this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2025
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chapotraphouse
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I actually have one from a dumbass debate/argument I had in a comment section on TikTok like 2 months ago; Are citizens allowed to choose their job/career and are they forced to work?
I know this sounds dumb and I think I know the answer but after having probably the dumbest argument ever, I realize it's actually a blind spot for me. Or, if you could just give me some general info on employment in the DPRK, that would be great.
I'll ask someone from the USSR to answer your question, I don't think this requires asking a DPRK diplomat. I'll update this when I get an answer.
Reply (my notes in square brackets):
How did you choose your profession/career in the USSR? I recall you mentioned why you chose to be a teacher, but I also recall that it wasn't entirely up to you.
Well, the way you chose, that's how we chose in the USSR: whoever liked something did it. No, I did want to be a teacher. Though my mother pushed me to it, she told me that I would not be able to study - I went to a pedagogical school after the 8th grade - but she told I could not pass chemistry, physics, pass state exams etc. in the 10th grade, and so she pushed me there. In principle, I always wanted it, and I enjoy it. So, just as you chose what you liked, so did we.
[It seems that their mother, who I think is an engineer, held the same brainworms that most Asian parents did (and still do), and a parents' encouragement in matters of career choice had sway, just as they do now]
Follow up: If you did not work, was that considered social parasitism [pronounced too-neh-YAD-stvo], or was it not so strict? Did they push people to take specific work?
Yes, in the Soviet Union it was strict, but in my time it was not so strict. But before, in my mother's time, it was not possible to not work. For example, you are a wife, and your husband is doing well, and you want to sit at home with a child and raise him. You couldn't do that, because it was social parasitism, and people - in all kinds of different ways - would swindle the state so as not to go to work.
Well, certain jobs, of course, were encouraged. For example, drivers were required to work in the North. Nobody wants to work in the North, the conditions there are terrible, it's cold. There were very good salaries there, always. That's how they were pushed.
Then, young specialists... For example, someone graduated from university, and they were distributed to different cities, villages. People didn't want to go to the village to work as a teacher, let's say, or as an engineer, and you had to work there for 2-3 years... say, you graduated from Moscow, some kind of technical school, and you were sent somewhere to the North, to Urengoy. So you had to work there. These were the rules we had. [Seems to be similar to residency for medical students]
This really seems to be right in line with my understanding of work culture in the USSR from reading Blackshirts and Reds. Basically you got to work where you wanted for the most part, but shit jobs paid more to incentivize employment. If you chose not to work, it was frowned upon.
What about people with physical / mental / intellectual disabilities? Were they “forced” to work, and if so, was it work suitable for their ability? Were people kind to them mostly or were they treated like parasites?
Updated my other comment.
Also I thought you would find this [sci-hub link] tangentially relevant and interesting. It's about DPRK's Taean work system, an ancestor of whatever work system is in effect there currently. Of course, a warning on the background of the author, it might not be to your liking.
I"m gonna try to read through this at some point. Work life in DPRK and just socialist states in general is something I'm actually interested in because I have a life long history of unemployment and have suffered pretty greatly because of it. People laugh when I tell them I'd do shit jobs if it insured a comfortable living and actual retirement, but I've basically never had that luxury living in the States all my life.
From my experience in the US (frequent unemployment, likely due to partially undiagnosed AuDHD - the autism part is a hinderance) the harder the work is the worse it pays. I’ve done absolutely brutal insane construction work in insane dangerous conditions and made just a couple dollars more than minimum wage, meanwhile paper pushers in cush office jobs work remote for $100k+ a year.
You are preaching to the choir. I'm also the ASD unemployment statistic, but I was mostly making a hypothetical. I've done some shitty ass jobs and they paid peanuts. My job before what I'm doing now paid $73,000 and I probably worked 4 hours out of the workday writing code.
You got your answer
“Workers in the DPRK receive positions based on personal merit to what best fits their skill set. All able bodies persons are expected to work in pursuit of the revolutionary principles.”
I asked lBut you still can choose right ? ,if you studied medicine in university you would be a doctor ,right?”
He replied “As that education would prepare one for the particular skillset needed to be a doctor, yes.”
@SamotsvetyVIA@hexbear.net
Yup that's exactly what I was thinking it would be like and lines up very close to the USSR like SamotsvetyVIA mentioned earlier. Appreciate it, comrade.
Your welcome