Comrades & Capitalists
Rigidly Communist North Korea is starting to allow just a bit of economic freedom
And yet, the growing split between haves and have-nots has not generated any organized opposition, say visitors to the North. Informers and state security services see to that. Watching videotapes of South Korean TV soap operas has become popular--but remains illegal. Police, according to several accounts, have taken to shutting off the power to apartment buildings at night to search for contraband videos; they go apartment-to-apartment, looking for VCR s with tapes trapped by the cutoff of electricity. The unlucky can expect prison time.
The first taste of capitalism hasn't loosened Kim's iron grip yet, but it might over time. "North Koreans now pay attention to the market, to making money. The object of loyalty changes," says Suh Jae Jean of the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul. That sort of change may not satisfy hawks in Washington, but a North Korea focused on making money instead of bombs is certainly something worth pushing for.
With Giovanni Porzio
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