Struggling With the Politics of ‘Freedom’

They came by the tens of thousands. Toting chairs, bedding, portable radios and umbrellas, they turned the long wait for tickets into an encampment.

Scalpers roamed their ranks. Gang members killed two men in a battle over their place in line.

Later, in a jam-packed sports stadium, two more people died and 20 were injured in frenzied panic.

Guns N’ Roses concert? Soccer hooliganism?

Nope. Aspiring traders, hoping to buy tickets that would let them enter a lottery to buy stock in the new, not-so-red China.

Now that much of America’s political and economic campaign chatter is over, magazinedom has turned its attention to places where folks are just beginning to toy with economic and/or political freedom.

American democracy looks pretty good in comparison.

The Dec. 14 issue of The Nation is devoted exclusively to Orville Schell’s story on China’s evolving market economy, while Time and U.S. News & World Report take rather grim looks at Russia’s wobbly waltz with democracy.

China has been dabbling in a market economy for years. But things really got going last winter when China’s 87-year-old “paramount leader” Deng Xiaoping saw the light, Schell says.

“In order to make socialism superior to capitalism, we must boldly take heed of and absorb all the accomplishments of civilization that the human race has achieved,” Deng proclaimed.

With or without Beijing’s approval, boosters opened stock exchanges in Chinese cities. Financial columns, radio shows, hot lines and special saloons for investors flourished. Metals and commodities exchanges followed.

But, Schell says, China’s political structure is ill-equipped to deal with “the reckless pace of economic reform that Deng unleashed.”

One Chinese columnist, however, took a more casual approach to his nation’s new economic casino: “China’s stock market won’t truly be mature until a few people have jumped out of window.”

So far, no one has. But one investor did hang himself, and another electrocuted himself after the market took brief dives.

In Russia, meanwhile, “real democracy, however primitive and messy,” has arrived, Time’s Strobe Talbott says in the Dec. 7 special report. That, he says, is a miracle: “But it is a miracle wrapped in danger inside a dilemma.”

Talbott’s piece is essentially an advisory to his friend, President-elect Clinton. It is well-reasoned but may leave readers wondering why they were included in this discussion. Talbott--rumored to be up for a Clinton appointment--presumably could have had such a chat with his pal over a glass of beer or on the phone.

Overall, Time’s package is excellent, despite such distractions as a numbingly complicated chart that tracks economic and political progress in the new republics.

There’s not much good news, though--for Russians or Yankees.

The article on Russia’s potential military conversion makes the United States’ job losses to defense cutbacks seem small; a piece on the hard-liners who would turn back the forces of democratization is worrisome; the story on the former Soviet Union’s widespread nuclear contamination is chilling.

Most moving, though, is a chronology of photos--”Death of the Dream”--that juxtaposes images from Russia in 1992 with shots from the Soviet Union’s hopeful early days, including the extraordinary cover shot of women with rakes.

U.S. News is less comprehensive, less optimistic in its Dec. 7 package of articles. While Time’s Talbott encourages Clinton to give Boris Yeltsin day-to-day support, U.S. News quotes an International Monetary Fund official who says: “It’s a misconception that foreign aid and advice are the critical ingredients in the success of Russia’s reform effort.”

Finally, U.S. News subjects the fledgling democracy to that drip torture of American politics, the opinion poll. Besides those annoying approval rating type questions--”Do you have more or less confidence and trust in Yeltsin now than you did a year ago?”--there was this one:

How much trust do you have in the Russian government?

Full trust or basic trust: 31%

Little trust or no trust at all: 65%

REQUIRED READING

They used to say such things as “make love not war.”

But liberal baby boomers have a new slogan: “We don’t want to sacrifice our children to political principles.”

Is that what Bill and Hillary will say next month when deciding which D.C. school Chelsea will attend?

(Or will Chelsea choose her new school freely, unencumbered by oppressive parental intervention?)

December’s Washington Monthly advises the new First Family to go public, arguing that doing so will give a huge moral boost to an education system in crisis.

Like most well-to-do folks discussing the dilemma, Deborah Fallows seems oblivious to her article’s casually elitist tone; she seems unaware that some readers will be as likely to relate to the Clintons’ choice of schools as to their choice of whether to vacation at Camp David or at a Summerland, Calif., beachfront mansion.

But the piece makes good points. And maybe this is, as Fallows says, a chance “to build a Peace Corps-like zeal about public schools.”

* Senior Editor Mickey Kaus is a bit higher on the New Republic’s masthead than Contributing Editor Robert Reich. But Kaus served under Reich for a time at the Federal Trade Commission, and Kaus admits to a bit of “writerly envy” of the author and Harvard instructor, whom Bill Clinton picked to run his economic transition team.

In an essay in the Dec. 7 issue of The New Republic, Kaus calls Reich “America’s premier policy hustler” and chides him for theoretical fickleness, for sometimes getting his facts wrong, and for dubious debate tactics, among other alleged flaws.

But he does concede that the Rhodes scholar whom Clinton befriended on a slow boat to England is a “gifted conciliator.”

MAGAZINE VERSUS MAGAZINE

The Harper’s Index is such a cool idea that it has spawned all sorts of imitators.

But the insincerest form of flattery is parody, and Dec. 7’s The New Republic nails its fellow publication with a fine spoof in its “Carper’s Index.”

The portentous statistical juxtapositions and non-factual non sequiturs are amusing:

Average life expectancy of an asbestos miner, in years: 57.

Current age of Ronald Reagan: 81.

Other Examples:

Percentage of statistics on this page that are numbingly obvious: 61.

Percentage that are naggingly polemical: 39.

NEW ON NEWSSTANDS

According to the latest census, 7.3 million people of Asian ancestry live in the United States. A lot of them are young and eager for a new publication, say the folks at 2nd Generation, which is just that.

The tabloid-sized monthly has a friendly, informative tone, and the progressive agenda of “building bridges between generations” and between cultures, according to the premiere editorial statement.

The first issue contains straight-ahead discussions of complex racial and cultural issues, including Korean-Black relations in Los Angeles.

You’d think editors would have caught the oft-repeated mistake that the jury in the Rodney King beating case was “all-white,” when in fact it included a Latina and an Asian - American. But otherwise, the discussion is excellent.

Other, more personal touches include a touching letter by a young woman named Kyoung Kim to her former teacher:

“I took up so much of your spare time after class, before classes and even during class. But you did not care about time, only me. . . .”

($19 for 12 issues, New York Asian News Inc., 145 West 28th St., New York, N.Y. 10001, (212) 662-7237.)

ESOTERICA

India Currents is a monthly magazine aimed at California’s large East Indian population.

A recent issue features news stories about events in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal; articles on travel and Indian music, dance and art; a calendar of events; a crossword; fiction, and a piece on Artesia’s booming “Little India.”

Professionally written and edited on newsprint, with Northern and Southern California editions, this would seem to be essential reading for Indian expatriates.

($9.95 a year, P.O. Box 21285, San Jose, Calif. 95151; (714) 523-8788).