Marxism

[UniversalCommons]

There is a solution to this which is extremely radical. It requires a kind of war for resources where everything is a resource, garbage dumps, waste, just about everything. The concept of walkaway or having a grey economy where people have machines that can create machines that can produce things from raw materials. The rep rap situation which is coming. At the edges, you still have makers who make things from parts and things. Maybe, they live in compounds or are off grid, or have the classic urban farm, or tech shop, but they develop enough skill in making things that they don't need the larger corporate ownership. This entails a breakdown of society at many levels. A parallel economy. It also entails the idea that certain areas of the world will be abandoned as places to not bother with.

It also creates a situation where if you can get the materials to create the machines which build other machines, you get to escape the trap that is coming. A subtle tech and counter tech struggle. Also, a situation that requires, mobility, discreteness, cohesiveness, and organization which is not very visible. A struggle not based on overt military power, but subtle protest, counter protest, hidden actions, night and fog, hearts and minds.

The problem is it requires you to design machines that make machines.

It has already started on a small scale. https://www.reprap.org/wiki/RepRap This will continue to grow. There are many examples of this kind of activity. People are increasingly having a desire to be self-sufficient, grow and build things locally.

[Gensokyo Soviet Fairies Republic]

It's not very far-fetched to imagine that Kurds, too, have been asked to provide information to foreign governments in exchange for some sort of reward or assurance of safety.

I'm not talking about you, since I have no idea what pretty much any of your views are. You've only made 8 posts, Anon.

We’re not dealing with what’s far-fetched or not, but rather, which is reliably documented or not. Kurds are a different situation – Kurdish defectors are not a main source of info on Syria, Iraq or Rojava, info on these countries is more reliably attained, and the nature of US-Iraq/Syria/Rojava relations is different with the DPRK. We cannot compare DPRK with the Kurds.

Also, I mostly hang out in F7, so fair enough.

This kind of question, while fine in a philosophical (epistemological, to be precise) setting, is actually very much the kind of faux-skepticism employed by conspiracy theorists who will then assert their own "truth", as would tankies who uphold North Korean authoritarianism.

I am not referring to philosophical/epistemological questions or conspiracist faux-skepticism but simply to concrete assessments gathered from analysis and investigative journalism. I have already linked news articles detailing that misrepresentations and unreliable anecdotes from North Korean defectors are a well-documented phenomenon.

The inconsistencies reported in Park Yeonmi’s report on dead bodies on North Korean rivers are well-documented. And also by doctor Ri Kwang-chol’s are well-documented. Shin Dong-hyuk’s accounts’ inaccuracy is also well-documented and even Shin has admitted that his account is inaccurate himself! How Lee Soon-ok’s testimony have been challenged by former DPRK defectors is also well-documented.

No one here is resorting to faux-skepticism, or trying to deny the conventional view of anything, or not using one’s brain, but simply an objective analysis to assess a nuanced situation in the DPRK.

I make no pretensions about the fact that the US, and its allies in East Asia view North Korea as a threat that must be brought to heel;

North Korea is hardly a threat to the US or its allies as DPRK has always offered peace treaties with the US but this was botched when DPRK became wary of US’s attitudes towards nuclear-proliferating states such as Iran. Trump and Kim Jong Un also met but it was Trump who came up with nothing.

North Korea is a closed country. People have to bribe the guards on the Chinese border to flee. Otherwise they risk being shot on the spot (much like East Berliners making a run for West Berlin).

Again, no one is denying everything about DPRK, nor is anyone trying to tell that DPRK is a place of rainbows, and magical ponies, but simply using analysis and investigative journalism to present an objective, nuanced and complex understanding of DPRK, such as talking to people who lived there and know the facts on the ground, instead of simply parotting unverified information not grounded in any facts.

If you bother to study and read about the DPRK, you would well know that for instance, this isn’t true. We even know of defectors who have went from North and South Korea back and fourth four times! -

One high profile case this year involved a fisherman who stole a trawler and returned to the North for the fourth time.

Meaning that defections aren’t as risky and aren’t as punished strictly as they are thought.

When you visit you are not allowed free movement, you are presented a series of locations hand-picked by the tourist agency or whatever, lest you see the real poverty of much of the country outside the elite's stronghold, Pyongyang.

This is because tours from West to DPRK are organized by private tour agencies such as Koryo Tours and Young Pioneer Tours who bring you a guide. That you are restricted to Pyongpyang is also untrue as there are casinos in Rason and there are ski resorts in the country.

Very few Westerners visit DPRK so the market is focused on Chinese tourists which is more lucrative. They can drive, they go to Rason to gamble in casinos and they can stay up to 6 months.

Not even DPRK denies that poverty is a real problem in the country so this is moot.

It's also an established fact that North Koreans are not allowed access to the Internet (they have their own Intra-net)

This is true but their Intranet (Kwangmyong) is also quite developed.

are not allowed to travel abroad unless they are under strict supervision

But this supervision is not as strict as one would think as there is a vibrant North Korean diaspora – a lot of North Koreans work in Russia and abroad elsewhere and there are lots of North Korean students studying in China on an student exchange program.

and can be punished pretty severely if they are caught with South Korean media, etc.

But K-POP and K-Dramas are very popular in North Korea, meaning that the punishments are not as severe and are not as strictly enforced as one would think if that’s the case. Also, recently Red Velvet and SNSD’s Taeyon had a concert in Pyongyang.

What about them? Have they suddenly decided to recant everything about North Korea being a dictatorial hellhole? No.

What does this prove? That South Korea is a deeply alienated hyper-capitalist society, and the whilst North Korea is poor, there's probably a greater sense of bonding with the community there? Okay, but this has nothing to do with the fact that North Korea is, per pretty much all outside sources, a totalitarian dictatorship.

But if they think that’s the case then they wouldn’t be pleading to be allowed to go back. Kim Ryon Hui, one defector wishes to go back to DPRK saying:

"I'm a citizen of Pyongyang of the Democratic Republic of Korea," Kim told dozens of reporters at a briefing in Seoul by Tomas Ojea Quintana, the UN's Special Rapporteur on human rights in the North.

"I have been forcefully detained in the South for seven years," she added.

Your logic is becoming inconsistent here. You yourself said to “not deny all these people the truth of their life experience”, but when you see North Korean defectors regretting life in South Korea and going back, North Korean defectors pleading to be allowed to go back and North Korean defectors committing suicide, you seem to be set on denying them the truth of their life experiences.

Certainly they don’t think that it’s a totalitarian dictatorship if they want to go back there.

It's not surprising. It's also probably closer to the true colors of what North Korea is, in comparison to its pretensions of being a socialist worker's state.

Confucianism is not mutually exclusive with being socialist, or a totalitarian dictatorship, or being a democracy so I don’t know what you’re trying to say here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Report_of ... _reactions

You're telling falsehoods, you know. That very same report was called every name in the book by the outraged North Korean government and press. Feel free to sift through it and call it all a lie, but I won't hold my breath.

North Korea does not deny that there are human rights abuses in their country – what they deny are the UN and US’s characterizations of human rights abuses in their country and they use a different definition of “human rights”.

North Korea for example admits that there are human rights abuses related to economic hardships, this was mentioned in the Wikipedia article that you linked:

Officials also stated that North Korea was a "transition society"[37][53] and as such "there might be some problems, for example in the economic and other areas, we may need to establish more houses and social facilities in order to provide people with better living conditions."[44][53][63]

Also, the same Wikipedia article you linked notes that North Korea accepted a large part of the UN human rights recommendations:

The government changed its previous stance of complete rejection of external critique on its human rights, accepting a large part of the recommendations and claiming they were being implemented.[86][88] Shortly after, during the second cycle of the UPR, 268 recommendations were issued to advance the DPRK's human rights. The DPRK again accepted some of them.

I'm not misrepresenting it. I responded to what I was shown. The article talked about specific individuals, the Swiss businessman and several named defectors.

As for defectors being unreliable, well, as your own linked article from the Guardian says, part of solving this issue comes with cross-examination and group interviews. It is also in their interest to get accurate, reliable intel on North Korean military capabilities, political and economic situation, not exaggerations that would call for more action than necessary.

The Guardian article literally mentions that financial incentives drives the demand for more shocking, emotional and “saleable” stories leading to problems in relying on North Korean defectors on the DPRK situation. The articles linked have already lots of examples where North Korean defectors’ claims does not jive well with cross-examination and analysis.

[Kubra]

The problem is it requires you to design machines that make machines.

It has already started on a small scale. https://www.reprap.org/wiki/RepRap This will continue to grow. There are many examples of this kind of activity. People are increasingly having a desire to be self-sufficient, grow and build things locally.

can it make circuitboards

[UniversalCommons]

It has already started on a small scale. https://www.reprap.org/wiki/RepRap This will continue to grow. There are many examples of this kind of activity. People are increasingly having a desire to be self-sufficient, grow and build things locally.

can it make circuitboards

Yes, they can make circuit boards. https://www.reprap.org/wiki/Circuit_board_construction As a general part of the Maker movement, people are building a lot of their own things like circuit boards.
https://makezine.com/tag/circuit-boards/ There is a quiet resurgence in fixing and making things.

[The Imperial Magocracy of Galazkaban]

Correct me, but the problem with make-your-own computing is probably rare metals, not production but supply.
It's also the problem with decentralized economic models.

[UniversalCommons]

Correct me, but the problem with make-your-own computing is probably rare metals, not production but supply.
It's also the problem with decentralized economic models.

There are two things which change this problem, substitution occurs. More expensive materials are replaced by cheaper materials as science advances. Also, once an offworld resource base starts picking up, rare metals cease being rare.

[Northern Davincia]

The most significant failure of Marxist ideology is its adoption of the labor value theory, which is insanity in numerical form.

[Sundiata]

The most significant failure of Marxist ideology is its adoption of the labor value theory, which is insanity in numerical form.

While I was highly critical of it before, I've come to realize that I don't fully understand the Labor Theory of Value and need to revisit the topic before arriving at my final thoughts.

[Kubra]

can it make circuitboards

Yes, they can make circuit boards. https://www.reprap.org/wiki/Circuit_board_construction As a general part of the Maker movement, people are building a lot of their own things like circuit boards.
https://makezine.com/tag/circuit-boards/ There is a quiet resurgence in fixing and making things.

As a general rule, having to salvage bits of wire from a pc to make circuitboards doesn't really make for self-replication.

Correct me, but the problem with make-your-own computing is probably rare metals, not production but supply.
It's also the problem with decentralized economic models.

There are two things which change this problem, substitution occurs. More expensive materials are replaced by cheaper materials as science advances. Also, once an offworld resource base starts picking up, rare metals cease being rare.

Substitutions such as?
When will we get them there offworld bases?

Let me be blunt: was germany right to bet its money on wunderwaffen?

[Kubra]

The most significant failure of Marxist ideology is its adoption of the labor value theory, which is insanity in numerical form.

It wasn't really "adoption". LTV was the standard in classical economics since Smith, it's like speaking an average american adopting "the car".

[Atheris]

To answer the questions:

1. No. Maybe at the time, but human civilization has evolved and changed with the times to where his philosophy is no longer a viable viewing of the world.

2. It's not necessarily revisionist, but it's not anti-revisionist. It's honestly quite hard to say. The only Marxist views I see as really revisionist are maybe Maoism and Syndicalism, which both go against traditional Marxist doctrine for differing reasons (Maoism for being more agricultural and landowner based, differing from the industrialist and factory-owner base of Marxism, and Syndicalism for being more directed to democracy and communalism, rather than the authoritarianism and statism of traditional Marxism).

3. Yes. Definitely.

[Fauzjhia]

i am so late

Do you believe that Marx's views on the class dichotomy are valid, or reductionist? Some modern authors have claimed that Marx downplayed the role of intersectionality in oppression, but Marx himself wrote about gender roles etc often, including in the Manifesto.

I believe Marx's view on capitalism, are correct. on the fact that its rely on exploitation. Today, we can see the business class employing some form of division between the working classes to keep them in line. nIts precisely, the terrible condition of the working class in the past that lead to the creation of Labor-Union, who came to defend the interest of the workers, sure workers did not unite, but they did revolt.

Is Marxism—Leninism revisionist, or is it merely an extension of Marx's views?

this is part of what I believe lead to the (fall of marxist) was the adoption of platonicism by the marxist elite, who believe the people to be stupid, and thatn if there were democracy, it would always lead to the fall of socialism, because people would get tricked. hence the need for a (ENLIGHTED elite) to lead al others, just like Plato hate democracy, for he believed the idiocy of the mass had no limit. I tend to agree to the Trostkian analysis, that democracy is a vital element of communism, without it, it degenerate into state capitalism, where the state remplace the bourgeoisie.


Do you believe that Marx has been vindicated or damned by the more than 170 years since he began to publish his theories?

no, its not more wrong then any political theory, and that,s a good thing, humans, by nature are complexes, and very hard to study, all theories that touch human attitude should revised to see what,s wrong with them


what's wrong with marxist, is that it forget the ability of the Bourgeois class to create an hegemony, (leadership, Machiavallian term) (by convincing the people that their leaderships are in their interests. The poor, and (middle class) who support capitalism, believe capitalism work in their interest. We have a problem, because the business class where able to convice others, that they should be our leaders, that's what we must deconstruct, and its not easy.

[UniversalCommons]

I think fifteen years is realistically, the jump off point for asteroid mining. What is happening with the space industry with startups is they are all consolidating under a single umbrella and requiring large capital investments in the range of millions for single individuals to join this umbrella. Huge amounts of capital are being funneled into the Space Angels group. This group has managed to corner the better startups in the space field.
https://www.spaceangels.com/portfolio

[Fauzjhia]

I think fifteen years is realistically, the jump off point for asteroid mining. What is happening with the space industry with startups is they are all consolidating under a single umbrella and requiring large capital investments in the range of millions for single individuals to join this umbrella. Huge amounts of capital are being funneled into the Space Angels group. This group has managed to corner the better startups in the space field.
https://www.spaceangels.com/portfolio

erff off-topic

[UniversalCommons]

Not completely. Post scarcity even in Marxist requires an off world resource base to provide enough metals to go beyond the scarcity problems of resources on earth. Otherwise we end up with the constant battle over resources that creates classes, bourgeois, laborer, etc. I believe you cannot have a postscarcity society unless there is enough abundance to raise all peoples standard of living. Otherwise there is the trap of haves and have nots based on any of a number divisions, race, class, education, criminality, political affiliation. Pick your reason for oppression, you have to have less because another group wants more and they are in power.

Both capitalism and communism are fundamentally based on scarcity, even when there is no scarcity. They assume, that there are scarce resources and they must be handed out based on class or ability, or party affiliation. When you reach a point where there is no scarcity, there is enough to go around. Enough food, housing, and other things to take care of everyone, the choice becomes a political choice, not an economic one. It is dressed up in economics when it should not be.

The irony of scarcity, is that it creates more scarcity. For example if you educate people, they tend to have less children and focus more on the children they have. With poverty there is a higher birth rate and a greater usage of resources. Also there is less ability to handle famine, war, and other catastrophes. Poverty is often about control, not resource usage. There are entire industries based on creating poverty, rent to own, thrift stores, check cashing, fast food, chain liquor stores. They thrive on poverty and debt. Debt is used as a way to create more wealth for one person and control of another. Debt has to come from somewhere and it usually comes from the poor. A massive under class is as much a creation of the state as is a large middle class, or a very wealthy merchant class. These are choices.

Marxism right now creates a division of the party which is often a bureaucracy of technocrats and everyone else. The party very much assumes the control of everyone. They create proledic which creates a much different situation than it is described in Marxist theory. Proledic creates a kind of democractic prison where everyone watches everyone else in the name of the party. There doesn't have to be outside control because everyone reports everyone else. There is no escaping because everyone is a potential informant.

[Fauzjhia]

Marxism right now creates a division of the party which is often a bureaucracy of technocrats and everyone else. The party very much assumes the control of everyone. They create proledic which creates a much different situation than it is described in Marxist theory. Proledic creates a kind of democractic prison where everyone watches everyone else in the name of the party. There doesn't have to be outside control because everyone reports everyone else. There is no escaping because everyone is a potential informant.

you obviously missed my words on platonicism...
Marxist say nothing about that. that ideology come from Plato. Who believe democracy to be the worst regime on earth, since you give the power to complete idiots. Communists and Religious leaders simply reformulated that belief.

[Major-Tom]

One might assume it's Monarcho-Communist but then again it'd still have to do the Com in MonCom, so at it's current rate is Juche.

You do realize the DPRK has elections right? Their are four parties currently in the legislature of North Korea.

...Yeah, mate, I'm real confident the North Koreans freely vote for them without intimidation.

[Atheris]

One might assume it's Monarcho-Communist but then again it'd still have to do the Com in MonCom, so at it's current rate is Juche.

You do realize the DPRK has elections right? Their are four parties currently in the legislature of North Korea.

Which are all splinter groups or pay loyalty to the Korean Worker's Party. Your point is moot.

[UniversalCommons]

Marxism right now creates a division of the party which is often a bureaucracy of technocrats and everyone else. The party very much assumes the control of everyone. They create proledic which creates a much different situation than it is described in Marxist theory. Proledic creates a kind of democractic prison where everyone watches everyone else in the name of the party. There doesn't have to be outside control because everyone reports everyone else. There is no escaping because everyone is a potential informant.

you obviously missed my words on platonicism...
Marxist say nothing about that. that ideology come from Plato. Who believe democracy to be the worst regime on earth, since you give the power to complete idiots. Communists and Religious leaders simply reformulated that belief.

Marxism's central idea is proledic-- the dictatorship of the proletariat. In Communism there is no relief valve, only a single party. When proledic or dictatorship of the proletariat occurs, the proletariat is supposed to destroy the bourgeoise class. However, this does not happen, the party becomes the bourgeoise who control everything, a kind of bureaucratic class. This is the central problem of Marxism, you create an elite to create equality. There is a kind of universality in communism where everyone watches everyone else. In a very real sense, there is a universal system of control in which there is little freedom. This is how the system works, it has little to do with how the party values people, it is a revolutionary structure. The people who are more valued become part of the party and everyone else is left out of the party. It is very much like the nobility and the peasants. It is an us versus them situation.

For example if you look at how the CPC looks at Democracy, the people control the majority of decisions politically, but the party has become the voice of the people.

China's democracy is a people's democracy under the leadership of the CPC. China's democracy is a democracy in which the overwhelming majority of the people act as masters of state affairs. China's democracy is a democracy guaranteed by the people's democratic dictatorship.

This is how you get a "democratic dictatorship." An excellent piece of semantics that has nothing to do with Plato. It is a description of how you can have democracy without freedom in a one party state.
This is very similar to what happened with the Soviet Union which was a one party state run by an elite, consisting of the party. The people ran everything, but they were directed by the party.

The party does not wither way. There is nothing to oppose it. In effect, there is complete control with a "democratic dictatorship" with everyone watching everyone else.

[Duvniask]

It's not very far-fetched to imagine that Kurds, too, have been asked to provide information to foreign governments in exchange for some sort of reward or assurance of safety.

I'm not talking about you, since I have no idea what pretty much any of your views are. You've only made 8 posts, Anon.

We’re not dealing with what’s far-fetched or not, but rather, which is reliably documented or not. Kurds are a different situation – Kurdish defectors are not a main source of info on Syria, Iraq or Rojava, info on these countries is more reliably attained, and the nature of US-Iraq/Syria/Rojava relations is different with the DPRK. We cannot compare DPRK with the Kurds.

Also, I mostly hang out in F7, so fair enough.

Someone really doesn't get the point of analogy. They are not 1:1 comparisons. If refugees were a main source of info on Iraq, the same reasons would apply. I was not referring to present-day Iraq, I was referring to Iraq under Sadam Hussein as he gassed the Kurds in the 1980s.

And don't try and cowardly sidestep the issue here. We are dealing with what's far-fetched given that you're literally here questioning what's even true.

This kind of question, while fine in a philosophical (epistemological, to be precise) setting, is actually very much the kind of faux-skepticism employed by conspiracy theorists who will then assert their own "truth", as would tankies who uphold North Korean authoritarianism.

I am not referring to philosophical/epistemological questions or conspiracist faux-skepticism but simply to concrete assessments gathered from analysis and investigative journalism. I have already linked news articles detailing that misrepresentations and unreliable anecdotes from North Korean defectors are a well-documented phenomenon.

I don't care what you think you're referring to. You're employing the same tactics as a conspiracy theorist, cherry picking witness accounts in service to a narrative that North Korea is not that bad, whilst being incredibly wishy-washy about whether or not you actually think North Korea is a bad place.

What's well documented is extensive human rights abuses; arbitrary arrest, detention without trial, torture, execution, disappearances, no freedom of speech, limited freedom of movement and restriction of access to the outside world (per the Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea).

The inconsistencies reported in Park Yeonmi’s report on dead bodies on North Korean rivers are well-documented. And also by doctor Ri Kwang-chol’s are well-documented. Shin Dong-hyuk’s accounts’ inaccuracy is also well-documented and even Shin has admitted that his account is inaccurate himself! How Lee Soon-ok’s testimony have been challenged by former DPRK defectors is also well-documented.

No one here is resorting to faux-skepticism, or trying to deny the conventional view of anything, or not using one’s brain, but simply an objective analysis to assess a nuanced situation in the DPRK.

You're cherry picking individual accounts. It tells us little about the truth of the broader cross-examined narrative. All you have are accounts from individuals that are individually inconsistent within-case. You'd make a poor historian if that was where you left things at. Maybe actually go reference the work of experts who examine North Korea instead of cherry picking random individuals. I'm not denying the experience of someone who longs to go back to their family, I'm saying that people, like a certain someone, who wish to sidestep the real issue, will totally look past the myriad of accounts of systematic abuse, human rights violations, corruption and sheer misery of living in North Korea and point to single individuals who do not fit that narrative, so that they can triumphantly proclaim that North Korea is not that bad and it's just Western media lies portraying it that way.

I make no pretensions about the fact that the US, and its allies in East Asia view North Korea as a threat that must be brought to heel;

North Korea is hardly a threat to the US or its allies as DPRK has always offered peace treaties with the US but this was botched when DPRK became wary of US’s attitudes towards nuclear-proliferating states such as Iran. Trump and Kim Jong Un also met but it was Trump who came up with nothing.

Irrelevant. It is a simple acknowledgement of the fact that the US is on confrontational terms with North Korea and South Korea views it as an existential threat.

North Korea is a closed country. People have to bribe the guards on the Chinese border to flee. Otherwise they risk being shot on the spot (much like East Berliners making a run for West Berlin).

Again, no one is denying everything about DPRK, nor is anyone trying to tell that DPRK is a place of rainbows, and magical ponies, but simply using analysis and investigative journalism to present an objective, nuanced and complex understanding of DPRK, such as talking to people who lived there and know the facts on the ground, instead of simply parotting unverified information not grounded in any facts.

If you bother to study and read about the DPRK, you would well know that for instance, this isn’t true. We even know of defectors who have went from North and South Korea back and fourth four times! -

One high profile case this year involved a fisherman who stole a trawler and returned to the North for the fourth time.

Meaning that defections aren’t as risky and aren’t as punished strictly as they are thought.

The article provides no name and no source for this fisherman reportedly going back a 4th time (it begs the question of why he keeps leaving, too). The article also makes clear that these returnees are used for internal propaganda purposes, all whilst Kim Jong-un is also strengthening border security. North Korea is notoriously corrupt (the most common way of escaping was bribing the border guards), so the ability for some to luck out on receiving punishment is not unexpected.

When you visit you are not allowed free movement, you are presented a series of locations hand-picked by the tourist agency or whatever, lest you see the real poverty of much of the country outside the elite's stronghold, Pyongyang.

This is because tours from West to DPRK are organized by private tour agencies such as Koryo Tours and Young Pioneer Tours who bring you a guide.

Yes, and who do you think they have contact to organize their tour with?

These angencies first have to obtain licenses to do tours, and they do so with state approved guides to state approved locations. You go where the North Korean government decides. Don't be a cheeky little liar and pretend this is somehow equivalent to any other guided tour, like the one I had when I visited Japan and we could just go wherever we wanted when we didn't have tour-guide time.

That you are restricted to Pyongpyang is also untrue as there are casinos in Rason and there are ski resorts in the country.

I never said you were restricted to Pyongyang only. I've seen a fair share of documentaries about traveling to North Korea. What's the fact of the matter is that Pyongyang is for the Elite, it's where the important people live, whilst the real squalor of the country is to be found elsewhere. The other places you are shown are just as carefully selected so as to not show too much of the bad stuff.

Very few Westerners visit DPRK so the market is focused on Chinese tourists which is more lucrative. They can drive, they go to Rason to gamble in casinos and they can stay up to 6 months.

They can drive to places like Luo, which is near the border. This is not equivalent to me going next door to Germany and being able to drive anywhere in the country. I am able to go to the shittiest little half-abandoned village in Eastern Germany and no one will wag their finger at me and tell me no. There is no such freedom of movement for visitors to North Korea.

Not even DPRK denies that poverty is a real problem in the country so this is moot.

They are awfully inconsistent in their stance.

"Social and economic rights hold an important position in the issue of human rights, as it is related with creative and material life of the people aimed at taming the nature. The entire people of the DPRK are fully provided with rights to economic activities and life and enjoy a genuine material and economic life." -Report of the DPRK Association for Human Rights Studies, p. 79 (published by the Korea Central News Agency)

It's also an established fact that North Koreans are not allowed access to the Internet (they have their own Intra-net)

This is true but their Intranet (Kwangmyong) is also quite developed.

Irrelevant. It is made to be insulated from interaction with the outside world, lest people learn there are better ways of existence.

are not allowed to travel abroad unless they are under strict supervision

But this supervision is not as strict as one would think as there is a vibrant North Korean diaspora – a lot of North Koreans work in Russia and abroad elsewhere and there are lots of North Korean students studying in China on an student exchange program.

Most of these North Korean workers in Russia work at construction sites or logging camps in remote parts of Eastern Siberia where they're largely cut-off from the outside world anyway. To be sure, some actually get to experience what life is like there, but they are consistently under the watch of state minders, who ensure they don't run off. It's also been common practice to select married men with children so as to lessen the chances of escape (family being made into hostages or a bargaining chip).

and can be punished pretty severely if they are caught with South Korean media, etc.

But K-POP and K-Dramas are very popular in North Korea, meaning that the punishments are not as severe and are not as strictly enforced as one would think if that’s the case. Also, recently Red Velvet and SNSD’s Taeyon had a concert in Pyongyang.

It's a case of widespread black market activity that many people have access to some kind of foreign media, but it is still quite illegal.

The recent concert was part of the thaw in diplomacy, it's not indicative of general Party attitudes toward foreign media.

What about them? Have they suddenly decided to recant everything about North Korea being a dictatorial hellhole? No.

What does this prove? That South Korea is a deeply alienated hyper-capitalist society, and the whilst North Korea is poor, there's probably a greater sense of bonding with the community there? Okay, but this has nothing to do with the fact that North Korea is, per pretty much all outside sources, a totalitarian dictatorship.

But if they think that’s the case then they wouldn’t be pleading to be allowed to go back. Kim Ryon Hui, one defector wishes to go back to DPRK saying:

"I'm a citizen of Pyongyang of the Democratic Republic of Korea," Kim told dozens of reporters at a briefing in Seoul by Tomas Ojea Quintana, the UN's Special Rapporteur on human rights in the North.

"I have been forcefully detained in the South for seven years," she added.

Your logic is becoming inconsistent here. You yourself said to “not deny all these people the truth of their life experience”, but when you see North Korean defectors regretting life in South Korea and going back, North Korean defectors pleading to be allowed to go back and North Korean defectors committing suicide, you seem to be set on denying them the truth of their life experiences.

Certainly they don’t think that it’s a totalitarian dictatorship if they want to go back there.

Jesus fucking Christ. I'm not denying that there are people who want to go back to North Korea, because they miss their family, or think their life was somehow easier to cope with (we humans prefer what we're used to). It's not inconsistent logic. Tankies are the ones ignoring all the accounts from people who do indeed think that North Korea is a brutal hellhole. You've been sowing doubt constantly this entire time. "They're inconsistent", "they're making things up". What do you actually hope to accomplish by saying this? Are you saying North Korea is not a dictatorship, that it does not repress its citizens? If not, I have no idea why you're so dedicated to sowing the seeds of doubt. I never once claimed everything that comes out of North Korean defectors is a true depiction. I said it is part of an extensive account of conditions in the country, also backed up by actual analysts and experts in the field.

You're doing exactly what I'm fucking saying here. You pick some random person who attracted attention for wanting to go back, and then you extrapolate this to all other defectors. How is this representative at all? You're using this to deny or at least circumvent the experiences and tellings of everyone else who does indeed say that North Korea is a brutal hellhole. Are you going to dismiss thousands of others on the basis of one person? That is what I mean by denying all these people their life experience, using some random person to say everyone else is wrong, without weighing the tellings against each other to determine what's true or not.

And the cherry on top is your suggestion that people wouldn't want to go back to a dictatorship. That's hardly true. People will go back to abusive parents out of fear just the same. People want the comfort of the familiar, their usual routines. People want security, and part of that is community (the very thing they have left behind when they make a mad dash for South Korea; family, friends, co-workers, schoolmates).

It's not surprising. It's also probably closer to the true colors of what North Korea is, in comparison to its pretensions of being a socialist worker's state.

Confucianism is not mutually exclusive with being socialist, or a totalitarian dictatorship, or being a democracy so I don’t know what you’re trying to say here.

Per your own The Diplomat article, North Korea is referred to as society governed by a Confucian-styled "Mandate of Heaven":
“If no meaningful economic and social reforms are carried out the people may withdraw the ‘mandate of heaven’ (outlined by Confucius),” Abt explained when asked to clarify whether he believes the leadership takes care of its citizens in accordance with their wishes. “The rulers know that and they seem to follow, albeit very slowly and cautiously, Vietnam’s and China’s examples.”

The principle of "Mandate of Heaven" concerns the legitimacy of Kings and Emperors, being legitimate in their rule if they govern "justly" (to whatever acceptable extent) and perform the correct rites. Thing is, such rulers have nothing to do with socialism. It's applicable to societies where much power is vested in a political hierarchy, not the participatory democracy of socialism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Report_of ... _reactions

You're telling falsehoods, you know. That very same report was called every name in the book by the outraged North Korean government and press. Feel free to sift through it and call it all a lie, but I won't hold my breath.

North Korea does not deny that there are human rights abuses in their country – what they deny are the UN and US’s characterizations of human rights abuses in their country and they use a different definition of “human rights”.

North Korea for example admits that there are human rights abuses related to economic hardships, this was mentioned in the Wikipedia article that you linked:

Officials also stated that North Korea was a "transition society"[37][53] and as such "there might be some problems, for example in the economic and other areas, we may need to establish more houses and social facilities in order to provide people with better living conditions."[44][53][63]

Also, the same Wikipedia article you linked notes that North Korea accepted a large part of the UN human rights recommendations:

The government changed its previous stance of complete rejection of external critique on its human rights, accepting a large part of the recommendations and claiming they were being implemented.[86][88] Shortly after, during the second cycle of the UPR, 268 recommendations were issued to advance the DPRK's human rights. The DPRK again accepted some of them.

Fucking Christ. Yeah, "human rights abuses" like lack of housing, not like torture, arbitrary detention, forced labor camps, punishment without trial... Yeah, housing, that's the kind of human right's abuses North Korea has to deal with! Give me a break.

They "accept" recommendations and then do nothing about it. The things they reject almost all had to with visits to the country (see: Position of the DPRK on the recommendations received during its first cycle UPR). The aforementioned report also could not receive access to the country. Hmm, I wonder why North Korea wouldn't want human rights investigators to have access . I'm really struggling to think of a reason here. Actually getting people on the ground to come and have a look at things as they truly are. However could that be a problem!

I'm not misrepresenting it. I responded to what I was shown. The article talked about specific individuals, the Swiss businessman and several named defectors.

As for defectors being unreliable, well, as your own linked article from the Guardian says, part of solving this issue comes with cross-examination and group interviews. It is also in their interest to get accurate, reliable intel on North Korean military capabilities, political and economic situation, not exaggerations that would call for more action than necessary.

The Guardian article literally mentions that financial incentives drives the demand for more shocking, emotional and “saleable” stories leading to problems in relying on North Korean defectors on the DPRK situation. The articles linked have already lots of examples where North Korean defectors’ claims does not jive well with cross-examination and analysis.

Yes, so let's look at what the cross examinations say, shall we, instead of you wasting energy on individual accounts of people who want to go back (which, let's face it, are in some ways just as "shocking" to the reader as the accounts of torture and public executions). Hmm, maybe take a look at that UN report, compiled by experts and with interviews from hundreds of defectors, that'll get you somewhere.

[Fauzjhia]

you obviously missed my words on platonicism...
Marxist say nothing about that. that ideology come from Plato. Who believe democracy to be the worst regime on earth, since you give the power to complete idiots. Communists and Religious leaders simply reformulated that belief.

Marxism's central idea is proledic-- the dictatorship of the proletariat. In Communism there is no relief valve, only a single party. When proledic or dictatorship of the proletariat occurs, the proletariat is supposed to destroy the bourgeoise class. However, this does not happen, the party becomes the bourgeoise who control everything, a kind of bureaucratic class. This is the central problem of Marxism, you create an elite to create equality. There is a kind of universality in communism where everyone watches everyone else. In a very real sense, there is a universal system of control in which there is little freedom. This is how the system works, it has little to do with how the party values people, it is a revolutionary structure. The people who are more valued become part of the party and everyone else is left out of the party. It is very much like the nobility and the peasants. It is an us versus them situation.

For example if you look at how the CPC looks at Democracy, the people control the majority of decisions politically, but the party has become the voice of the people.

China's democracy is a people's democracy under the leadership of the CPC. China's democracy is a democracy in which the overwhelming majority of the people act as masters of state affairs. China's democracy is a democracy guaranteed by the people's democratic dictatorship.

This is how you get a "democratic dictatorship." An excellent piece of semantics that has nothing to do with Plato. It is a description of how you can have democracy without freedom in a one party state.
This is very similar to what happened with the Soviet Union which was a one party state run by an elite, consisting of the party. The people ran everything, but they were directed by the party.

The party does not wither way. There is nothing to oppose it. In effect, there is complete control with a "democratic dictatorship" with everyone watching everyone else.

I disagree, China is not a democratic country.
it has everything to do with Plato. because Plato was the first to oppose democracy. democracy gave power to the people, and the idiots decided to execute socrate, if left alone, the people are going to vote against their own interests. This is point, that with democracy, communism will fall thanks to the idiotic mass voting its own interest. Plato argued that it would be better for if the country was lead by an Elite of Philosophes and thinkers. When the church had the power, they claimed to be the philosophes, when the (socialists) took power in the URSS, the party claimed to be philosophes,, the enlighted people who know more then others and had the right to lead others.

the very reason it did not happen, is because the party believe democracy to be WRONG and/or toxic to communism.

I strongely disagree with that, and tend to agree with the Trotsky on that, Democracy is necessary to bring CONSTANT revolution, as the revolution must never be finished.

however. right now, we can realize the bourgeoisie has established has hegemony, and we need to build the basis of a counter-hegemony.

also. you seem to mistake, Marxist with the ideology. marxist is not an ideology, its an len we use to describe how Capitalism exploits the workers, the environment, women, Marxist itself does not propose solutions, it find problems.

[Cisairse]

The most significant failure of Marxist ideology is its adoption of the labor value theory, which is insanity in numerical form.

In order to understand LTV you need to start from a baseline assumption that currency is meaningless, which is an assumption a lot of die-hard capitalists fail to overcome.

[Atheris]

The most significant failure of Marxist ideology is its adoption of the labor value theory, which is insanity in numerical form.

In order to understand LTV you need to start from a baseline assumption that currency is meaningless, which is an assumption a lot of die-hard capitalists fail to overcome.

The thing is, currency isn't meaningless. The use of currency throughout humankind has stood around since the birth of civilization the fertile crescent. The bartering system was phased out in Mesopotamia and China in favor of coinage.

[Cisairse]

In order to understand LTV you need to start from a baseline assumption that currency is meaningless, which is an assumption a lot of die-hard capitalists fail to overcome.

The thing is, currency isn't meaningless. The use of currency throughout humankind has stood around since the birth of civilization the fertile crescent. The bartering system was phased out in Mesopotamia and China in favor of coinage.

Sure, but that doesn't mean it has inherent meaning.

[Atheris]

The thing is, currency isn't meaningless. The use of currency throughout humankind has stood around since the birth of civilization the fertile crescent. The bartering system was phased out in Mesopotamia and China in favor of coinage.

Sure, but that doesn't mean it has inherent meaning.

Currency itself doesn't have inherent meaning - it's a bunch of paper, polyester, and metal. What does have inherent meaning, though, is the power of buying and selling and the market. Get rid of currency, and you get rid of the market, which in turn leads to a collapse of the economy and a subsequent drain on the standards of living and the personal lives of many.