North Korea is a completely different kind of society than, say, Vietnam or China. I lived in China for eight years, have a granddaughter there, traveled all over. Today China is a consumer society where you can buy just about anything, have tremendous choice of brands, and buy over the internet or at stores. Many people pay for items without cash or a credit card — they just swipe their phones. Of course the average per capital standard of living is still maybe only a quarter or a third of what it is here in the U.S., but real wages there are rising steadily, or at least were until Covid-19 struck.