북한의 분절화된 시장화와 정치사회적 함의

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the phenomena of market development under the concept of ‘segmentalized marketization’ in North Korea and to evaluate its socio-political effects. Market socialism is, in general, the essential mechanism that causes the system to reform the market economy, and the markets account for most of the peoples’ lives in North Korea. Since markets only operate within the boundaries of the city, county and district, being cut from other regional units, however, are not likely bring about the subsequent political and social effect. North Korea has promoted a regional self-reliance system since the 1960s and started the system in the 1990s when it faced a national crisis in order to reinforce the structure of marketization along with segmentalization. Since North Korea operates the market as a means to maintain self-sufficiency within the region, markets have a great impact on the residents' lives from the perspective of the locals, but the impact of market is much less powerful than state planning from the national standpoint. This is due to the fact that segmentalized marketization inhibits the formation of an integrated market of goods and services as well as labor markets at the national level, since the regional self-reliance system encourages the close proximity of production and consumption in same area and constant numbers of labor force. In particular, it is also consolidated by the facts that the government agencies monopolize trade and the nationwide distribution network, and that the transportation system has not been developed. Recently, there has been a development in the changing segmentalized marketization, such as transactions of special products among regions, activation and increase of trade and foreign currency earning business, and the emergence of neo-capitalist groups among others. However, it has significant limitation in bringing about the formation of integrated markets and political changes at the national level. In this context, it is difficult to anticipate the economic effects and social and political impacts of the market unless it the national strategy of the economy-military parallelism is modified as a macro national development plan, even though it replaces the planning measures with markets in the regional context. In this regard, marketization will bring about the effects of a system transformation in North Korea under the circumstances that it considers the possible changes, such as the Military First Policy and investment in heavy industries, and that it allows the free movement of labor and transactions among regions.