If the defense for a NK-style society is that it "at least benefits the working class" I suppose even trickle-down isn't that bad.. whether class exists as a concept or not means nothing if you have to live like in NK..

The truth is that as long as you have a structure that allows a group of people to control and steer society - be it a "Proletarian dictatorship designed to benefit the workers" or otherwise - those people are gonna shape it in a way where it benefits themselves. It's a reasonable assessment that the main issue of the Soviet Union was Stalin's insanity and forcing certain policies (collectivisation) too fast, but the truth of the matter is that a new class simply emerged: the political, the ones that might not be traditionally rich but benefit in other ways. The working class was never the main beneficiary of the Soviet Union.. at the end of a day a dictatorship is just a dictatorship and it's never for the people. I'm in no way against socialism or enacting various socialist or socialist-adjacent fiscal policies but that doesn't mean that all just magically become good when the working class dubiously "benefits".

And how much has those same parameters improved in capitalist societies? China didn't become rich and influential until they started transitioning into s capitalist class society. No shit that working class conditions improved compared to (almost) literally being serfs