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Notes -
North Korea has a substantially worse quality of life than Palestine (West Bank or even Gaza when not being invaded), less food, fewer consumer goods, higher rate of famine etc. Niger is indeed still poorer. As you say estimating things like median income in NK is kind of dumb, but quality of life does provide an indicator and extensive, regular bouts of starvation since the 1990s suggest an extraordinarily inefficient economy and impoverished society, especially outside Pyongyang.
That said, I agree completely that you can’t really translate these costs in a communist economy, this was also the mistake Western economists made when they underestimated by a huge amount just how poor the USSR was.
The Soviet Union wasn't that poor all things considered, it just allocated a very high proportion of resources to military development. 10-15% of GDP was tied up in armaments, 10-15% of the labour force IIRC. North Korea is similarly focused on military power at the expense of civilian goods. But military goods are still valuable.
North Korea has a life expectancy of 72, Palestine was apparently at 74, so I'd agree that Palestine has a higher quality of life. Having access to the internet is also a good thing! Yet North Korea is an advanced economy, it's not like most African countries where the government runs off mining rent, totally bereft of industry. The total GDP of North Korea, not merely per capita, can't possibly be lower than Palestine as the official statistics say. The economy isn't a complete shambles - they had a lot of hunger recently due to COVID and shutting the border with China but that's really an external factor.
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