North Korea: The Issue Is Still Food

So Kim Jong Il has died and his son Kim Jong-un will probably be running North Korea. Opinion’s been divided as to what it might mean but the old phrase “meet the new boss, same as the old boss” has been thrown around a bit.

I think the way that North Korea is being discussed highlights just how insanely bad life is inside the country and how privileged we (ie. pretty much all internet users!) are. The whole situation in the country seems to be framed as a question of extreme political repression so what’s on people’s minds is whether the lives of the North Koreans will be less like a prison. Two examples: the first few comments on Pharyngula discuss it in terms of him being a vile dictator, on BoingBoing commenters talked of reunification. And of course the potential international threat is being discussed.

All of these are important parts of the problem. But it’s really hard for any of us to give proper importance to food. North Korea is absolute hell on earth. My previous posts on this here, here and here. Of all the reasons for it being hell, food is probably the biggest one. The country is starving and has been for a long time. Just to give you an idea, via Alex Tabbarok, some excerpts from Nothing to Envy, a recently published book of interviews about North Korea. The bit is about a woman who escaped into China.

Dr. Kim staggered up the riverbank. her legs were numb, encased in frozen trousers. She made her way through the woods until the first light of dawn illuminated the outskirts of a small village.…

Dr. Kim looked down a dirt road that led to farmhouses. Most of them had walls around them with metal gates. She tried one; it turned out to be unlocked. She pushed it open and peered inside. On the ground she saw a small metal bowl with food. She looked closer – it was rice, white rice, mixed with scraps of meat. Dr. Kim couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen a bowl of pure white rice. What was a bowl of rice doing there, just sitting out on the ground? She figured it out just before she heard the dog’s bark.

Up until that moment, a part of her had hoped that China would be just as poor as North Korea. She still wanted to believe that her country was the best place in the world. The beliefs she had cherished for a lifetime would be vindicated. But now she couldn’t deny what was staring her plain in the face; dogs in China ate better than doctors in North Korea.

It’s understandable to underemphasise the importance of food since most people reading this take the availability of 3 square meals a day for granted. What’s more, these are 3 nice meals that are as calorie-rich as you mean to make them. And if you were particularly hungry, you also have the option of eating 4, 5 or even more meals in a single day!

Starvation is all-consuming. Because it’s not even a part of our world we might think a significant improvement would be some steps in relaxing the dictatorship. And this might be true from some perspective — but the utility gained by a North Korean from this is marginal compared to the overwhelming utility of more food. So the question should be: will North Koreans be eating more or less under New Boss?