LITTLE MAN SYNDROME: THE HEIGHT OF NORTH KOREA’S FAILURE

This might be a good read for all the Korea Hands out there.  Again, perhaps something to counter Felix Abt's reporting on north Korea.

But this is worth sharing just for the title:  Little Man Syndrome"  and the "double meaning" title which is certainly one way to summarize the nature of the Kim Family leadership – certainly from 1994 to 2011 and well as the tragic suffering and stunting of the growth of north Korean children and the overall failure of the worker's paradise for everyone except the Kim Family Regime and those most loyal to it.  The height issue is significant.  This book will certainly highlight some of the issues that the ROK and its allies will have to deal with when the Kim Family Regime collapse.

LITTLE MAN SYNDROME: THE HEIGHT OF NORTH KOREA’S FAILURE

BOOK REVIEW: A SOCIOECONOMIC HISTORY OF NORTH KOREA

HTTP://WWW.NKNEWS.ORG/2012/11/LITTLE-MAN-SYNDROME-THE-HEIGHT-OF-NORTH-KOREAS-FAILURE/

by Gianluca Spezza , November 7, 2012

ames Pearson wrote an article for The Diplomat in 2010 which sought to contradict what he saw as the widespread – yet, he argued, unjustified – notion that North Korea is a ‘failed state’, that it has not been able to provide its citizens with answers to their basic needs. For those who weren’t fully convinced by Pearson, the relatively recent Socioeconomic History of North Korea, by Daniel Schwekendiek, will offer some appeal.

The young author’s name may not be the easiest to pronounce, but his book makes for an innovative, informative and fascinating read – albeit perhaps a bit on the technical side.  Schwekendiek describes a country where the political leadership has managed to survive a remarkable series of negative events, but has inevitably failed its own citizens. This failure is described from three different chapters, dedicated to social, economic and anthropometric perspectives.

According to Schwekendiek, North Korea has failed in social terms, because – through forcible collective work and mass mobilization – it has destroyed human relations within families, villages and communities. It has also performed very poorly in economic terms, making its citizens highly dependent on external help and incapable of fending for themselves – this is reflected in the massive unemployment rate among former North Koreans living in the South. The regime has neglected to safeguard the health of its citizens as a result of a series of gross economic mistakes, condemning future generations to bear the signs of malnutrition.