ROBERT HEINLEIN CALLED IT: North Korea’s Propagandists Bemoan “Bad Luck.”

North Korea’s state news agencies are warning that the country is suffering from a severe drought that threatens crop production, raising fears of a repeat of the 1990s famine whose victims are estimated to have been in the millions. . . .

North Korea’s ills aren’t bad luck. When societies don’t govern themselves well, the conditions aren’t right for the people who could think through an issue like how to manage mass industrial farming. The Kim regime is so repressive that it makes the emergence of effective institutions and or individual problem solvers impossible. The North Korean would-be geniuses are mostly in gulags or starving or marching in a military parade.

Another hungry year for hard-pressed and often undernourished North Korean people will be a true disaster. Yet we predict that the suffering among ordinary people won’t slow down North Korea’s nuke program or force any cutbacks in Kim Jong-un’s lifestyle.

Heinlein was a very smart man. I’m glad to see that quote of his getting around.