North Korea: A Society or a ‘Market’?

Is it possible to look at countries as ’society’ rather than ‘market’? North Korea will be understood and handled better if we can stop thinking of it as a future ‘market’ rather than a future prosperous society.

We tend to be more aggressive when we consider a land a ‘battlefield’ that we are supposed to win. Something similar has happend to North Korea. The cluelessness of the world community stems from their restlessness regarding how to swiftly open North Korea and start exploiting the ‘virgin’ land. Most of the pundits of international relations are occupied modelling a collapse of North Korean regime, its induction in the world ‘economy’ (mind you, not ’society’ but ‘economy’), and introduction of market based economic structure (something, as we are witnessing today, that has put millions out of their homes and future prospects). What motivation do we think North Korea would have seeing all the mess that non-North Korean world is creating?

It would be far more constructive if the world community can demonstrate successful cases of transformation of the exploited or challenged societies. We should realize that a failure in Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur and the likes would do no good but has a prospect of leaving a permanent stain on our qualification as a civilized world.