Guilty of capitalism

You know what really strikes fear into the heart of the North Korean government? Capitalism:

North Korea's infamous penal system, which for decades has silenced political dissent with slave labor camps, has evolved into a mechanism for extorting money from citizens trading in private markets, according to surveys of more than 1,600 North Korean refugees.

Reacting to an explosive rise in market activity, North Korea has criminalized everyday market behavior and created a new kind of gulag for those it deems economic criminals, according to a report on the refugee surveys.

...Markets, though, have weakened state influence over daily life, while offering new ways to make money in careers that are not under the control of the government. To rein this in, the government has come up with a matrix of laws that criminalize everyday market behavior, the report says.

A couple of points:

• Pyongyang is quite correct to be scared of independent economic activity. A free people and free markets are inextricably linked.

• Given North Korea's hatred and fear of the free market, why do we seek to punish them with the use of economic sanctions, which simply aid and abet their repression of capitalism?