Oh God, the Kims. It's like having a whole family of Maos without the (little) sanity left.Agreed, though Juche appears to have really derailed North Korea despite it having some headstart over the South before the division. I understand the was really little industrial development in either part of Korea before 1950; what little was there tended to be in the North, so American investment really made a lot of difference in that case.
Plus, it's not talked about much, but North Korea had to start over from scratch after the Korean War. The American bombing was relentless; other than the heavily defended 'Mig Alley' , American bomber pilots were complaining they were running out of targets. There were barely any buildings that had two bricks on top of each other. South Korea may have been ravaged, but the North got flat-out wrecked. It's part of why the DPRK still holds a grudge against the Americans. They had a lot of rebuilding to do, and the South got a bigger check courtesy of Uncle Sam. And then the Kims slowly drove the country insane.