed not because 'slaves', it failed because (1) it was planned, and when it was clear the plan is failing, the plans were not shelved but doubled upon, 5-year-plan after 5-year-plan. And (2) it was planned from Soviet Union, centrally, with high preference on weapons, not on normal economy. So the economy was failing on very basic levels and it was not fixable from within, because again the incentives were all wrong. (3) the people had some ways to see that lives are way better in the West and they wanted that. (4) so the system tried to give them some of that but the economy got even worse, and it was either hardliners will take over and make the whole Soviet bloc like NK or (5) Gorbachov said he will not stop anyone leaving the Soviet bloc and that was the end. And I'm not contesting the fact that NK society is organised as a slave one. But it's not true about the other communist countries.