Rationalizing the Guerilla State: North Korean factory management reform, 1953–61

This article examines the Taean Management System (TMS), a North Korean factory management reform program of 1961. Three factors explain why the TMS emerged at the time it did: first, influence from the Soviet Union and China since 1945 provided the knowledge of factory management; second, decreasing foreign aid since the mid-1950s urged the North Koreans to search for ways to increase productivity; and third, the rise of an ideology of self-reliance excluded the option of being integrated into the international economy. The resulting TMS, which arose at this juncture as an amalgam of rationalization and ideology, was the origin of modern management in North Korea.