Jessie (North Korea entrepreneur)

Jessie is the North Korean woman in Getting entrepreneurial in Korea (Summer School) whose childhood and adult trading story makes ordinary entrepreneurship visible under repression. The episode says she began selling wild raspberries as a child, later sold purer alcohol, and then expanded into smuggling goods across the Yalu River.

Her story is also the episode’s clearest Property Rights As Investment Incentive counterexample. After her uncle reported her business activity, the state took her money and possessions; she escaped using the same trade routes she had once used for business. The source uses Jessie to show that donju talent can exist without secure ownership, courts, or reliable protection.

Connections

• North Korea - country setting.
• Donju Market Class - market-class context for source-described entrepreneurs.
• Property Rights As Investment Incentive and Informal Property-Rights Protection / 非正式产权保护 - institutional concepts her story tests.