Atlas / Comparisons / Anarcho-Capitalism vs Juche

Anarcho-Capitalism and Juche

Measured distance across six axes

37.9 / 49.0 possible

Opposite ends of the recorded space. No axis places them within three points of each other. They diverge by eight points or more on EC, CU, AU, SC, ID.

Axis by axis

AxisRothbardKimilsungismGapReading
EC · Economic organisation+10−1020DivergesCarries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this.
CU · Social and cultural order+01+098DivergesCarries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this.
AU · Organisation of power−10+1020DivergesCarries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this.
SC · Scale of decision−10+1020DivergesCarries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this.
ID · Rule of membership−02+1012DivergesCarries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this.
CH · Method and tempo+03−025DiffersReal difference, but not the dividing line.

Each axis runs from −10 to +10; the distance is the straight-line separation across all six at once, out of a maximum of 49.0. How the scoring works →

The evidence behind the widest gaps

A distance figure is worth nothing unless the scores behind it can be checked. These are the artefacts supporting the axes that separate these two most.

Rothbard · EC +10

At the ceiling. Every function including law and defence is to be supplied by contract.

  • Programme textRothbard's For a New Liberty treats taxation as theft without qualification and proposes private courts and defence agencies.

Kimilsungism · EC −10

At the floor. State ownership of everything, with unofficial markets tolerated because the ration system failed.

  • ScholarshipThe public distribution system collapsed during the 1994–98 famine; jangmadang markets emerged and are now taxed rather than suppressed.

Rothbard · CU +01

Coded near neutral: the doctrine is silent on social order, holding that any arrangement may be contracted.

  • Programme textRothbard's framework derives all obligations from property and contract, with no substantive social prescription.

Kimilsungism · CU +09

At the traditional pole: a hereditary leader cult and a hierarchical social order with no autonomous association.

  • Programme textThe Ten Principles for the Establishment of the One-Ideology System govern private conduct including speech within families.

What this comparison does not establish

Proximity means similarity of stated position. It carries no claim about competence, circumstance, scale of operation, or what either organisation actually did to the people under it. Two organisations can sit close together and produce entirely different histories, because those things are not on any axis and could not be.

Anarcho-Capitalism

1970– · United States

All state functions including courts, police and defence should be supplied competitively on the market; taxation is theft.

Juche

1955– · North Korea

National self-reliance under a hereditary leader treated as the source of all social life; military-first priority.

Distance is not the whole answer. Two organisations can sit the same distance apart for entirely different reasons, and the reason is the content of any claim about them. Open the comparison in the atlas to weight the axes yourself.

Open in the atlas