Which Korea is better, North or South?
So the North Korea vs South Korea question is one with interesting cleavages. There's a term floating around,
Hell Joseon that speaks to the unhappy feelings many have towards quality of life in South Korea. The South, it is true, isn't some haven with a flattened hierarchy or completely equal outcomes for everyone, but such outcomes are very difficult to sustainably produce in the best of times. Imo it's not fair to hold either Korea to such a standard then. Obviously both Koreas have problems, even if saying they have to the exact same problems would be hugely oversimplifying.
I must admit I can't completely escape some negative feelings towards how Korea views its past. I'm most immersed in the Japanese side of things (I know quite a few Japanese people when counting both IRL and on Internet) and find the whole East Sea controversy silly. I can't respect Korean wishes on some of these controversies. I cannot claim complete neutrality. However, I do recognize that Korea is a post-colonial entity and thinks as such, and trashing them too heavily for that is not in the best of taste. I want Korea and Japan to just get along.
In any case, both Koreas broadly lost what the Japanese built** in the Korean War. The North sought to build up what it once had though Communist ideology and at first they were far more successful. The South had a far rougher start and though it got its compensation from Japan for the colonial past it chose to invest that in industry rather than compensating victims directly. The South had very far-minded leadership, for better or worse, most interested in the long game. My grandpa actually worked for South Korean firms and he said they meticulously copied the methods of Japanese firms they did business with. The results of that are well-known and the country is far wealthier than it was in 1950, even 1970. While wealthier does not always mean better, government looking at long-term development like that (a trend that continued after the 1980s) is one that deserves a higher assessment for having done so, as it is creating results for its people in outcome, no matter the process.
The North in general suffers from the same limitations that its better starting point gave it. The South was absolutely wrecked and the North was in a better spot in 1953 as it had both mineral resources and quite a bit of Soviet aid ready for it, while being less damaged from the war in general. This meant it was a better place to live in the first two or so decades and it prospered. However, this lack of need for complete reinvention also hurt North Korea because necessity is the mother of invention and Soviet help wouldn't be there forever. The North was more broadly traditional, to the point it even instituted the songbun system (which reflects a communist focus on turning class structures upside down). The South while also being strongly traditional (though not as much) was forced to change more due to having so much of what it had from the destruction of the Korean War.
Both Koreas take great pride in their culture, a result of outside intervention and being under the control of others. We see this in South Korea taking active steps to promote themselves globally while the more assured Japanese let things happen naturally, something we see in the music industry. While the North could sit relatively comfortably on mineral riches and generous Soviet support, and the Japanese could benefit from being America's unsinkable aircraft carrier and the fact the US position would be destroyed if it fell to communism, meaning we invested in Japan and stabilized it mightily. The South had neither of these things on remotely the same level.
It's no accident that as South Korea emerged on the world stage as stronger than ever heading into the early 1990s, the North, losing the support from the Soviets it was used to having, fell into famine, as it was simply unable to provide for all its people and couldn't handle the collapse of the bloc it was a part of. North Korea was at its nadir vs South Korea then. The South meanwhile was far more hurt in 1997 while the North as far as I'm aware was hardly hurt by the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. Similar reasons to why the the Soviet Union was hardly hurt by the early 1930s recession: it had a focus on autarky. The 1990s show the best and the worst of North Korea being an isolated hermit kingdom can produce.
More generally the two Koreas are both entities building off a post-Japanese colonial era foundation and they have more in common than most realize. They both have great pride in their culture and they both have a strong nation-building ethos in accordance with this. They both remain greatly aware of 20th century history and they both have highly formalized social hierarchy that takes different forms but remains similar in attitude. And those structures are also weaker than they were two or three decades ago as well (songbun becoming less important being a sign of this). It's important not to overstate this weakening though, as SKY* universities all remain hugely prestigious in South Korea from what I've heard. The rigidity of the current social values is itself, similarly to the SKY universities, also an inheritance from the past. Korea continues to be the most rigidly Confucianist society, and both Koreas reflect this very well. Personally I like the Confucionist understanding of society on net, most heavily because I've always been duty-mindful and Confucianism talks a lot about duty to others (family, etc). However I disapprove of it being taken so far as to be without real moderating elements. Japan and China (both of them) are both reflective of more moderate versions of it.
To answer the question of which one I prefer, it would have to reflect where they are different. North Korea is close to age old Korean tradition while the South reflects modern hyper capitalism, as Park sought to produce big companies that would hold up the country's economic strength (again, a contrast from Japan which didn't privilege big firms over small ones or which rebuilt itself in a way that was singularly favoring any single player in the ecosystem). The South does punch above its weight in big multinationals and there's a decent chance that most people reading this post will have done so from a South Korean-linked phone. The South also has a stronger creative scene than the North, as the hyper-capitalism has a significant oppositional current. I've grown a bit less pro-market than I used to and the spirit of that stuff connects to me on some level even if I don't like what I see on some occasions. The South's vivid creative scene reflects the pressures created by modern society.
I don't like unchecked hyper capitalism as seen in the South (resulting in things like the ferry disaster in 2014...being a corporate Republic carries its own penalties), or the sheer uber traditionalist order culture North Korea has produced. But the current South Korean cultural scene and the exploring of themes it produces (Train to Busan, etc) and also the egalitarianistic spirit within a Confucianistic framework that the population has, gives the South a clear advantage that the North cannot muster anything good enough in turn to overturn. It feels most in tune with my tradition-minded and responsibility-minded way of thinking about the world, and if I lived in South Korea I'd probably love the rural life in particular. Though, regardless of this, North Korean people probably have great insights on some things thanks to the particular conditions they live in, that neither most in our Western civilization, nor their brothers in the South, would be able to understand or comprehend because of what they take for granted.
Also, apologies for having left you waiting so long.
*=Seoul University, Korea University, Yonsei University. All inheritances from the Japanese colonial era and all hugely prestigious institutions in the highly academically and intellectually inclined society South Korea is.
**=In general nations who repurpose their post colonial era inheritances do better than those that destroy them, whether in warfare or anything else. See: India keeping British civil service vs Uganda kicking out its Asians
