BECAUSE THEY HAVEN'T ALL ACCEPTED THE eND OF hISTORY:

After World War II, the Korean peninsula was, of course, partitioned between South and North Korea. The two countries share similar geography, so the miracle in South Korea and the utter lack of one in North Korea cannot be attributed to their endowment of minerals or physical access to foreign markets. They have a shared language and culture, so it is hard to say that there was something unique about the South Korean culture or history that prompted the miracle there (or halted it in North Korea). They both were left devastated and poor by the Korean War.

What's left as an explanation is that the set of institutions governing economic activity in the two countries were distinct after 1953. The North adopted a communist ideology and built a set of economic institutions around it. We can see the results of that today. North Korea has failed, by any plausible metric, to advance economically. In addition to the lack of individual freedom, living standards are among the worst in the world, and North Korea continues to suffer from recurring issues such as famine that advanced economies like South Korea left behind years ago.

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