> If
> Korea ends up being unified on terms dictated by the powerful South, as
> Germany was by the West, I think conditions in the North will probably
> deteriorate for workers and women, just as they have in Eastern Germany.
Where are you getting your information from? Per capita living standards have gone way up in the ex-GDR, from maybe 30% of the FRG to 67%. That's not the same thing as happiness, of course, but judged on the basis of food, goods, access to high-tech health care, improved environmental standards, etc. there have been positive changes for the good burghers of Dresden and Leipzig. This didn't happen because of capitalism, of course, but because of good old-fashioned social democracy and welfare handouts.
South Korea is becoming a high-tech economy; North Korea can't feed itself. 'Nuff said.
-- Dennis