Hardly a drop of blood was spilt. They wanted the necessities of modern life that under communism were treated as luxuries. They wanted to be recognised not only as citizens, but also as consumers. They voted for Havel, the dissident intellectual, as president to symbolise their idealism, but for Vaclav Klaus, a tough-minded disciple of Margaret Thatcher, to run their government. In short, after 40 years of communist austerity, the Czechs wanted capitalism.
Many people have legitimate concerns about globalisation.
There are no economic limits to globalisation, but there are cultural ones. And the poorest regions of the world, mostly impoverished by one form of socialism or another, may need aid and loans during their inescapable transition to the market economy and free trade. That is precisely what the IMF and especially the World Bank are for. The opprobrium these institutions attract is directly proportional to the growth in global prosperity. Only the rich can afford to be masochists.