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For this reader it is quite clear just what it is that Mr. Soros doesn't like. It is also clear that he believes the "Open Society" is the cure for mankind's ills. But following his logic and supporting arguments gets very cloudly indeed. It is even more difficult to figure out just what action he is soliciting from the reader or from society as a whole.
The article's abstract and the headnote are straight-forward enough:
"The main threat to social justice and economic stability comes from the uninhibited pursuit of laissez-faire economics."
Then comes: "What kind of society do we want?" He suggests that the popular or at least quite frequent response to this question is "Let the free market decide."This attitude, we are told, "undermines the very values on which open and democratic societies depend."
Unfortunately, as the article develops, we actually learn very little about the nature of this undermining of our critically important open democracy values.
The opening of the main body of the article tells us that civilizations fall because of "a morbid intensification of their own first principles." Pinning down "first principles" is quite a job in our complex, multicultural world today. But Soros seems to take it for granted that the reader will accept "Let the market decide" as number one.
He doesn't give us any information on the evidence pointing to this intensification today, compared with say 30 years ago, or how this alleged intensification affects the non-economic parts of society and why this is bad.
Rather than providing support for this major point he moves on to a new concept: the "Open Society." Propagation of the "Open Society," particularly as developed by Karl Popper, may be the ultimate purpose of this article. We learn later that the "Open Society" has been the focus of his social and political efforts since leaving the business world.
He explains that a book by Karl Popper introduced him to "Open Society" as a young man. I am a bit familiar with some of the work of Popper as a result of my interest in the nature of science. Popper has made important contributions to the philosophy of science and helped me to understand the difficulties that so called "social sciences" face in attempting to be really scientific.
As for Popper's social and cultural views, although as a teenager he was a fervent Communist, to his credit, Popper recognized the absurdity of communism rather quickly. As an Austrian citizen he saw the nature of both communism and fascism first hand.
From his experience and his philosophical reflections he wrote the book referenced in the article by Mr. Soros: The Open Society and Its Enemies in order to expose the faulty philosophies that underpin totalitarian political systems. Popper was a strong supporter of liberal democratic philosophy as the world knew these philosophies in 1945.
The "open society" as offered by Popper or as interpreted by Soros might be an interesting concept. But we need to know more about it than Mr. Soros tells us. Rather Soros seems to assume that its meaning is self-evident. Perhaps he is merely referring to today's American political scene which seems to me to be very much open.
The American open society, as I know it, seems to be based on freedom of choice in just about everything. In fact, if I had been asked "what is the first principle of our society" before reading this article, I would have responded that the egalitarian spirit and its drive toward maximum personal freedom was the first principle of American society today.
For the author's part, Mr. Soros told us at the outset not only that "Let the market decide" is first in principles (in America, Asia or where?) but that this principle is inconsistent with an open society. Since I see the main principle of an open society as freedom of choice with related rights of expression I am puzzled. Isn't a market made up of lots of people? How can market decisions be inconsistent with freedom of choice in all other aspects of life?
Apparently in an effort to provide evidence that capitalism is bad he argues that capitalism is not based on scientific principles. But Karl Popper has helped me to understand why social science has had great difficulty in its efforts to achieve a firm scientific basis for any of its work. The problem is not restricted to economics or more specifically to capitalism.
Soros has two key points of attack on capitalism:
As I read him the author has simply not spelled out the undermining charge. Although I can guess, I really do not know what he means.
What he has offered as evidence supporting his second point, seems to me to be his and many academicians difficulties explaining, describing and modeling private enterprise and market behavior. Yet Mr. Soros' personal success with a working hypotheses on financial markets seems to suggest that markets can be at least predictible, at least sometimes.
Capitalism can't be demonstrated to be scientific in a strict sense. But then neither can representative government or the jury system.
He points to the market system as being guilty of "reflexivity". But on examination you will find that what he calls "reflexivity" applies to all areas of human affairs. This concept points to one of the major difficulties that social science faces in attempts to draw valid conclusions from social data.
But I am willing to concede that capitalism's wide spread application is not based on its scientific credentials but rather on its record of performance. It has performed just as Adam Smith had expected. Furthermore, I've never run into a individual capitalist nor a capitalist organization that based its right to enterprise on science. Soros seems to be saying that sustained success isn't enough.
Soros' logic suggests to me that every social institution must be based on science. If this rule is enforced we have a lot of work to do, indeed, in bucking up our basic political, social and economic institutions before we ever get to consideration of the "open society." We all believe in democracy but just try to demonstrate its superiority with science!
Capitalism has emerged more vibrantly than ever today on the back of the complete failure of the philosophic and political constructs of socialism. Now it seems that Soros wants us to give the think tanks and the political committees another chance at remaking our economic and social futures. I'm inclined to decline his offer.
There are many other topics offered in the article including economic stability, social Darwinism; and international relations. This profusion of major topics, briefly treated, adds to my sense of frustration in trying to follow the line of his thinking.
My own belief is that societal structures have been weakened in the last 100 years and, on the international scene particularly, social and political structures are not well equipped to deal with globalization. But technology has had a very great deal to do with this.
Maybe even more important than technology has been the sustained long term weakening of family, religious and community structures as part of a stress on individualism and a determined effort to deny the validity of tradition. As a result of these changes the individual, today, has much less in the way of reliable guidelines and support compared with any historical time period. Today an individual's life is much more open to philosophic and political as well as commercial manipulation than at any time in human history.
But then why is my unsupported opinion any better than Mr. Soros'? The real point of my remarks is that there are many candidates for villains in the difficulties we see in today's world. If Soros has a case against capitalism let him make it clearly. He hasn't done so in the article under question. And his rambling here doesn't stimulate an interest on my part in further exploration of his thinking.
Finally the article tells us about the principle of "Fallibility" upon which Mr. Soros would derive a political and social agenda. Yet in the face of "Fallibility," how can we know that his "Open Society" will be any better than socialism?
As usual the market is ahead of the political thinkers as we have seen in the past in the industrial revolution and the recent digital revolution with the related and very great changes in communications. I suspect that the changes brought by globalization requires some very serious thinking and international consultation. But finger pointing and finding villains is not likely to help.