On Kim Jong-Un's incrimental economic reforms
Last week, Andrey tttkkk Lankov, one of the foremost experts in all things North Korea, wrote about an interesting pattern of economic reforms going on within the world's most isolated country. Kim Jong-Un's government would announce reforms, nothing happens for a few months, and then the reforms get quietly implemented.
The reforms are fairly modest, but they are steps in the right direction - and, by Lankov's account, they do improve people's lives. Back in June 2012, the government announced reforms to the way DPRK's agriculture is organized - and, just when everybody thought that the idea way quietly buried, they were implemented during the Spring of 2013 - which apparently not only improved conditions, but improved the country's food situation.
More recently, on May 30, 2014, the government unveiled initiatives that would "fundamentally reorganize the way the industry is controlled." It was supposed to kick in at the beginning of 2015, but aside from a few factories, nothing happened.... until recently.
Industrial facilities operating under the new models buy fuel according to negotiated prices, and sell products according to negotiated prices. The staff is hired and fired as needed, and they get paid pretty decent salary. Otherwise, workers, that scattered to the windows during the whirlwind 1990s and harsh 2000s, simply won't work on factories and mine shafts.
Both of which are pretty big deal since, you known, North Korea is a socialist country where everybody is supposed to be able to get work, and people who don't work don't really have a whole lot of options. As the old late Soviet era joke goes, "we pretend to work and you pretend to pay us."
And there's more:
Currently, the low-skilled worker under the new-model company earns between 100,000-150,000 North Korean Won ($15-$20) per month, while the more experienced and skilled ones earn 400,000-500,000 NK Won ($50-$65) a month. In special cases, salary can go up to one million NK Won.
Of course, $50 a month isn't a whole lot, but it's much bigger than the 50-cent salary that had been standard in state factories.
That said, the old salaries (50-75 cents a month) remain at the inactive industrial facilities. But even in those cases, the rules relaxed. Now, under the Young Marshal [Kim Jong-Un], you don't have to go to work if there is no work to be done. Before, it was understood that the entire staff must go to work even to factories where the last piece of production equipment was sold for scrap to China 20 years ago.
Only time will tell what will come of this - but, if nothing else, it's nice to see some signs that average North Koreans' living standards are improving. For some more than others, but they are at least somewhat improving
The reforms are fairly modest, but they are steps in the right direction - and, by Lankov's account, they do improve people's lives. Back in June 2012, the government announced reforms to the way DPRK's agriculture is organized - and, just when everybody thought that the idea way quietly buried, they were implemented during the Spring of 2013 - which apparently not only improved conditions, but improved the country's food situation.
More recently, on May 30, 2014, the government unveiled initiatives that would "fundamentally reorganize the way the industry is controlled." It was supposed to kick in at the beginning of 2015, but aside from a few factories, nothing happened.... until recently.
Industrial facilities operating under the new models buy fuel according to negotiated prices, and sell products according to negotiated prices. The staff is hired and fired as needed, and they get paid pretty decent salary. Otherwise, workers, that scattered to the windows during the whirlwind 1990s and harsh 2000s, simply won't work on factories and mine shafts.
Both of which are pretty big deal since, you known, North Korea is a socialist country where everybody is supposed to be able to get work, and people who don't work don't really have a whole lot of options. As the old late Soviet era joke goes, "we pretend to work and you pretend to pay us."
And there's more:
Currently, the low-skilled worker under the new-model company earns between 100,000-150,000 North Korean Won ($15-$20) per month, while the more experienced and skilled ones earn 400,000-500,000 NK Won ($50-$65) a month. In special cases, salary can go up to one million NK Won.
Of course, $50 a month isn't a whole lot, but it's much bigger than the 50-cent salary that had been standard in state factories.
That said, the old salaries (50-75 cents a month) remain at the inactive industrial facilities. But even in those cases, the rules relaxed. Now, under the Young Marshal [Kim Jong-Un], you don't have to go to work if there is no work to be done. Before, it was understood that the entire staff must go to work even to factories where the last piece of production equipment was sold for scrap to China 20 years ago.
Only time will tell what will come of this - but, if nothing else, it's nice to see some signs that average North Koreans' living standards are improving. For some more than others, but they are at least somewhat improving