Opinion | George Soros: From Philanthropist To Misanthrope
Soros’s descent, from a champion of liberty in Eastern Europe in the 1980s to an anarchist in Europe and the US today, is indeed distressing.
Political and intellectual elites in India are commenting upon the billionaire investor George Soros in accordance with their interests. The most insightful remark about people like Soros was, however, made by Alfred, Batman’s confidant. He told Batman, “Some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn."
Soros is among such men. On the face of it, this would appear to be a harsh criticism of Soros. After all, he is a billionaire who claims to be committed to “freedom of expression, accountable government, and societies that promote justice and equality." And he is not a semi-educated rich man who doesn’t know what he is talking about. He earned a doctorate from the prestigious London School of Economics, where he also earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
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He studied under philosopher Karl Popper, who offered one of the finest critiques of Marxism in the last century. Popper’s book, The Open Society and Its Enemies, forcefully and persuasively attacked Marxian determinism. He boldly proclaimed, “History has no meaning." He added, “We can interpret the history of power politics from the point of view of our fight for the open society, for a rule of reason, for justice, freedom, equality, and for the control of international crime. Although history has no ends, we can impose these ends of ours upon it; and although history has no meanings we can give it a meaning."
Popper was a classical liberal who disdained revolutionaries like Marxists. “The most cherished ideas of the humanitarians were often loudly acclaimed by their deadliest enemies, who in this way penetrated into the humanitarian camp under the guise of allies, causing disunion and thorough confusion. This strategy has often been highly successful."
Following his great teacher, Soros began well as a philanthropist in 1979. He financed academic scholarships for black students in apartheid South Africa. In the 1980s, the communist bloc in Eastern Europe, which was groaning under authoritarianism, got his attention. His activism helped spread the light of liberty in Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria, which were all closed societies. He arranged for the scholarships of Hungarian scholars who were brought to the US. He wrote in his book Opening the Soviet System in 1990 about demolishing “the monopoly of dogma [in Hungary] by making an alternate source of financing available for cultural and social activities."
That was then.
Over the years, however, he seemed to have moved in the opposite direction; instead of promoting open societies, he is now nurturing cultural Marxists who are the enemies of open societies and individual freedoms. The body he set up, Open Society Foundations (OSF), is no longer the torchbearer of the ideas and ideals Popper stood for; today, OSF and Soros support and nurture the people and ideas Popper would never approve of.
He has funded a large number of people in the United States, including Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg who malevolently indicted Donald Trump. There were many others too who spearheaded the lawfare against Trump and indulged in other nefarious activities like promoting the violent Black Lives Matter movement, open borders, and transgender excesses. Elon Musk correctly said that Soros “hates humanity" and aims to “erode the very fabric of civilization." Today, Soros looks like a person who wants “to watch the world burn." While the liberal establishment routinely calls him a ‘philanthropist,’ he resembles more like a misanthrope.
Soros’s transmogrification can be seen as the degradation of classical liberalism itself. Classical liberalism was characterized by its suspicion of and antipathy towards state. Those holding high offices—kings, courtiers, prime ministers, ministers, et al—were suspected of grabbing power and pelf for and among themselves at the expense of people. Great liberals’ primary objective was to shield the individual from the rapacity of the state; and this objective was achieved by cogitating and propounding a philosophy that provided liberty its underpinnings in politics, society, and life.
Contemporary liberals, however, are not opposed to state intervention as their philosophical ancestors were; indeed they welcome it, for they favor equity. Equity, it must be mentioned here, is the Leftist perversion of the emancipatory concept of equality. Classical liberalism is about the equality of opportunity, whereas contemporary liberalism emphasizes equity that is defined as the equality of outcomes.
Since human capabilities are unequal, outcomes can only be ensured by state intervention. And this can be justified only by taking recourse to another phony idea—social justice. It is not surprising that the great liberal philosopher of the last century, John Rawls’ philosophy was oriented around greater state intervention in the economy. The same is true about liberal economists like Paul Krugman, Amartya Sen, and Joseph Stiglitz.
Soros’s descent, from a champion of liberty in Eastern Europe in the 1980s to an anarchist in Europe and the US today, is indeed distressing. But this is what happens when one falls in love with wokeism, which is a bundle of failed Leftist ideas like equity and social justice.
The author is a freelance journalist. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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