like, who cares about the details, after all capitalism is when people work for and buy consumer goods with pieces of paper, and once you have people working for pieces of paper and markets taking those same pieces of paper in exchange for consumer goods, everything else doesn’t matter

You’re getting close.

That inquiring about all the missing features: no financial sector,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Finance_(North_Korea)

firms organised around quotas instead of profit,

Communism is when you do commodity production but you dont care whether your firms are profitable. Enterprises literally have to make profits to survive. They dont just get to absorb capital and do whatever they want. North Korea has a 50% tax on profit :https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_North_Korea.

no rents on land

Communism is when you abolish rent. Also this doesnt matter when there are like 10 other forms of exploitation still present.

no markets for means of production

Evidence? Even if this is true, it doesnt mean shit, because commodities still exist. The average worker doesnt buy means of production, he buys consumption goods.

the pieces of paper not being convertible and being useless to command production regardless of how many you’ve accumulated

??? money works as money in NK. Once again you’re using the argument that the state controls the majority of production as evidence of socialism.

Maybe I should take my copy of Capital, rip off every chapter after the third one, burn them and listen to you instead.

I suggest you actually read Capital instead of pretending like you have.

Of course there is corruption, nationalism, whatever. I just like their economic system, or at least the concept of it,

Then I’m not talking about people like you. I’m talking about literal dogmatic North Korea lovers who refuse to listen to any criticism about it.

It’s not just informal market, Christ. Its the entire economy. All goods are produced finally to be sold. That’s commodity production. There is wage-labor, there are markets, there are prices, there is profit. How does the average North Korean get his food, his clothing, his utilities, his luxuries? Does he not pay for it? How does he earn money? Does he not work for it? The social relations in North Korea are fundamentally the same as any capitalist country. You are stuck on the concept of state control as if that is what socialism is. I bet you also post the meme “Socialism is when the govt does stuff” and then unironically believe that when it comes to NK.

I’m not arguing about semantics, I am describing again and again how commodity production is the fundamental feature of capitalism and how it exists in NK. Nowhere in Marx’s work would you find a single line saying you can have commodity production under socialism. He and Engels and every other non-revisionist socialist repeatedly emphasize that you cannot have commodity production if you want to eliminate exploitation, alienation, oppression and all other features of class society.

I don’t know how anyone can parse the massive amount of repression and exploitation that goes on in NK and consider that as a viable or desirable social form. People do read these threads, even if they don’t upvote them. Even if a single person reads and understands it, it is worth it.

Seethe more idiot.

The state performs the role of the capitalist for the large firms. They also have SEZs with foreign investment, they have a huge black market, and they also have many self-employed people. Quite a few of their businesses are state-run in writing but actually ran as private businesses. They also suffer from massive corruption all around.

Capitalism is not just markets and private ownership, the fundamental element in capitalism is commodity production. This is one of the key findings of Marx. It is a Stalinist revisionism that you can have “socialist commodity production”.

I don’t give a shit about Lenin, I was referring to that because of the discrepancy between his view of the State and what he himself actually promoted, not Stalin. That’s not a minor point. I’m only talking about Lenin because MLs see him as some kind of authority.

I don’t mean to say he is an anarchist. But calling for the abolition of standing armies, police, the bureaucracy and replacing it with a universal militia is pretty damn anarchist position. Almost no ML would agree with Lenin on this front, but they “claim”’ him anyway.

You’re mistaken, I do not agree with you. By not-capitalism I meant the kind of capitalism we have in liberal countries. Having a command economy with commodity production is still capitalism, not of the liberal variety but its own form. It is NOT socialism. I’m not going to let you take advantage of my disengagement by taking some kind of “win” based on an obvious misreading.

It’s clear you have no idea what you’re talking about. Korean unification is a long term goal of both countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_reunification

I’m a communist, you’re not if you think NK is some model we should follow. In fact, no Western leftist actually takes NK as a model, their “support” is purely based on aesthetics and completely misguided geopolitics. NK is already a capitalist country, joining SK doesnt require removing their sovereignity, at least they would drop their mismanaged command economy and enjoy some economic development.