February 24th 2025,

So for today we got into Great Depression stuff, mainly regarding RB Bennett and the new political parties that emerged in Canada. We discussed the details of the depression itself during the video lectures. This all sounds boring but communism was mentioned! So both Bennett and King were really bad during the depression, at least during the first half. King lost the 1930 election because he just didn’t take the crisis seriously, and actively rebuffed giving aid to the provinces. Bennett also had a similar issue in that, federally, he was very resistant to giving money away, but on a personal level he would send people a few dollars when they wrote to him about their woes. Take that as you will.

The most interesting part of the lecture was about the new parties that emerged during this period. The three highlighted were the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), the Social Credit Party (SCP), and the Reconstruction Party. First we talked about the CCF, which was the precursor to the NDP (New Democratic Party) and seemed to have strong socialist ideals in the beginning. They were formed by labour and independent MPs, Woodworth was the leader and another notable member was the famous Tommy Douglas (Saskatchewan Premier and the father of Healthcare in Canada). The big four things they advocated for: socialized banks, healthcare, farm security, and public transport. They also had this thing called “The Regina Manifesto” and it’s exactly what you’d think. They explicitly advocated for the abolition of capitalism. This manifesto scared the shit out of the ruling classes in Canada (these words were not used by my professor) and he asked us why. A student piped up that the Regina Manifesto was a threat to Canadian democracy, I wish I spoke up about how it was an affront to Canada’s capitalist system and the government was historically very attached to it.

During this time people truly felt that capitalism had failed (in my opinion, it did) so communism seemed like a better system. For example, in the UK Soviet spies found great success in recruitment. My professor then said that people were infatuated with what the USSR had going on because Stalin had fabricated the successes of the 5 Year Plan. The USSR was not as good as what was portrayed by effective Soviet propaganda. Okay, so I wasn’t there in the USSR during the thirties but I have to question this animosity. Maybe it wasn’t that great but I have to defend my muse!

Next was the reconstruction party and this one was a bit odd. It was led by a guy named H. H. Stevens, who was previously a conservative but didn’t like big business, so he made a party that would be the champion of small businesses. His main issue was big business draining the economy, and he wanted to investigate chain stores. The reconstruction party wanted to reform capitalism to favour its supporters.

Last we have the Social Credit Party which was led by William “Bible Belt Bill” Aberhart. This party critiqued finance capitalism. It ran on trying to solve the issues of the “A + B theory.” if you don’t know, the A + B theory is a theory that explains economic failure. “A” is wages, and “B” is the cost of production, add both of them together gets the cost of goods. The problem is that customers only make wages which means they don’t have enough money to afford the production costs that goes into the final price of goods. Does that make sense? Theres a Wikipedia article that could probably explain it better. Anyway, the Social Credit Party wanted to solve this issue by having the government give people money, a 25$ dividend to make up for the lack of funds. They won 56 seats in the Alberta election. So people were really interested.

That was the end of class so I moved on to my French Revolution class. This was a discussion about the movie Dangerous Liaisons, which we had to watch before today. Have you seen this movie? It was a weird experience for me, I was not expecting to see a guy kiss a woman’s breasts in the middle of a hallway in the first five minutes of this film based on the 18th century. It wasn’t bad by any means but, wow, that man and that woman were sadistic as hell. The reason why we watched this movie is because it’s based off the book that was publish in 1782, this gives us insight into the attitudes of the time and how people reacted to this book. We also had to debate whether the author, Laclo, is critiquing noble society or celebrating it. Considering both characters have a shitty ending to their stories I believe he was maybe critiquing, or removed. It is hard to analyze this from a 21st century perspective.

Finally we have PoliSci, the lecture is based on the article “The structural transformation of the North Korean economic planning system” by P. Ward. So this class was about the political economy in the DPRK. He began by briefly describing the Chollima Movement, in that he translated what it meant. All I could think of was that banger of a song. It’s a special horse that can travel 1000 Li (Chinese mile) in a day. After that we got into the actual lecture material, starting with the completion of Economic development in the DPRK. The immediate goals post-decolonization was to lay the groundwork for a socialist system and restore previous industries post-war. Just a reminder that North Korea was the heavy industry area of the peninsula while the South was for agriculture. They slowly nationalize and collectivize. Land reform in 1946, collectivization of agriculture in 1958, nationalization of major factories in 1946, and the collectivization of small and medium businesses in 1958 all led to the completion of socialist reform of production.

Economic plans started in 1947 and the prioritization of heavy industry happened in 1953 (exploitation of agriculture). This priority given was relaxed for a bit but was reimposed after the Cuban Missile crisis. I wonder why. The key features of the DPRK’s economy are: state ownership, political dictatorship, mono-hierarchical system, imperative planning, a subordinate role for the monetary system, and SELF RELIANCE (which means limiting foreign trade and investment). At the macro level it is unified and has detailed planning, the party plans , details, and intervenes in every corner of society; at the micro level we have the Taean worker system (1960) which was collective management of enterprise, it is called that because at the Taean factory Kim Il Sung gave guidance to the factory and gave management powers to the workers/party rather than to individual managers. At the mass level we see the Chollima Movement in 1958, which was inspired (?) by the Great Leap Forward and was a stakhanovite labour mobilization movement.

So next we get into the economic strategy before the end of the Cold War. There were changes made regarding foreign policy in the early 70s, this was a relaxation of political and economic unity mainly due to Nixon’s visit to China (which shocked Japan and South Korea). Trade expanded to the west, importing machines and plants on large loans; western imports surpassed those that came from fellow socialist countries. This was the DPRK’s first attempt to open up but the oil shocks came and it was in debt (the DPRK is not an oil producer), mineral prices plummeted and the North had to, I think, default (I could not understand what he was saying here so if they didn’t default on their debt let me know). The law of equity joint venture in 1984 was mentioned but not really detailed, only that it was resembling China’s opening.

Changes in the domestic economy were made, like introducing the complex enterprise system to encourage investment. This system vertically and horizontally integrates multiple enterprises, that are related production and management-wise, into a single management unit. In 1984 the. 8-3 People’s Consumer Goods Creation Movement happened which gave more peripheral production decisions to enterprises. It is decentralized and similar to China’s dual management system. There is also the self-accounting system that was introduced as well. These reforms began to slow down in the late 80s.

Now we move on to the economic development in the post-Socialist Era (as in, post collapse of multiple Socialist states). In the late 80s and 90s there were a series of economic plan failures, a famine, and the Arduous March. Two pillars of the DPRK’s planning system collapsed: the unified and detailed planning system and Taean Work system. Trade routes changed and the relaxing of political and economic unity. My professor stated that the DPRK’s self-reliance principle led to them having no money to invest and reinvest. The economic system was nearly inoperable due to the issue of black markets. Who is running these black markets? I have no idea! Anyway, the famine (caused by a flood) just exacerbated these issues. Reforms were made by decentralizing trade and the farm system (went from 60 households to 20) and through the July 1st Economic Management Improvement Measures in 2002. These measures increased prices and wages, rationlized exchange rates, and expanded corporate management autonomy.

2012 saw the “Economic Management System in Our Style”, which expanded the autonomy of the agricultural sector and trade. In agriculture they have autonomy over harvests, and distribution is adjusted (I believe 70% goes to the state and the other 30% can be sold or something like that). The Taean work system was abolished in 2019 and replaced by the Socialist Enterprise Responsibility System. The DPRK faces limitations and problems. Internally they face issues of succession, externally they have to deal with the blockade by the UN and US (put in place due to them having long range missiles); and economically they have limited acceptance of marketization, investment resources (they’re isolated), and economy and nuclear weapons parallel lines. North Korea is trudging along rather than working through.