Soros: The Capitalist Threat

G Soros, “The Capitalist Threat,” Atlantic Monthly 279, no. 2 (1997): 45-58.

"Although I have made a fortune in the financial markets, I now fear that the untrammeled intensification of laissez-faire capitalism and the spread of market values into all areas of life is endangering our open and democratic society. The main enemy of the open society, I believe, is no longer the communist but the capitalist threat" (45).

The problem with communism and Nazism is that they both purport to have handles on the ultimate truth of society and the world. This simply is not possible because our experimentation on the world is necessarily over determined: "We live in the same universe that we are trying to understand, and our perceptions can influence the events in which we participate" (46).

"Insofar as there is a dominant belief in our society today, it is a belief in the magic of the marketplace. The doctrine of lassiez-faire capitalism holds that the common good is best served by the uninhibited pursuit of self-interest" (48).

"Although laissez-faire doctrines do not contradict the principles of the open society the way Marxims-Leninism or Nazi ideals of radical purity did, all these doctrines have an important feature in common: they all try to justify their claim to truth with an appeal to science" (48).

"Economic theory has managed to create an artificial world in which the participants' preferences and the opportunities confronting participants are independent of each other, and prices tend toward an equilibrium that brings two forces into balance. But in financial markets prices are not merely the passive reflection of independently given demand and supply; they also play an active role in shaping those preferences and opportunities" (50).

"By taking the conditions of supply and demand as given and declaring government intervention the ultimate evil, laissez-faire ideology has effectively banished income or wealth redistribution. I can agree that all attempts at redistribution interfere with the efficiency of the market, but it does not follow that no attempt should be made. The laissez-faire argument relies on the same tacit appeal to perfection as does communism" (52).

"The time is ripe for developing a conceptual framework based on our fallibility. Where reason has failed, faillibility may yet succeed" (58).