Kim Jong Un

Kim Jong Un appears in Getting entrepreneurial in Korea (Summer School) as the North Korean ruler who declared goals of building the weapons program and growing the economy. The source says his regime allowed more room for donju, permitted entrepreneurship and policy training through figures such as Andre Abrahamian, and saw local businesses and foreign investment grow for a time.

The episode also treats that opening as regime-bounded. Nicholas Eberstadt argues that added prosperity likely helped fund a higher tempo of nuclear testing, while the host calls Kim the “ultimate donju” after describing weapons sales to Russia and cryptocurrency theft. This makes Kim’s economic role a case of market energy being captured for state power rather than protected through Property Rights As Investment Incentive.

Connections

• North Korea - national setting.
• Donju Market Class, Andre Abrahamian, Nicholas Eberstadt, and Manmulsang - source’s North Korean market branch.
• Property Rights As Investment Incentive and Marxist-Leninist State Capacity - institutional concepts the source uses for comparison.