by Robert M. Traxler
As we have a new chapter in the centuries-old debate over capitalism vs socialism, it is a good time to revisit a column of some years ago comparing North and South Korea. The South Korean nation has been the greatest example of economic and social growth the world has ever seen. In the spirt of full disclosure, I served in South Korea for three years and only traveled into North Korea briefly, at the DMZ.
Before we jump into a side-by-side comparison of both Koreas, let’s look at the socialist movement in our nation. The current movement demonstrating and, dare I say looting, arson, assaulting and violence is not new; the ‘better red than dead’ movement of the 1960s and the establishment of the socialist party in 1877 go to the violent history of American socialism.
Violence is the sperm and egg of socialism; most socialist nations were born in violence. A few western European nations that call themselves socialists are more capitalist than socialist, and were not born from violence, but the vast majority were. In the 1920s and 1930s, Eugene V. Debs, a socialist deity, ran the movement that morphed into the Communist Party USA, then into the Trotskyist Socialist workers party.
So this movement is nothing new; it will fail as soon as people realize the true nature of socialism.
Now the two Koreas. The world has never had a better petri dish, a better side by side compassion of the two forms of government, capitalism vs socialism. Both Koreas are over 50% from three families, Kim, Lee and Park, North and South. Korea was one nation until 1945, when it was split in two.
Korea was raped by the Japanese; north and south, from 1910 to 1945, the entire nation was deforested, with 99% of all trees cut down and used in the Japanese war effort. The people were brutally oppressed; ovens not unlike those found at Auschwitz were used in the industrial area around Inchon to dispose of the old and infirm.
The Korean Conflict, read war, destroyed both nations even further, but much greater in the South.
The North was led by Kim il-sung, a devout socialist, and the South by Syngman Rhee, an advocate of capitalism. Kim Il-sung was educated in the Soviet Socialist Republics, Rhee at Georgetown, Harvard and Princeton.
The Gross National Product of South Korea today is some 54 times that of the North; education in the South is open and outstanding, unlike the North that has a closed system. Speech in the South is free and unregulated; in the North, in the last truly Stalinist state on Earth, all news, TV, radio, Internet and print is tightly controlled.
South Korea is called the Hollywood of the East, making movies and TV programs. South Korea is becoming the world leader in medical research. A person born in the North has a life expectancy of 71 years, and in the South 82 years. Men in the North are 1 to 3.1 inches shorter, and Northern women in one study were a whopping 12 inches shorter than women in the South. Prenatal care, diet, and medical care are the main reasons. Please keep in mind this is in less than two generations.
The North has a total of 3.2 million mobile phones, with 58 million in the South; 97% of Northern roads are dirt, with 94% paved in the South. The major export of the North is dirty soft coal, some 952 million dollars worth, resulting in the North being the world’s number one source of pollution.
The South’s main export is 63 billion dollars in circuit boards. The folks in the South make over 20 times the income of those in North. The South leads in education, medical care, income, home ownership; the South’s economy ranks 12th in the world, with the North’s 142nd.
The conclusion is that sBernie ocialism is a disaster every time and in every place it is tried, but American intellectuals, to include Senator Sanders and Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and many others, will insist otherwise. Common sense is not so common among the self-proclaimed righteous people; as Albert Einstein said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”
The tale of two Koreas should teach the American left something. Will it? Not a snowball’s chance in hell.
It might be helpful to consider what circumstances about the current state of the nation drive people to seek socialism, i.e., having a fairer share of the country’s wealth. When folks have next to nothing, a “fair” distribution of what the haves have and they don’t looks pretty darned good.
Ms. Mandaville,
Thank you for the comment.
It is the “fairness” aspect of socialism that kills it, equality of outcome regardless of effort kills initiative and productivity. Equality of opportunity is the policy we need to follow not equal outcome. Is “fair share” meaning take from those that work harder, better and longer and give it to those who do not?
In this case should the South Koreans be taken down to the level of the North Koreans to be “fair”? It would be the socialistic thing to do, punish the South for being productive and reward the North for not.
Thanks again.
My comment was merely a means of putting myself in the shoes of those who think capital S Socialism would be preferable to their current economic situation. I’ve never been in a position of not enough money or resources to have shelter, food, clothes for the kids, etc. to really know poverty. I can imagine, though, how desperate one might feel, and how susceptible to any change that might make things better. That was my point.
Propaganda, North Korea has free health care for all, and no rich people with their knee on the neck of the poor. Socialism is the best system in the world and only fails because destroyed by the Trump United States.
Mr. Jones,
Do you have a job to go to or are you sitting in your underwear in Mommy’s basement spouting such nonsense? I’m sure that if Comrade Biden is elected, he will find something for you to do, and you won’t like it.