the open society and its enemies
July 12, 2018 9:31 AM   Subscribe

"Soros is as comfortable with Wittgenstein as he is with Warren Buffett, which makes him a sui generis figure in American life, someone whose likes we will not see again for quite a while. He is extremely perceptive about the limits of markets and US power in both domestic and international contexts. He is, in short, among the best the meritocracy has produced. It is for this reason that Soros’s failures are so telling; - Daniel Bessner

Who's Afraid Of George Soros?
Soros declined an interview for this article, but a spokesperson for the Open Society Foundations, the main conduit for Soros’s philanthropic efforts, chalked up the backlash to his outspokenness. “He’s a man who stands up for his beliefs,” Laura Silber, a spokeswoman for the foundation, told FP. “That’s threatening when you’re speaking out against autocrats and corruption.”

Blame and hatred of Soros are, to borrow from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, a specter haunting Central and Eastern Europe. But how did an 87-year-old billionaire thousands of miles away become the region’s most famous ghost?
Under Attack by Far-right Gov't, Soros’ Open Society Foundations to Close Hungary Offices

The ironies of George Soros’s foundation leaving Budapest

The Capitalist Threat, George Soros, 1997
posted by the man of twists and turns (26 comments total) 20 users marked this as a favorite
 
Yeah like his failure to send me checks for protesting, or even to send me a dose of antifa supersoldier serum
posted by natteringnabob at 9:35 AM on July 12, 2018 [28 favorites]


The whole George Soros paying checks to protestors is absurd on the face of it. Anyone smart would make sure their people got paid in small, untraceable bills with nonsequential serial numbers.
posted by SansPoint at 9:48 AM on July 12, 2018 [5 favorites]


The more I read about Soros, the more I like and appreciate his worldview. He is deeply aware that the problem isn't capitalism... it's racism. It's racism which causes wars, it's racism which causes inequality, and while capitalism might not be the best solution, a borderless global arrangement of people tied together through mutual trade is a strong antidote to the attractive stench of populism.

I say this as a member of the DSA, by the way. Like many northern european countries, one can be a supporter of both socialism and capitalism at the same time. But I no longer believe that the root of all evil is money; it's racism.
posted by weed donkey at 10:01 AM on July 12, 2018 [22 favorites]


the absurdity of the Loud and Dumb Alt Right Case Against George Soros is high wide and very very deep. But we already know that, and it's not what this is about, certainly not the lead article:

While Soros recognized earlier than most the limits of hypercapitalism, his class position made him unable to advocate the root and branch—read: anti- or post-capitalist—reforms necessary to bring about the world he desires. The system that allows George Soros to accrue the wealth that he has has proven to be a system in which cosmopolitanism will never find a stable home.

and ...

But Soros had no program for how to modify American elites’ increasing hostility to forms of internationalism that did not serve their own military might or provide them with direct and visible economic benefits. This was a significant gap in Soros’s thought, especially given his insistence on the primacy of ideas in engendering historical change. Instead of thinking through this problem, however, he simply declared that “change would have to begin with a change of attitudes, which would be gradually translated into a change of policies.” Soros’s status as a member of the hyperelite and belief that, for all its hiccups, history was headed in the right direction made him unable to consider fully the ideological obstacles that stood in the way of his internationalism.

and so on ...
posted by philip-random at 10:03 AM on July 12, 2018 [3 favorites]


I would be curious what Soros would have to say about some of the stuff in the first article; it's a bit, um, interesting that in one paragraph they praise him as a unique intellectual in modern American life, but then in the next paragraph just blithely state that he's missed the staggeringly obvious truth that all his efforts are doomed because it's all about social class duh. Pity the poor sui generis intellectual with, we are told, his working knowledge of Popper and Wittgenstein and half-century of working towards pluralism; if only he'd called Mr Bessner first, he could have saved all that fruitless effort and just taken up yachting instead.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:09 AM on July 12, 2018 [9 favorites]


I spent some time at the Soros-funded Central European University in Budapest. It's in a great part of the city and has a fantastic library. My experience there always led me to think well of Soros. (I'm not a conspiracy theorist, so I admit that I don't think about him often.) I don't stan for billionaires, but this is just one more reason why I've been furious with Fidesz for years.

I'm going to dig into these later, but thanks for posting.
posted by grandiloquiet at 10:14 AM on July 12, 2018 [4 favorites]


Possibly of interest: last night, Soros's philanthropy hosted a panel discussion regarding whether the human rights movement made a terrible mistake over the past 40 years in failing to address the issue of economic equality.

https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/events/human-rights-movement-crisis

Aryeh Neier, the founder of Human Rights Watch and the former director of the philanthropy, tries (and, I think, fails) to make the case that the human rights movement should avoid the issue.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 10:29 AM on July 12, 2018 [4 favorites]


That's a funny juxtaposition - Popper and Wittgenstein, famously, did not get along.
posted by thelonius at 10:29 AM on July 12, 2018


I know the right finds Soros to be a favorite punching bag. That doesn't mean he's perfect or the savior of the left. Unfortunately, it seem's he's staggeringly sexist in at least one instance - threatening to take his toys and go home if Kirsten Gillibrand gets the Dem nomination in 2020. Maybe this has to do with his age, product of his time and all that, but I find Soros' views on #metoo troubling.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 10:31 AM on July 12, 2018 [7 favorites]


Soros is the Democratic Party of billionaires. Objectively bad for the world but but playing the role of good cop.
posted by Space Coyote at 10:33 AM on July 12, 2018 [10 favorites]


Trying to figure out why the right hates Soros is massive overthinking. He publicly pledged $100M to defeat Dubya in 2004, conservatives threw a massive conniption over it (I'm sure his being Jewish didn't hurt), and added a new enemy to the conspiracy theories and paranoid, self-aggrandizing fantasies that have been slowly replacing reality in the conservative worldview over the last fifty years. Same as ACORN. Antifa is undergoing the same process.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:37 AM on July 12, 2018 [10 favorites]


He is deeply aware that the problem isn't capitalism... it's racism. It's racism which causes wars, it's racism which causes inequality

By "racism" I assume you mean more broadly "us" and "them" (because it doesn't have to be about race)?
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 10:44 AM on July 12, 2018 [2 favorites]


He's the new Rothschild family and therefore a dogwhistle for anti-semitic conspiracy theorists, now that they're no longer prominent. That's really are there is to it. Overthinking conspiracy theories is a bad idea.
posted by Yowser at 10:48 AM on July 12, 2018 [15 favorites]


"meritocracy"
posted by zerolives at 11:01 AM on July 12, 2018 [5 favorites]


By "racism" I assume you mean more broadly "us" and "them" (because it doesn't have to be about race)?

Yes, and as Rosie M. Banks points out, Soros has a huge blind spot on sexism.

Something the last few years have made clear to me (both politically and generally): the big problems of the world are racism and sexism. Capitalism, wealth inequality, trade imbalances... these problems can not be solved until we have gender and race parity.

Over 70% of senior executives at companies are white men. We often look at these companies and say "capitalism is the problem", and ignore that the companies are being controlled by white men. As a society, we can't possibly know if the problem is capitalism or racism and sexism because we've never had the chance to see what capitalism would look like in a world of race and gender parity.
posted by weed donkey at 11:02 AM on July 12, 2018 [11 favorites]


And to be clear: "us" and "them" problems include ableism, homophobia, and all of the ways humans use to "other" someone else. I focus on racism and sexism, but I mean this all. I want a person with AIDS for president.
posted by weed donkey at 11:05 AM on July 12, 2018 [3 favorites]


But at heart Capitalism is never going to be able to bring around the sort of equality and openness Soros champions. It worked great as an alternative to mercantilism backed by aristocracy, but all it did was turn the wheel, to borrow from Danaerys Targaryen. The gains in general prosperity in the West were possible only because Capitalism was able to export its externalities and move the worst of its labor abuses out of sight. Capitalism has no inherent values beyond profit. Whether that profit can be made in the political context of democracy or authoritarianism makes no difference. We still find ourselves in a world where resources flow upward and pool among a small handful who then have nearly unlimited power over a society. In Capitalism, there is no mandate to engage in philanthropy, or even to tap the breaks upon accumulation of resources. Soros seems to believe that as long as most people have the basics and our billionaires treat us with noblesse oblige, that's an Open Society. It doesn't occur to a lot of pro-Capitalists that the State is far from the only source of oppression capable of creating a Closed Society. A Closed Society can also be one in which corporations have more rights that humans, say, or where we are constantly told that no alternatives to the existing system that continually fails most of the people are possible. Soros recognizes that Randian Free-Market Fundamentalism is a recipe for disaster, but doesn't see how his version of what I might call Capitalism with a Human Face (*sniff*) creates the same problems.

Capitalism's mechanisms shape the people who are subject to it. Much as Soros worried that authoritarianism created subjects unprepared for the work of democratic citizenship, Capitalism creates consumerism, atomization, and supports mental fallacies like the just-world perspective, or the equation of wealth with human value. All of these things tear at the humanitarian impulses that Soros attempts to employ to mitigate Capitalism's harms. It's good that he's starting to pay attention to inequality, but Capitalism is a pretty bad tool to use if one wants to correct inequality, since creating that dynamic in the first place is the sole function of Capitalism. In a truly free society there wouldn't be billionaires at all, because it would be impossible for any one person to hoard that much money.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 11:52 AM on July 12, 2018 [25 favorites]


It's racism which causes wars, it's racism which causes inequality, and while capitalism might not be the best solution, a borderless global arrangement of people tied together through mutual trade is a strong antidote to the attractive stench of populism.

I mean, you're not wrong in that racism is mostly at the root of today's revanchist swing. Witness the mythical beleaguered Trump voter who in actual fact is way more likely to live in a gated suburb than a trailer park. Economics isn't really what's behind their animus toward minorities. Racism is a handy enforcement tool for Capitalism, but I don't believe that a society that was somehow able to practice Capitalism without racism would be a society that creates equality.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 12:05 PM on July 12, 2018 [11 favorites]



Something the last few years have made clear to me (both politically and generally): the big problems of the world are racism and sexism. Capitalism, wealth inequality, trade imbalances... these problems can not be solved until we have gender and race parity.

Over 70% of senior executives at companies are white men. We often look at these companies and say "capitalism is the problem", and ignore that the companies are being controlled by white men. As a society, we can't possibly know if the problem is capitalism or racism and sexism because we've never had the chance to see what capitalism would look like in a world of race and gender parity.


we know what capitalism looks like with POC and women management and 1%ers - serious terrible issues to do with racism and sexism get addressed, and probably companies are run more equitably.

but the fundamental problems with capitalism? do we think there will be an inflection point when representation at high levels. gets above a certain point .......that its inherent contradictions - relying on infinite growth and externalities destroying the world for future generations - will somehow be resolved?

when the titanic is sinking and the white men are at the top of the ship and POC/women are in steerage, sure, get some diversity in survivors for raw justice's sake....but the more important idea is to stop the ship from sinking. hint: the titanic is the world.

capitalism run by diverse people is a bandaid for the world's problems. we need some stronger medicine than that.
posted by lalochezia at 12:12 PM on July 12, 2018 [16 favorites]


Guess I should have read that last link first. It appears most of the points I made above are all there, except his answer seems to be that we need everyone to agree that a pluralistic Open Society is our guiding value and we're all going to organize ourselves according to reason and logic. How exactly do we make that happen? Especially now when the world looks a lot more like the one predicted by Marx than any Enlightenment Rationalist?

In the meantime, enjoy these weirdly prescient quotes:

"It is enough to consider the free world's failure to extend a helping hand after the collapse of communism. The system of robber capitalism that has taken hold in Russia is so iniquitous that people may well turn to a charismatic leader promising national revival at the cost of civil liberties."

"In many parts of the world control of the state is so closely associated with the creation of private wealth that one might speak of robber capitalism, or the "gangster state," as a new threat to the open society."
posted by Kitty Stardust at 12:48 PM on July 12, 2018 [5 favorites]


I say this as a member of the DSA, by the way. Like many northern european countries, one can be a supporter of both socialism and capitalism at the same time.

Not to be that guy but - plenty of people would debate whether Nordic social democracy is "socialism". It's better than what we've got now, though!
posted by atoxyl at 3:21 PM on July 12, 2018 [1 favorite]


One really doesn't have to be a conspiracy theorist to be very disapproving of a lot of Soros' political projects outside the US. The facts will do.
Soros was among the creators of the system of robber capitalism in Russia, and a participant in the great looting of Russia in the 1990s, a crime against humanity by any standard, promoted and inflicted on Russia along with the Yeltsin regime by the US, assorted neoliberal think-tanks and speculators cum do-gooders like Soros. He has rationalized all this since and it is interesting to compare his take on "Who lost Russia?" with reports of his involvement in the russian economic collapse in books and articles.
In Eastern Europe he, at least initially, advocated directly or indirectly for policies that led exactly to the kind of economic outcomes that he lately has been condemning, and through their social effects, eventually, to the current rise of regimes of the far-right, the destruction of democratic rules, vicious xenophobia and pogroms against minorities - which he then of course opposes and runs against only to thus inadvertently lend them political strength (see point three). Famously so in Hungary, where Soros started his political interventions in 1984, gave a grant to a fellow called Viktor Orban in 1989, and thus helped launch his career, maintaining good relations with the Fidesz party, until perhaps a decade ago, becoming nowadays a very convenient (and banned) figure of hate for that same Victor Orban who actually has passed an anti-Soros law. And this was not the only miss: he backed Mikhail Saakashvili in Georgia as an anti-corruption revolutionary as the man was becoming even more corrupt (and weird) than the people he replaced.
There are three kinds of hubris in Soros political intervening in Europe:
- One, is that he seems to think that he/his organizations understands particular societies, based on general principles and things they read in the press, which usually turn out to not be enough to base political judgments on. Also usually, the sort of local people who advise his organizations are completely out of touch with the average citizen and the poor of those countries.
- Two, he and his organizations act as if they were missionaries whose task is to bring the good news of the Open Society to the heathen and uncouth post-communist peasantry of the East (despite the fact that often these societies were, at their medians, culturally and educationally more advanced by most measures than the metropolitan capitalist societies of the neoliberal evangelists).
- Three, he somehow has failed to realise (?) that any organization / movement that was being handsomely funded by a foreign speculator and billionaire, would tend to lose local credibility fast (imagine the backlash if a Russian oligarch funded a US party or political organization).

Soros' involvement in Eastern Europe is a case of (Rich) White (Western) Man's Burden in the post-cold war era. After all was not Kipling similarly well-intentioned?
posted by talos at 5:19 PM on July 12, 2018 [7 favorites]


From a democratic perspective, though, this single wealthy person’s ability to shape public affairs is catastrophic.

What a weird ending to the first article. We very much don't live in Soros' idea of an open society and his preferred cadre of leaders is out of power in the US, Britain and most of Eastern Europe. He's like an object lesson in the limits of earnest public musings and huge amounts of money to change the world.

(Though to be fair when it comes to the closing point in the paragraph--no billionaires should have influence--I'm just saying "Amen!")
posted by mark k at 10:53 PM on July 12, 2018 [4 favorites]


Capitalism generates racism and discrimination. It is in its interest, from large things such as slavery down to everyday interactions. For example, when you get fired and replaced by an (illegal) immigrant because they are easier to exploit, it is wonderful for capitalism that you now resent the immigrant and not the capitalist who was the one who actually fired you for the explicit reason of wanting to exploit the immigrant. Capitalism without oppressive hierarchies and power structures is not capitalism, because creating them is how capitalism works.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 12:58 AM on July 13, 2018 [7 favorites]


Also,

a borderless global arrangement of people tied together through mutual trade is a strong antidote to the attractive stench of populism.

Mutual trade and markets with the cultural exchange that comes with it is not the same as capitalism. People have been trading goods and ideas and practices and resources for millennia. Capitalism is (relatively) recent. At the core of capitalism is the placement of material resources above human values, and the resulting hierarchies where those who own capital control society because they control all the means. The mantra of owning the means of production should be familiar to everyone. Capitalism simply is not equal to markets and trade.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 1:08 AM on July 13, 2018 [4 favorites]


You can find Soros own essays here
posted by 15L06 at 3:38 AM on July 14, 2018


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