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I recently read an interesting book, North Korea's Hidden Revolution by Jieun Baek. The author is a young Korean-American scholar with strong ties to the NK defector community. Her thesis is that much of what we believe about North Korea is wrong. While the government remains a brutal dictatorship the country is no longer a hermetically sealed prison. Most citizens there have access to Western and South Korean TV, movies, books and other literature smuggled into the country via China and widely distributed. They know the government propaganda is lies and that South Korea is far richer.

Another thesis is that the country actually has a thriving market economy. The old communist distribution network collapsed during the famine of the 90's and was never rebuilt. It was replaced instead by a market that started out just providing the basics but which has grown into a sophisticated system where people with money can obtain almost anything, from American pharmaceuticals to Japanese electronics and clothing from throughout the world. Worth a read. The question is how much longer will these people put up with their evil rulers.