North Korean Policy Elites - Defense Technical Information Center

worker who travels throughout North Korea observes that when food supplies decrease, social
mobility increases. 69
Nonetheless, for the purpose of this paper, a division of people is being created - those
who tend private gardens, and those who run restaurants, kiosks, or farmers’ market stalls. Even
someone who only sells locally grown produce is becoming acquainted with the basics of a
market economy and, by contrast, with the inefficiencies of North Korea’s command economy.
Those who sell western cigarettes and videos also are in contact with suppliers and may well deal
in foreign currency. Although there is no group identity among these people, and many of them
even regard themselves as loyal to Kim Jong-il, they are forming common interests that would be
affected by a government pullback from its current foray into the market. Moreover, a seed of
regime criticism will have been planted in all of them.
North Korea’s flirtation with a market economy has also resulted in instances of state
capitalism. The (Tokyo) AERA North Korea Reporting Team writes:
Offices of the party, government and military services are now competing to
expand their clout by putting farmland, like rice paddies and vegetable fields, and
hotels and restaurants doing business in foreign currency under their umbrellas.
Part of what these offices and departments earn is donated to General Secretary
Kim as “loyalty funds,” The general secretary himself also has some foreign
currency earning organizations running right under his control. Kim has secured
for himself a system by which he can earn money sitting doing nothing. 70
If true, this phenomenon reflects the aforementioned comment by an aid worker that
corruption and the power of money are surpassing party rule. But even if only half true, it
indicates that there is a segment of officialdom, including the Dear Leader, with some stake in
preserving the status quo. Neither moving backward nor forward would suit their economic
interests. A rejuvenated socialist regime would purge them as corrupt. But a move toward more
efficient capitalism would sweep them away too.
Yet a third type of North Korean entrepreneur may be engendered by what Larry Wortzel
describes as “perhaps the only successful feature of ‘sunshine policy.’” Wortzel cites South
Korean officials who say that over 450 South Korean small- to medium-size businesses are
manufacturing textiles, shoes, clothing, and light industrial goods for export. Of course, this
group probably overlaps with the aforementioned instances of state capitalism. North Korean
bosses are no doubt military, party, or government officials, but exporting confronts them with
certain business imperatives that may not be present in, say, cornering the private rice market in
69 Aid Worker.
70 AERA Reporting Team.
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