In North Korea, where the won is nearly worthless, people need money to survive. So what do some North Koreans do for money? According to Young Howard, subverting the Fatherland:
The collapse of the centralized food distribution system has made money more and more powerful in North Korean society. At present, the society is being restructured based on how much money one has instead of how loyal one is to Kim and indeed, money is breaking down the support bases of the hereditary dictatorship.
At the moment, only a privileged few receive food allocations from the government. Even most of the government officials have to buy their own food in the markets: official or black. Since the average monthly salary of a public official amounts to 1,500~3,000 North Korean won, or about one US dollar based on the exchange rate-1($): 2800(won) as of Feb, 2006. That amount of money can only afford 3~4 kg of rice, enough for 4~6 days of subsistence per an adult. Therefore, without other kinds of income, even persons of power cannot survive in North Korea and so, illicit money is running rampant throughout the society.
For $50, one could cross the Tumen and Yalu rivers into China, and for $100~500, one could even obtain an official passport which would have never been possible under the levels of control that existed ten years ago. The significant progress in the increase of mobility across the borders due to the increased influence of money has also caused an influx of outside information to pour into the closed kingdom. For example, in Chongjin, a northern city in North Korea, about 30% of the population receives frequent external information through radio, CDs, phones, or those who commute to China, according to a recent defector. As North Korea has been the world’s most isolated regime for the last decade, outside information has had a huge impact on the North Korean peoples, serving to break the locks that Kim’s regime put on their brains.
Money also motivates people to risk politically dangerous ventures such as taking videotape of public executions and gulag encampments. According to defectors, there is a word circulating around the country that such pictures may be worth hundreds thousands of dollars. So, Chinese people near the borders are also seeking opportunities to make videos of human atrocities in North Korea. Indeed, pictures smuggled out and viewed all over the world are forcing Kim Jong Il to hesitate before using brutal punishment against his people to suppress dissidence.
Planned or Free Market, governments cannot escape the basic laws of economics. Now that the government has failed the people, the people are risking their lives to serve their own interests.
