Countries that Beat North Korea

Here's an academic article about imperialism in Korea, written by a Korean-American scholar I happen to work with, if you're interested: https://www.hamptonthink.org/read/from-stolen-land-to-riches-us-neo-colonialism-in-south-korea

Please don't interpret this as the usual internet activity of saying, "unless you read this long article I win the conversation." I genuinely just want to provide some info.

Also, I chose this article because a peer-reviewed, published academic article passes the rightfully rigorous standards of this site.

I'm not sure where you're getting that it's a peer-reviewed article. Looking it up on Google, the only thing that comes up is the link you posted, and nothing from a peer-reviewed, academic journal. The lack of other authors was also suspicious to me. I looked Riley Bove up and they (not sure of their pronouns) were an undergraduate when they wrote this article. There's almost no way that academic journals would accept articles from undergrads without permission from a supervisor/PI. As for the website it was published on, it's a far cry from a journal. The "About Us" section calls the website "proletarian" and "socialist," so it clearly has a political agenda. Finally, there were facts in the article that seemed inaccurate. It claimed North Korea set up its government without foreign intervention, but the Wikipedia page says it was the Soviets who put Kim Il-Sung in power, and it's pretty well known that the USSR propped up the North Korean economy until the former collapsed.

Also, while I agree that imperialism is a major factor in global poverty, it has nothing to do with North Korea's poverty or corruption. A UN report, based on accounts of defectors, talks about how the reason North Koreans are so poor is because all the money gets funneled to the government and military. People can't survive without bribing state-appointed officials, who are often very rich. The only way you could tie this back to the US is if the US funds the N. Korean government, which it doesn't.

Meanwhile, even the article you linked professes that the US gave tons of aid to the South. Even if the US supported some pretty brutal dictators, it clearly had a positive effect on the S. Korean economy. Today, S. Korea is more democratic and prosperous than N. Korea by far, thanks in part to the US. Blaming America or European powers or even Japan for North Korea's woes really doesn't make sense.

I would love it if the world just stopped recognizing North Korea. They aren't running the place like a country and thus don't deserve to be treated like one.

It is. What a chad move from Bhutan

Fair enough

Southernmost Korea

and Bhutan, who doesn't recognize either.