North Korea’s considerable economic achievements since liberation were all but completely wiped out by the war. By 1949, after two years of a planned economy, North Korea had recovery from the post-liberation chaos, and economic output had reached the level of the colonial period. Plans for 1950 were to increase output again by a third in the North, and the DPRK leadership had expected further economic gains following integration with the agriculturally more productive South after unification. According to DPRK figures, the war destroyed some 8,700 factories, 5,000 schools, 1,000 hospitals and 600,000 homes. Most of the destruction occurred in 1950 and 1951. To escape the bombing, entire factories were moved underground, along with schools, hospitals, government offices, and much of the population. Agriculture was devastated, and famine loomed. Peasants hid underground during the day and came out to farm at night. Destruction of livestock, shortages of seed, farm tools, and fertilizer, and loss of manpower reduced agricultural production to the level of bare subsistence at best. The Nodong Sinmun newspaper referred to 1951 as “the year of unbearable trials,” a phrase revived in the famine years of the 1990s. Worse was yet to come. By the fall of 1952, there were no effective targets left for US planes to hit. Every significant town, city and industrial area in North Korea had already been bombed. In the spring of 1953, the Air Force targeted irrigation dams on the Yalu River, both to destroy the North Korean rice crop and to pressure the Chinese, who would have to supply more food aid to the North. Five reservoirs were hit, flooding thousands of acres of farmland, inundating whole towns and laying waste to the essential food source for millions of North Koreans. Only emergency assistance from China, the USSR, and other socialist countries prevented widespread famine.
Is it weird that my USA ignorant ass thought we only went to war with the southern portion of Korea?
Did we help build up SK in exchange for influence on their economic structure as well? Genuine question before I go down this rabbit hole I was never taught in school.
South Korea was a literal military dictatorship until the late 80s under the watchful eye of uncle sam.
They were the less successful US pet project after Japan. There is a reason that a whole lot of their media is about how capitalism sucks and that they are the heaviest drinkers in the world.
The Korean War basically isn’t taught in public schools in America that I’ve seen. America was propping up military dictators in the South, it didn’t have need to go to war with it because it basically received control of the south from Japan in the aftermath of WWII.
Much of it is due to mismanagement of the economy after the fact. After the Korean war, the government heavily promoted heavy industry at the cost of infrastructure and trying to be self reliant to their own detriment. They used policies to try and feed the people by using as much land as possible to farm. This was a disaster though since they did not follow any sustainability practices. The government would give the land to people who would produce more food and this incentivized poor sustainability.
They invested much more into heavy industry than anything else, for defense reasons. North Korea has one of the largest artillery parks in the world, so much so that if there’s a country that could supply the war in Ukraine, North Korea would likely be it. They prioritized this over the civilian comforts which while there was civil unrest, it would be squashed.
There’s also a whole lot of corruption too and there’s a building that really symbolizes that called the Ryugyong Hotel. It’s a really prominent structure in the Pyongyang skyline and it took decades to build. Much of the aid that the Soviet Union and China sent was wasted. They sent quite a bit too since they were competing with each other for influence.
South Korea also had a lot of issues too when it started out. The whole Korean peninsula was destroyed after the Second World War and Korean war. It had issues with corruption as well and was coup prone. The US also gave generous amounts of aid to the South Koreans, almost the whole government budget at times. South Korea didn’t adopt the self sufficient approach that the North Koreans did and allowed more freedom of thought (though they still practiced strict censorship) In a way, Korea is very much like the Chinese where they rose to prominence due to manufacturing and foreign capital. They largely avoided the incredibly destructive policies that China went through so they rose a lot earlier (A whole different story, look up the Great Leap Forward)
The whole region in the future is going to have issues as they are all aging (except North Korea unless the data is different than reality) That leads to older people who are no longer productive. South Korea is also really dominated by corporations, where Samsung alone controls a ridiculous amount of GDP. North Korea though is a Hermit kingdom like the Hermit kingdom of years past and very few people make it out.
Very few people make it out? They can literally just emigrate to China, and then leave from there. Emigrating from north Korea is only difficult due to us embargoes.
perhaps North Korea might be in a better condition if the United States didn’t murder a fifth of their entire population and raze every single building to the ground
Is it weird that my USA ignorant ass thought we only went to war with the southern portion of Korea?
Did we help build up SK in exchange for influence on their economic structure as well? Genuine question before I go down this rabbit hole I was never taught in school.
South Korea was a literal military dictatorship until the late 80s under the watchful eye of uncle sam.
They were the less successful US pet project after Japan. There is a reason that a whole lot of their media is about how capitalism sucks and that they are the heaviest drinkers in the world.
This is a good podcast series on the war:
https://pod.mtndewamp.com/blowback/
Blowback has done more for my understanding of Cuba and North Korea than any other piece of media I’ve ever consumed
here’s a good summary of the topic
https://www.hamptonthink.org/read/from-stolen-land-to-riches-us-neo-colonialism-in-south-korea
The Korean War basically isn’t taught in public schools in America that I’ve seen. America was propping up military dictators in the South, it didn’t have need to go to war with it because it basically received control of the south from Japan in the aftermath of WWII.
Much of it is due to mismanagement of the economy after the fact. After the Korean war, the government heavily promoted heavy industry at the cost of infrastructure and trying to be self reliant to their own detriment. They used policies to try and feed the people by using as much land as possible to farm. This was a disaster though since they did not follow any sustainability practices. The government would give the land to people who would produce more food and this incentivized poor sustainability.
They invested much more into heavy industry than anything else, for defense reasons. North Korea has one of the largest artillery parks in the world, so much so that if there’s a country that could supply the war in Ukraine, North Korea would likely be it. They prioritized this over the civilian comforts which while there was civil unrest, it would be squashed.
There’s also a whole lot of corruption too and there’s a building that really symbolizes that called the Ryugyong Hotel. It’s a really prominent structure in the Pyongyang skyline and it took decades to build. Much of the aid that the Soviet Union and China sent was wasted. They sent quite a bit too since they were competing with each other for influence.
South Korea also had a lot of issues too when it started out. The whole Korean peninsula was destroyed after the Second World War and Korean war. It had issues with corruption as well and was coup prone. The US also gave generous amounts of aid to the South Koreans, almost the whole government budget at times. South Korea didn’t adopt the self sufficient approach that the North Koreans did and allowed more freedom of thought (though they still practiced strict censorship) In a way, Korea is very much like the Chinese where they rose to prominence due to manufacturing and foreign capital. They largely avoided the incredibly destructive policies that China went through so they rose a lot earlier (A whole different story, look up the Great Leap Forward)
The whole region in the future is going to have issues as they are all aging (except North Korea unless the data is different than reality) That leads to older people who are no longer productive. South Korea is also really dominated by corporations, where Samsung alone controls a ridiculous amount of GDP. North Korea though is a Hermit kingdom like the Hermit kingdom of years past and very few people make it out.
Very few people make it out? They can literally just emigrate to China, and then leave from there. Emigrating from north Korea is only difficult due to us embargoes.
Lord I’m still listening to Season 2 of Blowback and haven’t gotten to Season 3 yet but I had no clue about this, that’s genuinely fucked up
Removed by mod
okay why would this comment be banned
a few of the recent deletion-wave in the modlog are marked as “brigading”
which as we all know is when you comment on posts on your front page