A few countries have done relatively well in responding to COVID-19, and they all approach health care and public health very differently from the United States, even if their economies are capitalist. I focus now on one of those countries that I know best: South Korea. I then move the focus to that other mysterious, noncapitalist country on the same peninsula: North Korea.
Read MoreGangnam is the beating heart of South Korean capitalism and in a country that South Koreans sometimes wryfully call “Samsung Korea,” Samsung’s massive skyscraper complex is, naturally, at its center. Beneath the shade of its towers in the middle of a Gangnam intersection one worker stands on top of a CCTV tower, defiant, for over 250 days. Another sits inside an occupation tent.
Read MorePreviously, in Nov. of 2018, the South Korean constitutional course ruled that a conscientious objector must be provided with an alternative form for fulfilling their military service.