The Difference between two Socialism Countries China and North Korea - Essay Example

This is different from the capitalist system of economy where goods and services are manufactured to generate profit and accumulation of profit, rather than based on their value and usage. They both advocate that the means of production be owned by people, either through government agencies or directly. Socialism also believes that income and wealth should be equally shared among the people. A socialist economy provides collective ownership, either through worker cooperative or through a state-controlled agency or might be owned by the society as a whole.

It discourages private ownership. Goods and services are manufactured for their usefulness with the objective of eliminating the need for a demand based market for goods to be sold at a profit (Lee, Hy-Sang, et al. pg 77). The significant part of the Chinese economy is still government controlled, however, the number of government programs have reduced significantly. For example, universal health care is being discontinued. Foreign policy of China continues to be pro-socialist, but essentially, it has become a free market economy.

In essence, it no longer remains an economy that is pure socialist. North Korea is the world’s most totalitarian state and it is a prominent socialist t economy. Just like Cuba, North Korea has an economy that is almost entirely controlled by the state. In North Korea there is no stock exchange either. Around mid-1975, North Korea was more productive and better educated than China (going by international trade per capita). However, the country has unpleasant misfortune of being the only developed and educated society in history of man to have faced mass famine – and at the time of peace at that.

Interestingly, North Korea’s problem of has not been resolved. If the socialism economy that is tightly controlled in the country could have been a success, the country would probably not have worsened to this level. Mao had declared in October 1949, the People’s