Reddit reviews North Korea: Markets and Military Rule

Of course all information is colored by propaganda. But the data is still data and got can interpret it how you want. For example, I disagree with the theme and conclusions of this book:

https://www.amazon.com/North-Korea-Markets-Military-Rule/dp/0521723442

But it still contains an excellent overview of the data that is available and the empirical problems with it. I would recommend this article as well:

http://apjjf.org/2014/12/18/Henri-Feron/4113/article.html

Which goes over the basics of why we actually know quite a lot about the specific thing we are discussing (the character of North Korean production). We can toss out the bank of korea data and the cia data but that's something that can be tested empirically, not just a political question.

Sorry to get so testy but sociology is just like physics. No one feels the need to give their opinion on pions if they have not studied it in depth and yet people think they can give grand proclamations about history, economics, and politics of North Korea because the US media ran a story about Kim Jong-un's eating habits. I will argue about the extent of marketization, the flawed understanding of modes of production that bourgeois scholars approach the issue with, and the definition of socialism and how we can test it. But arguing about the north Korean economy as having slave labor (meaning here that slavery exists at a systematic level) is pure racist propaganda with no basis in fact.