The North was economically far stronger than the South right up until the 80s when the US started to pour immense amounts of investment into their puppet state just as the USSR was starting to decline. Then the DPRK was effectively left totally alone in the 90s without any outside trade except for a small amount - much smaller than they had with the USSR - with China. And yet even to this day the North is arguably the more industrialized half because it has its own heavy industries including a very impressive military industry, whereas the South just buys American hand me downs. The North is self-sufficient in virtually every way including agriculturally and industrially. Which is really the weaker economy here, the one that produces for itself everything it needs or the one that has to rely on other countries’ industrial output while itself only really specializing in the automobile industry and a few other high tech sectors?
The 1990 HDI of DPRK was higher than the Philippines, which is arguably more representative of what a US colony would actually look like when the Americans do not fund a significant portion of the state budget as they did in Park era SK.
The North was economically far stronger than the South right up until the 80s when the US started to pour immense amounts of investment into their puppet state just as the USSR was starting to decline. Then the DPRK was effectively left totally alone in the 90s without any outside trade except for a small amount - much smaller than they had with the USSR - with China. And yet even to this day the North is arguably the more industrialized half because it has its own heavy industries including a very impressive military industry, whereas the South just buys American hand me downs. The North is self-sufficient in virtually every way including agriculturally and industrially. Which is really the weaker economy here, the one that produces for itself everything it needs or the one that has to rely on other countries’ industrial output while itself only really specializing in the automobile industry and a few other high tech sectors?
The 1990 HDI of DPRK was higher than the Philippines, which is arguably more representative of what a US colony would actually look like when the Americans do not fund a significant portion of the state budget as they did in Park era SK.