The Past, Present, and Future of North Korean Economy: An In-depth Study on the North Korean Constitution’s Economic Clauses and the Economic Reality

Abstract

During the founding of the two Koreas in 1948, the nations of South and North Korea diverged politically. The former adopted a liberal democratic political system, while its northern counterpart adopted a communist political system. Despite this dichotomy, each nation’s Constitutions contained clauses that made provisions for similar economic systems, although their later implementations would look dramatically different. From the mid-1990s, with the exception of Pyongyang and a few privileged classes, the distribution system began to collapse in North Korea. As a result, in the last 20 years, a people-powered internal market economy has emerged. Although North Korea’s central power is maintaining a strong, unprecedented successive dictatorship, as long as widespread marketization and privatization are practiced among the people, even amidst government oppression, change in North Korea is simply a matter of time.