As summer winds down, I am working away on the section of my dissertation about post-socialism and the deindustrialization of Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic’s coal regions during the 1990s. I am continually struck by what a profound, personal change the transition to capitalism was for many people. How could you wrap your head around the intrinsic uncertainty of markets when you are plunged into them in adulthood? This cartoon, published in the newspaper Zdař bůh run by Ostrava’s coal mining labor union, really illustrates the whirlwind unthinkability of privatization:
The little girl is saying, “Grandpa, Grandpa, tell me a story.” Grandpa replies, “Which one, Mařenka, which one? The one about Silly Jack?” “No, Grandpa,” she replies, “the one about voucher privatization.”