Journalism is the most Americanized of all professions, and nothing is more American than the belief that economic matters trump ideological ones. Th… - Brian Reynolds Myers

[A]t the risk of sounding like a broken record: this is a far-right, militarist state. Such states tend to experience uprisings only when they have failed by militarist or nationalist standards, as the Argentinian junta did in 1982.

The example of East Germany exerts a far greater cautionary effect on the North Koreans than Qaddafi’s fate does. The Honecker regime took what Americans and South Koreans keep recommending to North Korea as the “pragmatic” way out of its problems: It began opening up to the West, quasi-formally recognized the rival coethnic state’s right to exist, and focused on improving its own citizens’ standard of living. We all know how that ended.

North Korea is very much sui generis. It is best seen as being on the cusp between far right and far left. In European political terms I would call it a Strasserite state, after the leader of the Nazis' left wing. Which is to say it is a race-oriented, militaristic state with socialization of assets.