Do you think the people of North Korea are happy?
At first glance, the answer seems obvious. We look at North Korea from the outside and see a closed country, military parades, portraits of leaders, identical slogans, strict discipline, poverty, scarcity, control and fear. To an outside observer, it seems that happiness cannot exist there. How can a person be happy if they cannot freely choose information, country, work, political position, way of life and even the words with which they describe their own condition?
But the direct answer is more complicated.
The people of North Korea really can feel happiness. They can rejoice in food, family, warmth, a holiday, a quiet evening, the birth of a child, the absence of punishment, a small gift, a successful day, an extra handful of rice for dinner. A human being is capable of finding joy even in difficult conditions. This is a property of the human being, not a merit of the regime.
But here the main question begins: what kind of happiness do they actually feel?
Because happiness can be different. There is happiness as development, freedom, choice, self-realization, love, movement, growth and conscious life. And there is another state, when a person rejoices not in the fullness of life, but in the fact that today it has become a little easier to survive. Outwardly, this can also look like joy. Inside the person, it can also feel like real satisfaction. But by its nature, it is already a different kind of happiness.
This is where the main deception of closed systems lies.
The state can create such conditions that an extra handful of rice begins to be perceived not as proof of poverty, but as a gift. The person will rejoice sincerely. They do not necessarily pretend. They may truly feel relief, gratitude, calm and even happiness. But this happiness is born not from freedom, but from the compression of the world down to a minimum.
A closed system does not always destroy happiness directly. It does something else: it reduces the size of human happiness.
They are happy, but this is not the happiness we usually mean
The scale of happiness
When we speak about happiness in an open society, we usually mean not only food and the absence of punishment. We speak about the possibility of choosing one’s life. About the possibility of developing. About the possibility of making mistakes and correcting them. About the right to say that the government is bad. About the right to read different sources. About the right to leave. About the right to return. About the right to compare. About the right to want more.
But in North Korea, the very scale of happiness is built differently.
If a person has grown up in a system where almost everything is determined in advance, where the outside world is shown as a threat, where the state controls information, movement, language, work and symbols, then their inner horizon becomes different. They do not necessarily think in terms of free choice. They may think in terms of safety, permission, rations, discipline, family and survival.
In such a system, happiness may mean not “I live the way I chose”, but “today did not become worse”.
This is a fundamental difference.
In an open society, a person may be dissatisfied because their salary is low, their apartment is small, their car is old, taxes are high, services are poor and the government is ineffective. In a closed system, a person may rejoice because they have dinner, the home is warm and nobody came with an inspection.
Both emotions are real. But one arises inside a space of choice, while the other arises inside a space of restriction.
North Korean happiness, in this sense, can be real as a feeling, but artificially reduced as a life opportunity.
Personality is formed from the bottom, not from the horizon
In the logic of the Basic Law of Political Economy, everything begins not with money and not with the market. Everything begins with personality.
Personality → Behavior → Choice → Demand → Money
If a system wants to manage the economy of life, it must manage personality. Not just the wallet. Not just the factory. Not just the market. First, it must form a person who will consider normal what is useful for the system.
In North Korea, personality is formed not from the horizon, but from the bottom.
The horizon means development. A person sees the future, compares options, makes plans, chooses education, profession, place of life, style, information, ideas, relations with the state. They may not realize everything, but the horizon itself exists.
The bottom means survival. A person does not look forward, but downward: not to fall even lower. Not to lose access to food. Not to fall under suspicion. Not to say something unnecessary. Not to attract attention. Not to harm the family. Not to break a rule that is not always even clearly formulated.
When personality is formed from the bottom, its behavior becomes cautious. When behavior becomes cautious, choice disappears as an active category. When choice disappears, demand shrinks to a minimum. When demand is compressed to a minimum, money ceases to be an instrument of development and turns into a means of access to survival.
And then happiness begins to mean not “I have built my life”, but “I have not fallen lower”.
This is the main mechanism of a closed system.
Substitution of concepts as the main political instrument
A closed system manages not only by force. It manages language.
If a person is simply beaten, they will understand that they are being beaten. If a person is simply deprived of freedom, they may understand that freedom has been taken away from them. But if the state renames reality itself, then the person gradually loses the ability to name their own condition with an exact word.
- Hunger begins to be called temporary difficulties.
- Prison begins to be called re-education.
- Obedience begins to be called patriotism.
- Fear begins to be called discipline.
- Isolation begins to be called protection from enemies.
- Survival begins to be called happiness.
This is not a small detail. Language determines how personality understands reality. If a person is deprived of the word, it becomes harder for them to formulate a thought. If it is harder for them to formulate a thought, it becomes harder for them to understand their own condition. If they cannot name their own condition, they cannot turn inner anxiety into conscious protest.
If a person is denied exact words for a long time, they begin to lose accuracy of perception.
- Hunger no longer looks like hunger,
- fear is no longer called fear,
- obedience ceases to be perceived as submission.
The condition remains inside the person, but it does not receive a clear name.
What is not named is harder to understand, harder to explain to others and almost impossible to turn into political action.
This is exactly why regimes work so much with slogans, school formulas, rituals, songs, holidays, official names and correct expressions. Power fights not only for territory. It fights for vocabulary.
In this sense, North Korea shows the extreme version: the state seeks not only to control behavior, but to determine in advance the words with which a person will describe themselves, their country, their hunger, their loyalty and their happiness.
A person may not know that they are unhappy
Here it is necessary to be precise. This is not about all people in North Korea understanding nothing. This is not about the stupidity of people. This is about an environment that takes away the point of comparison.
A person may suffer and at the same time not have a clear language to call it unhappiness. They may be tired, hungry, frightened, restricted, but perceive all this as the norm of life. Not because they are well. But because they have never seen another threshold of expectations.
If a person has known from childhood only one system, one version of history, one official truth, one image of the enemy, one model of power and one permitted vocabulary, their inner world is formed inside this cage. They do not necessarily feel the cage as a cage. For them, it may simply be the world.
This is exactly why an extra handful of rice can be perceived as happiness. Not as humiliation. Not as a symbol of extreme restriction. Not as proof that the system has brought the person down to the minimum. But as a good event.
In an open society, such a handful of rice would not be happiness. It would be a signal of poverty. But in a closed system, where supply is artificially compressed, even a small addition to the minimum becomes emotionally large.
This is the political technology of scarcity: first reduce the world, then give a person a small addition inside the reduced world and call it care.
The state protects blindness
In order for a person to continue considering the minimum as happiness, they must be protected from comparison. Not from enemies in the ordinary sense. From comparison.
Because comparison is more dangerous than direct criticism. Propaganda can be opposed to criticism. Comparison acts deeper. A person sees another level of life, another freedom, another speech, another food, another clothing, another attitude toward power, another everyday norm. After that, the previous world becomes difficult to perceive as the only possible one.
That is why a closed system controls the internet, radio, foreign films, external contacts, movement, conversations, language and cultural signs. Human Rights Watch, in its 2026 review, points to severe restrictions on freedom of expression, access to information and movement, as well as food insecurity and forced labor in North Korea. Amnesty International also notes the almost complete absence of access to external information, the jamming of radio signals and increased control in areas near the border with China.
These are not accidental restrictions. This is the protection of a managed picture of the world.
If a person sees too much, they will begin to compare. If they begin to compare, they will begin to reassess. If they begin to reassess, their previous happiness may instantly turn into an awareness of humiliation.
The system is afraid not only of a hungry person. It is afraid of a person who has understood that hunger is not the norm.
When comparison appears, turbulence of personality begins
Changes inside a person do not always begin with worsening conditions. Sometimes they begin with the appearance of a new point of reference.
A person may have lived in one system for years. They may have thought that this is how the world is arranged. They may have rejoiced in small things, feared saying too much, repeated correct words, avoided dangerous thoughts. But then comparison appears: an accidental broadcast, a forbidden film, a conversation with someone from another world, a smuggled recording, someone else’s clothing, someone else’s phone, a story about another life.
And at that moment the previous picture begins to crack.
It is important: at first, nothing material may change. The same room. The same food. The same power. The same street. The same rules. But inside the personality, another scale has already appeared. What yesterday seemed normal today begins to look like restriction. What yesterday seemed like care today looks like control. What yesterday was called happiness today begins to be perceived as survival.
This is how the turbulence of personality begins.
The turbulence of personality arises not only from poverty. Poverty can be habitual. Turbulence begins when personality receives comparison and can no longer return to its previous blindness.
This is exactly why closed regimes fight external information so harshly. They understand: one new fact can change not the wallet, but the point of reference. And a change in the point of reference is more dangerous than temporary scarcity.
A handful of rice as a political category
A handful of rice in such a system is not just food. It is a political category.
When a person rejoices in an extra handful of rice, the whole structure of the regime is already present in that joy: scarcity, control, fear, absence of comparison, dependence, state vocabulary, managed behavior and compressed demand.
In a normal system, food should be the basis of life, not the summit of happiness. A person should not perceive dinner as a political mercy. They should not measure dignity by the amount of rice that today happened to be slightly above the minimum.
But a closed system does exactly this. It turns basic things into rewards. Food becomes an instrument of dependence. Permission becomes a gift. Silence becomes a way of survival. The minimum becomes a reason for gratitude.
- A little more food gives relief.
- A little less food gives fear.
- A stable ration gives manageability.
- Scarcity gives power a lever.
In this logic, the state manages not only ideology. It manages calories. This is the most primitive and at the same time one of the most reliable forms of political dependence.
A person who lives on the edge does not build a broad horizon. They think about what is nearest. About food. About safety. About family. About how not to fall under attack. Their demand does not rise to the level of political freedom, technologies, an independent court, a free market, a private future and personal development. Their demand remains near the bottom.
This is how the system obtains a manageable person.
Scarcity as a managerial resource
Usually, scarcity is perceived as the weakness of a system. If there are few goods, little food, little choice, it means the system is ineffective. But in a closed political logic, scarcity can perform another function. It becomes an instrument of management.
- Scarcity lowers expectations.
- Scarcity reduces the horizon.
- Scarcity forces a person to value the minimum.
- Scarcity makes power the distributor of life.
- Scarcity turns the receipt of a basic thing into an emotional event.
If a person lives in abundance, it is difficult to make them thank the state for bread. They perceive bread as the norm. If a person lives in scarcity, bread can become proof of care. Not because power has truly created a good life, but because it has lowered the norm so far in advance that an ordinary thing has become a reward.
This is a very important mechanism for understanding closed systems.
They do not simply produce badly. They often use poor production politically. Not necessarily consciously in every detail, but systemically the result is exactly this: the lower the norm, the easier it is to present the minimum as an achievement.
Therefore, in North Korea, happiness may be not the opposite of unhappiness, but its managed form.
- A person does not say: “I am free.” They say inside themselves: “Today there is food.”
- They do not say: “I am developing.” They say: “Today is calm.”
- They do not say: “I chose my life.” They say: “Today is not worse than yesterday.”
This is how happiness is reduced to the size of survival.
Why such happiness is politically useful
A person who is happy with the minimum is convenient for a closed system. They do not create pressure on power, because their internal demand has already been restricted in advance. They do not demand a complex future, free internet, political competition, an open market, independent courts, changeability of power, strong universities, international mobility, private initiative and the right to publicly doubt. Their horizon does not go beyond survival, and therefore their behavior remains predictable.
Such a person may be tired, poor and restricted, but for the system they remain manageable. They know where the boundary of danger lies. They understand that it is better to remain silent than to ask an unnecessary question. They feel that one careless word can harm not only them, but also their family. They get used to the idea that small stability is safer than open risk. As a result, the closed system receives the ideal citizen: cautious, silent, dependent and grateful for the minimum.
In the logic of the Basic Law of Political Economy, this mechanism looks extremely clear. The system forms personality. Personality forms behavior. Behavior limits choice. Limited choice compresses demand. Compressed demand keeps money, labor and the whole life of the person at the level of survival.
If a person’s demand does not go beyond food, safety and the absence of punishment, the system receives no pressure for development. It does not need to respond to the request of a free citizen. It is enough for it to maintain the minimum, fear, the correct vocabulary and a constant sense of dependence. This is exactly why such happiness has political value. It is not dangerous for power. On the contrary, it serves power.
Why people do not rise up
An outside observer often asks a simple question: if people feel bad, why do they not rise up?
But this question is too direct. It comes from the logic of an open society, where a person has connection, information, space for conversation, the possibility of comparison and at least a minimal feeling that action can change the situation. In a closed system, everything is arranged differently.
Dissatisfaction alone is not enough for protest. There must also be trust between people, connection, information, confidence that one is not alone, the possibility of coordination, a point of comparison, an image of the future and a language with which what is happening can be named precisely. There must be at least minimal faith that action will not destroy the person and their family. If all of this is absent, dissatisfaction remains inside the person. It may live for years, but it does not turn into open political action.
A person can be unhappy and still remain passive. They can be afraid and smile at the same time. They can hate the system inside themselves and repeat the correct slogans aloud. They can understand part of the truth and still remain silent, because silence becomes a way of survival. They can rejoice in food and at the same time live inside fear. There is no contradiction here. This is the normal behavior of a personality placed inside a closed system.
This is exactly why one cannot expect from such a society the logic of open political behavior. Protest does not arise simply from pain. Protest arises when pain receives language, connection and direction. A closed system tries to destroy all three elements. It not only suppresses a person by force, but also prevents their inner dissatisfaction from turning into a clear demand.
Nostalgia for the USSR works through a similar mechanism
This is exactly why many people today feel nostalgic for the USSR.
Of course, the USSR and North Korea are not one and the same system. They cannot be mechanically equated. Their scale, historical conditions, level of openness, periods and social structure were different. But the mechanism of nostalgia for a closed or semi-closed system is often similar.
People remember not the absence of choice. They remember clarity. There was work. There was a salary. There was bread. An apartment would eventually come. The state was large. Tomorrow looked like yesterday. Everyone lived more or less the same. Choice was small, but anxiety seemed lower.
In memory, scarcity often turns into comfort. A queue for sausage begins to look not like humiliation, but like part of “normal life”.
- A scarce item is remembered not as proof of the system’s weakness, but as the joy of obtaining it.
- A small salary is remembered not as a restriction, but as stability.
- Closedness is remembered not as a cage, but as order.
This happens because personality remembers not only facts. Personality remembers the emotional norm of the time. If a person lived in a system where supply was limited, receiving something small could bring strong joy. Not because the small thing was truly large, but because the large thing had been removed from the horizon.
After the collapse of such a system, freedom appears, but anxiety appears together with it. One must choose. One must compete. One must be responsible for oneself. One must compare. One must earn. One must see that someone lives better. One must recognize that the state no longer closes the entire horizon.
For a person not used to choice, freedom may seem not like an opportunity, but like chaos. And then the former cage begins to be remembered as home.
A compressed personality does not open up immediately
The greatest tragedy of a closed system is that it does not end at the moment when a person leaves its borders. A person may physically leave the country, gain access to money, shops, the internet, freedom of movement and another level of life, but their inner scale remains the same for a long time.
A compressed personality does not open up instantly.
This can be clearly seen in the example of North Korean defectors. They find themselves in South Korea, where there is a market, freedom, technologies, choice, money, universities, work, information and the possibility of speaking differently. But the very possibility of choice does not immediately turn into happiness. For a person who has been taught caution, silence, fear and dependence on the system for decades, freedom can become not only relief, but also a heavy burden.
Studies of North Korean defectors show exactly this complexity: in a two-year observation, self-assessments of life satisfaction, autonomy, physical health and expectations for the future decreased, while symptoms of depression and traumatic symptoms increased; a four-year observation also recorded a rise in loneliness and depression with a decrease in life satisfaction. This is an important detail: a person may leave a closed system, but the closed system remains inside them for a long time.
This is exactly why comparison does not always liberate immediately. Sometimes it first destroys the old picture of the world. A person suddenly understands that their former “normal life” was not a norm, but an artificially created bottom. They see that a handful of rice was not happiness, but the boundary of survival. They understand that caution was not wisdom, but a trace of fear. But the new understanding does not cancel the old habit in one day.
The closed system continues to live in automatic reactions: do not say too much, do not stand out, do not trust, do not argue, do not demand, do not believe that a right truly belongs to you. Therefore, the liberation of personality begins not with a passport, not with relocation and not with access to shops. It begins with the slow restoration of the inner horizon.
Why part of Russian society again wants a clear cage
This same mechanism helps to understand nostalgia for the USSR and the modern attraction of part of Russian society toward a closed, managed and clear system.
It is important to clarify: this is not about the majority of Russians literally demanding the full restoration of the USSR. According to a study conducted by the Levada Center together with Novaya Gazeta in 2024, the thesis that the majority of Russia’s residents would like the USSR to be restored was supported by 26% of respondents. This is not a majority, but it is a large group. Earlier Levada Center measurements also showed strong nostalgia: in 2018, 66% regretted the collapse of the USSR, and 60% believed that the Union could have been preserved.
Here, the important thing is not only the number. The important thing is the request itself. Many do not want back exactly the queues, poverty, grayness and scarcity. They want something else: the clarity of the cage. For the state to once again become the main distributor of meaning. For choice to become smaller. For responsibility to become lower. For the world to once again be explained in simple words: enemies outside, order inside, the authorities know, the people endure, stability is more important than freedom.
This is the return to the compressed personality.
A person tired of complexity may begin to desire not development, but simplification. Not freedom, but instruction. Not an open world, but a protected wall. Not the right to choose, but the feeling that everything has already been decided for them. This is why a closed system can seem attractive not only to those who were born inside it, but also to those who are tired of the open world.
Modern Russia shows elements of this request. After the departure of Western companies and restrictions on cards and flights, part of society does not form a strong mass demand to return openness. According to Levada Center data from February 2025, only 20% of respondents were concerned about the departure of a number of Western companies and the inability to pay with Russian cards abroad, while restrictions on flights by Western airlines concerned 18%. This does not prove happiness, but it shows adaptation to the narrowing of the world.
This is where the danger lies. When a person gets used to a reduced world, they may begin to defend their own reduction. They may say: “we are fine as we are”, “at least it is stable”, “at least it is ours”, “at least there is no chaos”, “at least the state is strong”. But behind these words there often stands not strength, but a refusal of the horizon.
Thus North Korea, the USSR and modern Russian nostalgia converge in one mechanism: a closed system first reduces choice, then reduces demand, then reduces happiness, and then a person begins to defend this reduced world as the norm.
Small happiness and the great trap
The most dangerous trap of a closed system is that it does not always look like constant suffering. If a person suffered every second and had no joys at all, the system would collapse faster. But life is more complex. Even inside unfreedom, people love. Even inside poverty, people laugh. Even inside fear, people celebrate. Even inside scarcity, people share. Even inside control, people find warmth.
This is exactly why it is wrong to say primitively: “everyone there is unhappy”. Such a phrase is inaccurate. It is more correct to say otherwise: real human joys can exist there, but the system itself makes these joys small, dependent and politically safe.
Family can be real. Love can be real. A smile can be real. Joy from food can be real. But this does not justify a system that has brought a person to joy from the minimum.
If a prisoner rejoices in a ray of sunlight, this does not justify the prison. If a hungry person rejoices in bread, this does not justify hunger. If a person rejoices that today they were not punished, this does not prove the justice of the order.
A closed system appropriates the human ability to survive and presents it as proof of its own correctness. It shows the smile of a person, but hides the conditions in which that smile appeared. It shows gratitude for the minimum, but does not show that it had itself lowered the norm of life to that minimum in advance.
Happiness without a horizon does not create development
Development requires demand for more. Not only for more food, but also for quality of life, knowledge, technologies, freedom, security, law, private initiative, independent decisions, a normal economy and the future.
Happiness compressed to the minimum does not create such demand. If a person is happy with a handful of rice, they do not demand a modern economy. If they are happy with the absence of punishment, they do not demand an independent court. If they are happy with permission, they do not demand rights. If they are happy with a stable ration, they do not demand a market. If they are happy with silence, they do not demand freedom of speech.
This is where the political value of small happiness lies. It extinguishes development.
Open system
An open system is dangerous for power because personality constantly expands demand. A person receives one thing and begins to demand another. Receives food and demands quality. Receives work and demands decent pay. Receives the internet and demands information. Receives information and demands the right to choose. Receives the right to choose and demands political influence.
Closed system
A closed system blocks this growth at an early stage. It keeps personality close to basic survival. Then demand does not rise above the safe level. A person does not turn into a citizen with a broad demand for the future. They remain a person who only wants to survive today without deterioration.
This is exactly why the struggle for information in North Korea is so important. For the regime, a foreign broadcast, someone else’s film, an external story or an accidental recording is dangerous not as entertainment. It is dangerous as a new scale of comparison. It shows a person that their minimum is not the norm. And when the minimum ceases to be perceived as the norm, the system loses its main instrument of internal control.
True happiness requires the right to compare
True happiness cannot be proven by a smile at a parade. It cannot be proven by a slogan. It cannot be proven by gratitude for a ration. It cannot be proven by the fact that a person has become used to their life.
True happiness requires the right to compare. A person must have the right to see another world, read another book, hear another piece of news, speak with a foreigner, leave, return, say that they feel bad, say that power is wrong, refuse a ritual, not be grateful for the minimum and desire more without fear of punishment.
If all of this is absent, happiness can exist only in a reduced form. It can be domestic, familial, cautious, small and hidden. But it does not become a full life.
Happiness without choice does not disappear completely, but it loses scale. A person can be happy inside a cage, but this does not make the cage normal. A person can get used to little, but this does not make little sufficient. A person can rejoice in rice, but this does not cancel the question of why their world was compressed to that handful.
The main deception of a closed system
The main deception of a closed system is not only that it lies to people. Lying is too simple an explanation. Something else goes much deeper: the system changes the norm itself.
It creates a person who does not merely hear lies, but begins to live inside an altered vocabulary. They may not feel deceived, because another language is inaccessible to them. They may not consider their life humiliation, because they have never seen the norm in which this humiliation would become obvious.
In this sense, North Korea shows the extreme form of managing personality. First information is compressed. Then comparison is compressed. Then choice is compressed. Then demand is compressed. Then happiness is compressed. Then the minimum is declared the norm. Then gratitude for the minimum is declared proof of the system’s correctness.
In this way, the state buys silence not only with fear, but also with reduced happiness. The extra handful of rice becomes not just food. It becomes the price of silence, the confirmation of dependence and a symbol of how low human norms can be brought if personality, language, information and choice are controlled for a long time.
Conclusion
The people of North Korea can be happy. But this happiness cannot be understood by the ordinary measure of a free society.
They can rejoice sincerely. They can love, laugh, celebrate, care for family, be grateful for food, feel relief and consider a good day a real gift. But in a closed system, all of this takes place inside an artificially reduced world.
The state does not simply restrict the person. It reduces their horizon. It changes the vocabulary. It turns survival into happiness, obedience into patriotism, fear into discipline, scarcity into the norm, and an extra handful of rice into proof of care.
In the logic of the Basic Law of Political Economy, the mechanism looks extremely clear:
Personality → Behavior → Choice → Demand → Money
Whoever controls personality controls behavior. Whoever controls behavior controls choice. Whoever controls choice controls demand. Whoever controls demand controls the economy of life.
North Korea shows the extreme version of this logic. There, happiness does not disappear completely. It is compressed. It sinks to the bottom. It becomes the joy that today is not worse than yesterday.
This is exactly why a handful of rice above the norm is not proof of the happiness of a country. It is proof that the state has managed to reduce the human norm to the level of survival.
True happiness presupposes choice, horizon and awareness of an alternative. If all of this is absent, a person can be happy as a living being capable of rejoicing in little. But they are deprived of happiness as a free personality capable of choosing their own life.
Iv.Spolan
Author of the model “Basic Law of Political Economy”
