This video asks a provocative question: is capitalism coming to North Korea? For decades, North Korea was presented as a closed, centrally planned economy, where the state controlled production, distribution and trade. Yet the film shows how markets, known in Korean as jangmadang, have grown up alongside the official system, with ordinary North Koreans buying and selling food, clothing and other goods, and with a new class of traders and entrepreneurs emerging despite the regime’s ideology.
The programme explores the tension between the official economy and the unofficial one, and the changes that followed famine in the 1990s, when state distribution broke down and people had to find their own ways to survive. It looks at the reforms and tolerance shown under Kim Jong-un, who allowed more market activity while retaining strict political control, and at the influence of goods, media and ideas smuggled in from China and South Korea. It also asks whether marketisation is changing North Korean society from below, or simply helping the regime to survive.
For readers interested in socialism’s history and present, North Korea is a revealing case of how a socialist system adapts, or fails to adapt, under pressure. The growth of markets inside a nominally socialist state raises questions about ideology, survival and the meaning of socialism in practice. The video below presents the full discussion.