North Korea and inequity

July 16, 2012 by Joshua
in NorthKorea

Inequity and its consequences

If some people succeed without having to work and others have no chance to succeed, you create feelings of unfairness. Those feelings of unfairness will motivate people to return the unfairness at those who create, maintain, or benefit from the system.

Everyone recognizes this situation in North Korea. Even outsiders, who have no interaction with the system, feel outraged and wish harm on the people in charge. People feel the type of wish to harm them normally reserved for ticks, leeches, and genuine parasites.

We see the North Korean people not revolting and conclude the regime must be repressing them more.

The reason I mention inequity, as usual with me and observations of North Korea, is what it reveals about my world. The U.S. has so much inequity. We don’t have the divide North Korea does, obviously, but North Korea doesn’t come close to the extreme wealth America does.

Whatever other properties the system has, so much wealth unshared will motivate people to return the unfairness. If rich people have the best health care in the world and poor people have infant mortality rates below the third world, the system creates that motivation.

The U.S. sees protests and demonstrations. I wonder if people are being repressed more than you’d think. During Occupy Wall Street the police force was overwhelming and incredibly intimidating, all the more so compared to North Korean police or military, whom I think I could intimidate physically. You might point out that North Korean police can threaten people’s lives as well as their families. But at least on American television, prison here commonly has horrible consequences.

Or maybe it says America is better off than you’d think.

Read my weekly newsletter

On initiative, leadership, the environment, and burpees

We won't send you spam. Unsubscribe at any time. Powered by ConvertKit

Leave a Reply

Sign up for my weekly newsletter