North Korea

"Marxism and the Underdog" by Katherine Perlo. ABSTRACT: Marxism has defined its key values in opposition to animals other than human in order to promote the interests of the most downtrodden human beings. Although it has characterized itself as a scientific historical and economic theory, sympathy for human suffering has provided its most powerful motivation as a political force. This capacity for sympathy, causing in modern times an extension of Marxist concerns beyond "class" in the original sense, is beginning to accommodate animals as are the theoretical concepts of alienation, surplus value, and historical materialism. Marxism's inconsistencies are being resolved in favor of the side that, for human as well as animal benefit, favors individual sentience and other pro-animal values. So, in a truly dialectical progression, the same quality of sympathy that at first caused Marxism to denigrate animals is now coming out in their support.

https://www.animalsandsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/perlo.pdf?fbclid=IwAR37mlnKqm-_NMXeq1iywnOMr1rJdg04Wfqlc5CpJ-DQHWkMm9ULUQLHYKs

Che Triumphant wrote:

"Marxism and the Underdog" by Katherine Perlo. ABSTRACT: Marxism has defined its key values in opposition to animals other than human in order to promote the interests of the most downtrodden human beings. Although it has characterized itself as a scientific historical and economic theory, sympathy for human suffering has provided its most powerful motivation as a political force. This capacity for sympathy, causing in modern times an extension of Marxist concerns beyond "class" in the original sense, is beginning to accommodate animals as are the theoretical concepts of alienation, surplus value, and historical materialism. Marxism's inconsistencies are being resolved in favor of the side that, for human as well as animal benefit, favors individual sentience and other pro-animal values. So, in a truly dialectical progression, the same quality of sympathy that at first caused Marxism to denigrate animals is now coming out in their support.

https://www.animalsandsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/perlo.pdf?fbclid=IwAR37mlnKqm-_NMXeq1iywnOMr1rJdg04Wfqlc5CpJ-DQHWkMm9ULUQLHYKs

It's pretty clear that with this article the author is searching for marxism to incorporate a defense of animals into its characteristics. However I think the end result is a just big mess that doesn't achieve very well that goal, butchering a few marxist concepts in the process of trying to apply them to animals, as well of relying too much on views of "modern marxists" (Orwell? Really?) to defend their position, attributing the popularity and spread of marxism to "sympathy" and some weird views against industrialism to finish the recipe.

Dystopian Sno-Men wrote:

He's the only one on the ballot.

Sounds like an Onion news story
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dn5f0-y71tE

How you can act as a mouthpiece for the DPRK on a website banned in it, I don't understand.

---

I don't.
North Korea acts as a mouthpiece for the world wide Marxist-Leninist (communist) movement and every nation which had a Marxist revolution has its own idiosyncrasies in following this philosophy of Marxism-Leninism. From a focus on industrial workers at the birth of machine industry in Russia to the peasant revolution in China or the three pronged revolution in the DPRK which progressed the interests of the workers, farmers and intellectuals, or the young revolutionary students and working people of Cuba - every nation has proceeded on its own in its advance towards socialism and eventually communism.

Korea, both a young and old nation (young independantly and old in subjecation) has distinct historical ties to Confucian thought and philosophy and much like the generational racism in the U.S after the abolition of slavery many feudal and backward tendencies still exist even after the revolution, and in borth the north and south of Korea. As Marxists its important to respect the ideiosyncrasies of the many nations around the world and to give breathing room for these nations to abolish and revolt against the old world way of thinking. Much as the compact disk is not the 'perfect' recroding or viewing tool it is still miles ahead of the VHS player of old and revolutions both in technology or social revolutions tend to carry polluted ideas into the new format until these can be ironed out or worked out in the future.

A 'head' or strong man in the lead is something that is another Korean 'leftover' from feudal times, to us in the west its completely reactionary and backward but to the Koreans it is a strong part of their culture that the people support, that is not to say North Korea supports this style or method of government but that we respect the DPRK for its failures and difficulties on its path toward socialism. India is a capitalist nation which has feudal leftovers of the Caste system, and even arranged marriages still continue in some areas, traits that the average American capitalist would be horrified to behold in the world's largest capitalist democracy, but that is the nature of different cultures using similair socio-economic systems.

The European Communists of the 20th century encouraged their comrades in Latin America to abolish the heavy hold of Catholicism in their native lands and the backlash was horrible (after centuries of religious wars and religious involvement in government the European comrades obviously saw this as a backward trait but in South America religion is tied to more leftist and inclusive traits such as liberation theology). What works in one nation doesn't always work in another and it is not entirely our right (as communists outside of the nation in question) to criticise the way another workers party goes about its business conducting the afairs of their own state.

All of this said, the DPRK has provinial elections (I believe 9 provinces and dozens of counties and cities) in which Kim Jong un is not even on the ballot and politicians are elected from local counties to serve the people. The Worker's Party of Korea, just as many bourgeoius parties, elects its leadership within its own ranks. In some political parties, the parliamentary members of the party vote to elect the leader. In other political parties, both parliamentary members and non-parliamentary members of the party get a say in the leader of their party. The Worker's Party of Korea works in a very similar way. Given the Kim's history, contributions and legacy I don't think there's any reason to question why he's the only one on the ballot in these party elections/leadership conventions.

Nothing is perfect and this is certainly true for the many Marxist revolutions from the 20th century, but they were a step in the right direction of a people centered society over the interests of profits, greed and the wealthy few. As the global environmental and climate crises escalates we are approaching a turning point where as a species we much chose to re-arrange consumption and environmental impact or we face extinction. As long as "profits above all" is the determining factor in the global community we can count that our days are numbered. Socialism or extinction, that is the choice we have left the youth of tomorrow. Arguing about the DPRK's leadership seems a paltry place to change hearts and minds in this matter.

Dystopian Sno-Men wrote:

Like living in a tyrannical state suffering from famine, confirmed by tens of thousands of Koreans who have escaped it? Most Koreans don't live in the North or choose its vision of hell on earth.

One that isn't a workers state at all.

We are not afraid of your criticism, however you're not welcome to post here anymore due to your rude insinuations and you've been banned. To defend the DPRK on NS and relegate your ignorance to the waste basket I've decided to take the time to inform you.

"Like living in a tyrannical state suffering from famine, confirmed by tens of thousands of Koreans who have escaped it? Most Koreans don't live in the North or choose its vision of hell on earth"

I would argue that the DPRK's government is not "tyrannical" at all and that a state involved with its people is the best state, there's millions of Americans living on the street surviving by raiding garbage and begging that would probably agree. That is a scene very common in New York, Los Angeles, Detroit, Las Vegas but not in Pyongyang, Wonsan, Nampo or Sariwon. Since the revolution the state provided a basic monthly ration (around 1500 calories, per day, per citizen) to all citizens as long as that can be provided, during the famine of the 90's this was scaled back to less than 600 calories per day, per citizen and at some times none. Severe drought, and strain on the food and goods distribution system caused this, as well as Western sanctions, the situation in the USSR, the way Korea is partitioned and so on. The people had to fend for themselves and this lead to a horrible scene of mass starvation and deaths.

To really understand all of this then we really need to discuss the history of the DPRK and the partition of Korea. As I have stated to you before the DPRK was well ahead of the South in almost every meaningful measurement from 1960-1975 or so, this is because of the way Korea was partitioned and the way that the communists employed resources. Before liberation in 1945, the Japanese colonizers had built many large industrial factories and the north was generally used a for power generation and large manufacture, industrial purposes where as the south was the nations bread basket, this lead to most of the small half nation's food being imported after liberation. The DPRK has only 21% of Korea's arable land and ROK has the other 79% also and this plays another huge role. The reasons why the DPRK went through the famine in the early 90's also has much to do with the majority of its food imports coming from the U.S.S.R. and the collapse of its largest trading partner also caused strain on the DPRK, especially in food management for nearly a decade. All of these problems combined to make an absolute national food disaster that lasted nearly 5 years and has been rather unstable since. These factors are not to be blamed on the revolutionary government, the Worker's Party, in every movement it worked to serve its people to the best of its ability. Unlike the famine in China in the 60's where the government ultimately decided of heavy industry over agriculture and made misery for their people due to such a decision, the DPRK was not developing Nuclear weapons or having any concerns outside of food stability for its people and went as far as to ask capitalist governments for help, a plea for human compassion in a perfect storm of a disaster. It is offensive and untrue to hang the famine of the 90's on the Worker's Party of Korea.

I don't time to write you a book and there's so much more to discuss, so we'll leave it here but next time you want an education do try to be more polite. Rude assumptions and accusation get you no where in life.