In the U.S., if an economist bungles a corporation or the nation’s finances, that person will either get a retention bonus, a new job offer, write a book or receive a prestigious teaching position at some university.
In North Korea, a bungled job means that person will be executed, even if he is not primarily to blame.
Pak Nam-gi, 77-years-old, was head of the planning and finance department of the Workers’ Party. He was the top financial figure in North Korea. But that means nothing because North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-Il, makes all the major decisions. Of course, if something goes wrong, Kim is never to blame.
Last year, North Korea revalued its currency because capitalist tendencies were creeping into the small private markets that supply that country with much of its food and foreign consumer goods. Entrepreneurs who had massed a small fortune found it lost overnight when only a small portion could be turned in for the new currency.
The result was chaos. Inflation ramped up dramatically, food and vital goods came into short supply and, most importantly, the image of Kim Jong-Il was tarnished.
Kim is ill, some do not expect him to live more than two or three years, so he is trying to quickly groom his youngest son, Kim Jong-Un, for leadership. Strengthening the military and economy are two of the ways Kim sought to accomplish that. That is one reason North Korea rattled its nuclear arsenal and fired missiles into the Pacific last year. The new currency was supposed to enhance Kim’s position as a great economic leader.
When the currency change became a fiasco, Kim made sure he was not responsible. Pak disappeared from news accounts in January. Earlier this month, Pak was executed at a firing range.
The official reports labeled him a “bourgeois infiltrator” charged with “deliberately ruining the national economy” as a “son of a big landowner.” Pak was educated in the Soviet Union and had been in charge of the nation’s economy for 20 years.
If he was “deliberately running the national economy,” then it took Kim and his other stooges a long time to figure it out.
Those charges are just more fiction from the North Korean government. Pak’s real crime was embarrassing Kim. Charging someone with ruining the national economy of North Korea is laughable. The economy has been ruined ever since the communists came to power.
Nevertheless, as disgusting as Kim’s megalomania is, there is little reason to shed tears for Pak. He has long been part of that nation’s ruling elite, and, thus, responsible for millions of deaths from the economic mismanagement that the entire government bears responsibility.
