Officially, North Korea is a state-socialist command economy that does not recognize private property and does not permit private enterprise beyond the household. Beneath the façade, however, markets are widespread, affecting the lives of almost every person in the country.

This book offers a pioneering look inside North Korea’s shadow economy, examining the social groups and government policies that shape the country’s market order. Andrei Lankov and Peter Ward trace how North Korean markets have emerged over the past forty years and analyze the state’s shifting strategies for exerting political control over economic activity. They survey four key sectors that are crucial to the daily survival of most North Koreans—farming, fisheries, household production and distribution, and animal husbandry—including both smaller-scale production and larger firms embedded within state structures. Lankov and Ward show how the interactions among entrepreneurs, local officials, and central government policy makers have led to the rise of a unique form of private economic activity.

Making Money in a Hostile State draws on a wide range of sources, such as original interviewees with North Korean escapees, defector memoirs, and official North Korean materials including leaked internal documents. Revealing how markets and entrepreneurship have become a crucial part of the North Korean economy, this book provides new insight into the survival of one of the world’s most repressive regimes.