Capitalism and Communism Look Equally Bad in Prague
September 27th, 2000By Naomi Klein What seems to most enrage the delegates to the meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Prague this week is the idea that they even have to discuss the basic benefits of free-market globalization. That discussion was supposed to have stopped in 1989, when the Wall fell and history ended. Only here they all areold people, young people, thousands of themliterally storming the barricades of their extremely important summit. And as the delegates peer over the side of their ill-protected fortress at the crowds below, scanning signs that say "Capitalism Kills," they look terribly confused. Didn't these strange people get the memo? Don't they understand that we all already decided that free-market capitalism was the last, best system? Sure, it's not perfect, and everyone inside the meeting is awfully concerned about all those poor people and the environmental mess, but it's not like there's a choiceis there? For the longest time, it seemed as if there were only two political models: Western capitalism and Soviet communism. When the USSR collapsed, that left only one alternative, or so it seemed. Institutions like the World Bank and IMF have been busily "adjusting" economies...