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The government could, of course, spread the cost over time by borrowing abroad: there is no reason why today’s Koreans should pay the full cost of reunifying their country. And in principle, North Korea’s productivity might catch up with the South’s quite rapidly. Because capital is scarce in the North, returns should in theory be high. Investors will be drawn to its promising location, its raw materials and its workers, who are young, reasonably well educated and cheap. (Many South Korean and Chinese firms have already taken the plunge. Hyundai Asan and Korea Land Corporation, for example, run the Kaesong Industrial Complex a few miles inside the North. It hosts 116 factories, employing 40,000 North Koreans, producing over $20m-worth of textiles, chemicals, electronics and other goods a month.)
Despite North Korea’s obstinate commitment to central planning, the market is growing like a vine in the cracks of the socialist edifice. In their new book, “Witness to Transformation”, Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland document this market reform “from below”, drawing on surveys of refugees in South Korea and China. They find that 62% of the refugees in China had relied on the market as their primary source of food only 3% relied on the state. And almost 70% of the refugees said they got more than half of their income from some form of private enterprise, such as selling crops or repairing bikes.
North Koreans have turned to the market out of sheer desperation. During the famine of the mid-1990s, for example, the public distribution system broke down, forcing households to rear livestock, collect acorns and sea algae, or cultivate crops in their kitchens. Informal markets sprouted, as people either bent the law or defied it. In 2002 some of these exchanges were decriminalised. But from 2005 the regime cracked down again.

A. 어휘
productivity 생산성. catch up with 따라잡다. scarce 부족한.
returns 收益(수익), 수입, 보답. in theory 이론상으로는.
reasonably 상당히, 합리적으로. take the plunge 모험하다, 과감히 하다.
Land Corporation 토지공사. Industrial Complex 공업단지.
textiles 직물. chemicals 화학제품. obstinate 완고한.
commitment 방침, 헌신, 참여. vine 덩굴. cracks 갈라진 틈.
edifice 건축물, 구조물, 체제. Witness 목격자. Transformation 변형.
document 보도하다, 典據(전거)를 보이다. refugees 難民(난민), 망명자.
primary 1차적인. enterprise 사업, 기업, 기획.
sheer 純全(순전)한, 완전한. desperation 필사적임, 절망, 열망.
famine 饑饉(기근). distribution system 배급체계.
rear 기르다, 사육하다. livestock 가축. acorn 도토리.
algae 藻類(조류). cultivate 경작하다. sprout 싹이 트다.
exchanges 상거래. decriminalise 처벌대상에서 제외하다, 解禁(해금)하다.
cracked down 엄하게 단속하다.