[kijin]

It seems that a lot of workplaces don't even have any work for the assigned workers to do (e.g. factories are out of raw materials), and no salary to pay, so the "employees" just go freelancing elsewhere. This is worse than slavery. With slavery, at least there's a general expectation that the master will feed his slaves.

North Koreans are getting the worst possible form of communism (indentured servitude in a micromanaged economy) and the worst possible form of capitalism (must earn your own survival, no safety nets whatsoever) at the same time. That's crazy.

[anotherfadjs]

Maybe just maybe because of all the embargoes by the rest of the world?

[SiVal]

There are two giant economies that border NK, China and Russia, that do not economically embargo NK. But as is always the case with socialist workers' paradises, it's always the fault of external villains that they have any remaining problems at all. Surely it can't have anything to do with the internal policy of forcibly transferring decision-making power from the people to the political elite in Capital City.

[jotm]

Not really - their government takes all the aid and money, while also punishing defectors (just people escaping to China or SK) by death or imprisonment of their families. Embargoes do little for most of the population.

[meepmorp]

Maybe it's because of specific decisions on the part of the government to provide resources to the military before anyone else in society.