Reposting the top comment of this thread which is really good: https://www.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/ahvu9h/is_north_korea_a_hereditary_dictatorship/

The fact is that Kim Jong-Un, and his father, and his grandfather, do not and did not hold the highest positions of power in the government. The de facto head of state in the D.P.R.K is currently Kim Young-Nam, who has held this position since 1998. The current position of Kim Jong-Un is as you said, as he previously held the position of Chairman of the National Defense Commission, which was altered in 2016 to better reflect the situation at hand with better organisation. Kim Il-Sung held the positions of Premier and President of the Presidium for a long time, though he did retire from the latter in 1983, being succeeded by Yang Hyong-Sop; this is unsurprising, as Kim Il-Sung was a incredibly competent and well-respected leader, and especially so among his own people. The fact is, influential positions have become more decentralised with each generation, as the power of the state becomes more distributed among the proletariat and in accordance with society, in a rather natural way that may, hopefully, lead to a complete withering way of the state in future, as other aspects, too, decline, assuming a defeat of capitalist powers simultaneously with the existence of the D.P.R.K.

Allegedly, Kim Il-Sung did suggest Kim Jong-Il succeed him, because Jong-Il had been instilled with a revolutionary ideology for his entire life. The rest of the party and the people are said to have agreed with this - through their usual discussions, one would assume - and so, Kim Jong-Il succeeded his father in some positions, whilst others were removed, split up and redistributed, or reassigned. That is why there is no longer a President of the D.P.R.K: The position was no longer necessary, and equivalent powers were to be divided among multiple roles.

On your point of their democracy: The decision of whom is elected is not done so with the ballot. The voting is done through open discussions prior to the ballot, comparable to the Soviet design, which could also be seen in Libya to some degree. After a common consensus is met through these periods of discussion, the vote is cast as a confirmation of this selection, hence the lack of negative votes for candidates; democratic centralism requires unity, after all, and so does a socialist state. You can find many posts here that touch on the matter. I recommend this for some more information.

So, in short: The D.P.R.K is not a hereditary dictatorship, with power being decentralised through successive generations, and the election of officials are made through common consensus as decided by mass discussions.

Hopefully that helps.

There are a couple different ways we could look at this.

Institutionally, there has been a general trend towards diffusion of power. Kim Il Sung was President, which like in the US, meant he was head of state, head of government, and commander in chief of the armed forces. After his death, those positions were split between multiple people.

From Wikipedia:

The functions and powers previously belonging to the president were divided between numerous officials:

The premier of North Korea;

the chairman of the Supreme People's Assembly, chairman of the Standing Committee of the Supreme People's Assembly;

and the head of the military, the chairman of the National Defence Commission (replaced by State Affairs Commission of North Korea) and supreme commander of the Korean People's Army.

These positions are currently held by Pak Thae-song, Choe Ryong-hae, and Kim Jong Un respectively.

[Reformatted for better legibility on Lemmy]

On the other hand, I would definitely consider the personality cult around the Kims to be a troublesome aspect of the DPRK's political culture, and I don't think there's really any way around that.

The reason it developed historically, however, is worth exploring. Prior to the Korean war, the Fatherland Front which made up the Revolution post WW2, was incredibly vibrant, with lots of parties and social cleavages outside of the Workers party being represented. After the Korean war, however, election results show a major rallying around the Workers Party, and the sidelining of other parties and organizations in the Fatherland Front.

The Korean war never truly ended, the US bombed the Korean peninsula so much that pilots complained there were no more targets, and people took to living in caves. So it's understandable why, despite ostensible attempts at diffusing power, that it's managed to centralize regardless. There's a historic desire for stability in the face of incredible adversity.

If we want to get really in the weeds about political economy, the DPRK's economic base is made up primarily of extractive industries, like mining, because the Korean peninsula's bread basket is in the south, and countries with primarily extractive industries tend to develop noted centralized power structures, compared to countries with more diverse productive industries.

So a Socialist country like Cuba, which has a more agricultural economy, allowed it to develop a more diverse economy, and thus it has a healthier political culture, by contrast.

All of that said, whatever qualms of critiques of the DPRK I may have, they had a Socialist Revolution, and have kept it going, which is more than I can say as a Socialist in the US.

And I think, if we care about the people of the Korean peninsula, we should want a formal end to the Korean war, a dismantling of the DMZ, an end to the US military presence and sanctions, and an internationally mediated set of talks between north and south, about what their future together might look like.

Those things would, I suspect, go a long way in helping establishing a healthier political culture in the DPRK, as well as dignified material benefits to its people, free from arbitrary restrictions

I appreciate the thorough replies from both you and @OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml

I guess the gist is that on paper the Kims are not the absolute ruling family in the DPRK. It just seems that way from the outside due to the veneration they have among their people. Every western power really does seem to think Kim Jong Un is fully the head of state there. So its hard to not think the truth is somewhere in between.

Even if they really are legitimately elected. The whole concept of a family lineage of power makes me uncomfortable. I feel the same way about the Kennedys, Bushs, Clintons, etc.

ayyyuh is it's a bit of a fixer uppah. what are you? some kind of health inspector?

and out, that's really the key problem, we don't know shit about it, because literally propoganda is all we have. China at least we have some level of communication and shared dialog between regular american citizens and regular american chinese citizens.