Editor’s note: This article is the first in a two-part series on what newly revealed North Korean laws reveal about the future of DPRK economic policy.

North Korea is not a market economy, but it does play host to a capitalist system all the same, with many different types of market-oriented state firms. Some of these firms and their operations are legal and preapproved, and their output is sold at near-market prices within bounds set by the state.

But much of what they do — though it might be good for their workers, consumers and