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George Soros was born in Budapest, Hungary on August 12, 1930. He survived
the Nazi occupation of Budapest and left communist Hungary in 1947 for England,
where he graduated from the London School of Economics (LSE). While a student at
LSE, Soros became familiar with the work of the philosopher Karl Popper, who had
a profound influence on his thinking and later on his professional and
philanthropic activities.
The financier: In 1956, Soros moved to the United States, where he began
to accumulate a large fortune through an international investment fund he
founded and managed. Today he is chairman of Soros Fund Management LLC.
The philanthropist: Soros has been active as a philanthropist since 1979,
when he began providing funds to help black students attend the University of
Cape Town in apartheid South Africa. Today he is chairman of the Open Society
Institute (OSI) and the founder of a network of philanthropic organizations that
are active in more than 50 countries. Based primarily in Central and Eastern
Europe and the former Soviet Union—but also in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and
the United States—these foundations are dedicated to building and maintaining
the infrastructure and institutions of an open society. They work closely with
OSI to develop and implement a range of programs focusing on civil society,
education, media, public health, and human rights as well as social, legal, and
economic reform. In recent years, OSI and the Soros foundations network have
spent more than $400 million annually to support projects in these and other
focus areas. In 1992, Soros founded Central European University, with its
primary campus in Budapest.
The author and philosopher: Soros is the author of eight books, including
The Bubble of America Supremacy: Correcting the Misuse of American Power (PublicAffairs,
January 2004); George Soros on Globalization (2002); The Alchemy of Finance
(1987); Opening the Soviet System (1990); Underwriting Democracy (1991); Soros
on Soros: Staying Ahead of the Curve (1995); The Crisis of Global Capitalism:
Open Society Endangered (1998); and Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism
(2000). His articles and essays on politics, society, and economics regularly
appear in major newspapers and magazines around the world.
The Bubble of American Supremacy
By George Soros
It is generally agreed that September 11, 2001, changed the course of
history. But we must ask ourselves why that should be so. How could a single
event, even one involving 3,000 civilian casualties, have such a far-reaching
effect? The answer lies not so much in the event itself as in the way the United
States, under the leadership of President George W. Bush, responded to it.
Admittedly, the terrorist attack was historic in its own right. Hijacking fully
fueled airliners and using them as suicide bombs was an audacious idea, and its
execution could not have been more spectacular. The destruction of the Twin
Towers of the World Trade Center made a symbolic statement that reverberated
around the world, and the fact that people could watch the event on their
television sets endowed it with an emotional impact that no terrorist act had
ever achieved before. The aim of terrorism is to terrorize, and the attack of
September 11 fully accomplished this objective.
Even so, September 11 could not have changed the course of history to the extent
that it has if President Bush had not responded to it the way he did. He
declared war on terrorism, and under that guise implemented a radical
foreign-policy agenda whose underlying principles predated the tragedy. Those
principles can be summed up as follows: International relations are relations of
power, not law; power prevails and law legitimizes what prevails. The United
States is unquestionably the dominant power in the post-Cold War world; it is
therefore in a position to impose its views, interests, and values. The world
would benefit from adopting those values, because the American model has
demonstrated its superiority. The Clinton and first Bush Administrations failed
to use the full potential of American power. This must be corrected; the United
States must find a way to assert its supremacy in the world.
This foreign policy is part of a comprehensive ideology customarily referred to
as neoconservatism, though I prefer to describe it as a crude form of social
Darwinism. I call it crude because it ignores the role of cooperation in the
survival of the fittest, and puts all the emphasis on competition. In economic
matters the competition is between firms; in international relations it is
between states. In economic matters social Darwinism takes the form of market
fundamentalism; in international relations it is now leading to the pursuit of
American supremacy.
Not all the members of the Bush Administration subscribe to this ideology, but
neoconservatives form an influential group within it. They publicly called for
the invasion of Iraq as early as 1998. Their ideas originated in the Cold War
and were further elaborated in the post-Cold War era. Before September 11 the
ideologues were hindered in implementing their strategy by two considerations:
George W. Bush did not have a clear mandate (he became President by virtue of a
single vote in the Supreme Court), and America did not have a clearly defined
enemy that would have justified a dramatic increase in military spending.
September 11 removed both obstacles. President Bush declared war on terrorism,
and the nation lined up behind its President. Then the Bush Administration
proceeded to exploit the terrorist attack for its own purposes. It fostered the
fear that has gripped the country in order to keep the nation united behind the
President, and it used the war on terrorism to execute an agenda of American
supremacy. That is how September 11 changed the course of history.
Exploiting an event to further an agenda is not in itself reprehensible. It is
the task of the President to provide leadership, and it is only natural for
politicians to exploit or manipulate events so as to promote their policies. The
cause for concern lies in the policies that Bush is promoting, and in the way he
is going about imposing them on the United States and the world. He is leading
us in a very dangerous direction.
The supremacist ideology of the Bush Administration stands in opposition to the
principles of an open society, which recognize that people have different views
and that nobody is in possession of the ultimate truth. The supremacist ideology
postulates that just because we are stronger than others, we know better and
have right on our side. The very first sentence of the September 2002 National
Security Strategy (the President's annual laying out to Congress of the
country's security objectives) reads, "The great struggles of the twentieth
century between liberty and totalitarianism ended with a decisive victory for
the forces of freedom—and a single sustainable model for national success:
freedom, democracy, and free enterprise."
The assumptions behind this statement are false on two counts. First, there is
no single sustainable model for national success. Second, the American model,
which has indeed been successful, is not available to others, because our
success depends greatly on our dominant position at the center of the global
capitalist system, and we are not willing to yield it.
The Bush doctrine, first enunciated in a presidential speech at West Point in
June of 2002, and incorporated into the National Security Strategy three months
later, is built on two pillars: the United States will do everything in its
power to maintain its unquestioned military supremacy; and the United States
arrogates the right to pre-emptive action. In effect, the doctrine establishes
two classes of sovereignty: the sovereignty of the United States, which takes
precedence over international treaties and obligations; and the sovereignty of
all other states, which is subject to the will of the United States. This is
reminiscent of George Orwell's Animal Farm: all animals are equal, but some
animals are more equal than others.
To be sure, the Bush doctrine is not stated so starkly; it is shrouded in
doublespeak. The doublespeak is needed because of the contradiction between the
Bush Administration's concept of freedom and democracy and the actual principles
and requirements of freedom and democracy. Talk of spreading democracy looms
large in the National Security Strategy. But when President Bush says, as he
does frequently, that freedom will prevail, he means that America will prevail.
In a free and open society, people are supposed to decide for themselves what
they mean by freedom and democracy, and not simply follow America's lead. The
contradiction is especially apparent in the case of Iraq, and the occupation of
Iraq has brought the issue home. We came as liberators, bringing freedom and
democracy, but that is not how we are perceived by a large part of the
population.
It is ironic that the government of the most successful open society in the
world should have fallen into the hands of people who ignore the first
principles of open society. At home Attorney General John Ashcroft has used the
war on terrorism to curtail civil liberties. Abroad the United States is trying
to impose its views and interests through the use of military force. The
invasion of Iraq was the first practical application of the Bush doctrine, and
it has turned out to be counterproductive. A chasm has opened between America
and the rest of the world.
The size of the chasm is impressive. On September 12, 2001, a special meeting of
the North Atlantic Council invoked Article 5 of the NATO Treaty for the first
time in the alliance's history, calling on all member states to treat the
terrorist attack on the United States as an attack upon their own soil. The
United Nations promptly endorsed punitive U.S. action against al-Qaeda in
Afghanistan. A little more than a year later the United States could not secure
a UN resolution to endorse the invasion of Iraq. Gerhard Schröder won
re-election in Germany by refusing to cooperate with the United States. In South
Korea an underdog candidate was elected to the presidency because he was
considered the least friendly to the United States; many South Koreans regard
the United States as a greater danger to their security than North Korea. A
large majority throughout the world opposed the war on Iraq.
September 11 introduced a discontinuity into American foreign policy. Violations
of American standards of behavior that would have been considered objectionable
in ordinary times became accepted as appropriate to the circumstances. The
abnormal, the radical, and the extreme have been redefined as normal. The
advocates of continuity have been pursuing a rearguard action ever since.
To explain the significance of the transition, I should like to draw on my
experience in the financial markets. Stock markets often give rise to a
boom-bust process, or bubble. Bubbles do not grow out of thin air. They have a
basis in reality—but reality as distorted by a misconception. Under normal
conditions misconceptions are self-correcting, and the markets tend toward some
kind of equilibrium. Occasionally, a misconception is reinforced by a trend
prevailing in reality, and that is when a boom-bust process gets under way.
Eventually the gap between reality and its false interpretation becomes
unsustainable, and the bubble bursts.
Exactly when the boom-bust process enters far-from-equilibrium territory can be
established only in retrospect. During the self-reinforcing phase participants
are under the spell of the prevailing bias. Events seem to confirm their
beliefs, strengthening their misconceptions. This widens the gap and sets the
stage for a moment of truth and an eventual reversal. When that reversal comes,
it is liable to have devastating consequences. This course of events seems to
have an inexorable quality, but a boom-bust process can be aborted at any stage,
and the adverse effects can be reduced or avoided altogether. Few bubbles reach
the extremes of the information-technology boom that ended in 2000. The sooner
the process is aborted, the better.
The quest for American supremacy qualifies as a bubble. The dominant position
the United States occupies in the world is the element of reality that is being
distorted. The proposition that the United States will be better off if it uses
its position to impose its values and interests everywhere is the misconception.
It is exactly by not abusing its power that America attained its current
position.
Where are we in this boom-bust process? The deteriorating situation in Iraq is
either the moment of truth or a test that, if it is successfully overcome, will
only reinforce the trend.
Whatever the justification for removing Saddam Hussein, there can be no doubt
that we invaded Iraq on false pretenses. Wittingly or unwittingly, President
Bush deceived the American public and Congress and rode roughshod over the
opinions of our allies. The gap between the Administration's expectations and
the actual state of affairs could not be wider. It is difficult to think of a
recent military operation that has gone so wrong. Our soldiers have been forced
to do police duty in combat gear, and they continue to be killed. We have put at
risk not only our soldiers' lives but the combat effectiveness of our armed
forces. Their morale is impaired, and we are no longer in a position to properly
project our power. Yet there are more places than ever before where we might
have legitimate need to project that power. North Korea is openly building
nuclear weapons, and Iran is clandestinely doing so. The Taliban is regrouping
in Afghanistan. The costs of occupation and the prospect of permanent war are
weighing heavily on our economy, and we are failing to address many festering
problems—domestic and global. If we ever needed proof that the dream of American
supremacy is misconceived, the occupation of Iraq has provided it. If we fail to
heed the evidence, we will have to pay a heavier price in the future.
Meanwhile, largely as a result of our preoccupation with supremacy, something
has gone fundamentally wrong with the war on terrorism. Indeed, war is a false
metaphor in this context. Terrorists do pose a threat to our national and
personal security, and we must protect ourselves. Many of the measures we have
taken are necessary and proper. It can even be argued that not enough has been
done to prevent future attacks. But the war being waged has little to do with
ending terrorism or enhancing homeland security; on the contrary, it endangers
our security by engendering a vicious circle of escalating violence.
The terrorist attack on the United States could have been treated as a crime
against humanity rather than an act of war. Treating it as a crime would have
been more appropriate. Crimes require police work, not military action.
Protection against terrorism requires precautionary measures, awareness, and
intelligence gathering—all of which ultimately depend on the support of the
populations among which the terrorists operate. Imagine for a moment that
September 11 had been treated as a crime. We would not have invaded Iraq, and we
would not have our military struggling to perform police work and getting shot
at.
Declaring war on terrorism better suited the purposes of the Bush
Administration, because it invoked military might; but this is the wrong way to
deal with the problem. Military action requires an identifiable target,
preferably a state. As a result the war on terrorism has been directed primarily
against states harboring terrorists. Yet terrorists are by definition non-state
actors, even if they are often sponsored by states.
The war on terrorism as pursued by the Bush Administration cannot be won. On the
contrary, it may bring about a permanent state of war. Terrorists will never
disappear. They will continue to provide a pretext for the pursuit of American
supremacy. That pursuit, in turn, will continue to generate resistance. Further,
by turning the hunt for terrorists into a war, we are bound to create innocent
victims. The more innocent victims there are, the greater the resentment and the
better the chances that some victims will turn into perpetrators.
The terrorist threat must be seen in proper perspective. Terrorism is not new.
It was an important factor in nineteenth-century Russia, and it had a great
influence on the character of the czarist regime, enhancing the importance of
secret police and justifying authoritarianism. More recently several European
countries—Italy, Germany, Great Britain—had to contend with terrorist gangs, and
it took those countries a decade or more to root them out. But those countries
did not live under the spell of terrorism during all that time. Granted, using
hijacked planes for suicide attacks is something new, and so is the prospect of
terrorists with weapons of mass destruction. To come to terms with these threats
will take some adjustment; but the threats cannot be allowed to dominate our
existence. Exaggerating them will only make them worse. The most powerful
country on earth cannot afford to be consumed by fear. To make the war on
terrorism the centerpiece of our national strategy is an abdication of our
responsibility as the leading nation in the world. Moreover, by allowing
terrorism to become our principal preoccupation, we are playing into the
terrorists' hands. They are setting our priorities.
A recent Council on Foreign Relations publication sketches out three alternative
national-security strategies. The first calls for the pursuit of American
supremacy through the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive military action. It is
advocated by neoconservatives. The second seeks the continuation of our earlier
policy of deterrence and containment. It is advocated by Colin Powell and other
moderates, who may be associated with either political party. The third would
have the United States lead a cooperative effort to improve the world by
engaging in preventive actions of a constructive character. It is not advocated
by any group of significance, although President Bush pays lip service to it.
That is the policy I stand for.
The evidence shows the first option to be extremely dangerous, and I believe
that the second is no longer practical. The Bush Administration has done too
much damage to our standing in the world to permit a return to the status quo.
Moreover, the policies pursued before September 11 were clearly inadequate for
dealing with the problems of globalization. Those problems require collective
action. The United States is uniquely positioned to lead the effort. We cannot
just do anything we want, as the Iraqi situation demonstrates, but nothing much
can be done in the way of international cooperation without the leadership—or at
least the participation—of the United States.
Globalization has rendered the world increasingly interdependent, but
international politics is still based on the sovereignty of states. What goes on
within individual states can be of vital interest to the rest of the world, but
the principle of sovereignty militates against interfering in their internal
affairs. How to deal with failed states and oppressive, corrupt, and inept
regimes? How to get rid of the likes of Saddam? There are too many such regimes
to wage war against every one. This is the great unresolved problem confronting
us today.
I propose replacing the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive military action with
preventive action of a constructive and affirmative nature. Increased foreign
aid or better and fairer trade rules, for example, would not violate the
sovereignty of the recipients. Military action should remain a last resort. The
United States is currently preoccupied with issues of security, and rightly so.
But the framework within which to think about security is collective security.
Neither nuclear proliferation nor international terrorism can be successfully
addressed without international cooperation. The world is looking to us for
leadership. We have provided it in the past; the main reason why anti-American
feelings are so strong in the world today is that we are not providing it in the
present.
Exposing George Soros
By David Bossie
To most Americans, the name probably doesn't ring a bell. To the
enlightened news media, his name probably conjures up images of a likable
international financial tycoon. They portray him as a wealthy philanthropist who
dabbles in public policy and international affairs by doling out billions of
dollars to liberal causes and institutions on issues ranging from campaign
finance reform to United Nations funding, and AIDS research to international
economic development.
Recently, however, the Hungarian native anointed himself a major player in
American politics by declaring the electoral defeat of President George W. Bush
in next year's presidential election as the new central focus of his life.
According to Mr. Soros, defeating Mr. Bush is a matter of life and death.
"America under Bush, is a danger to the world. And I'm willing to put my money
where my mouth is," he declared in announcing that he would spend more than $15
million of his personal wealth to defeat the president.
While Mr. Soros seeks to portray himself as a mainstream philanthropist who
cares deeply about people, the record reveals him as an arch-typical limousine
liberal who lives according to standards far different than those he seeks to
impose on others.
Having amassed a multi-billion dollar financial empire in true capitalist style
(i.e. international currency speculation), Mr. Soros now contends that
"capitalism and the spread of market values" is the No. 1 threat to "open and
democratic society."
Now that he's a billionaire, he says: "I consider the threat from the
laissez-faire side more potent today than the threat from totalitarian
ideologies."
When it comes to military intervention, Mr. Soros has been far from consistent.
He praises Bill Clinton's decision to use military force to topple the regime of
Slobodan Milosevic despite the absence of United Nations backing.
But when it comes to the Bush presidency, he declares himself profoundly opposed
to the Bush administration's policies, not only in Iraq but altogether.
Mr. Soros' denunciation of the president's foreign policy echoes the sentiments
of European socialists.
According to Mr. Soros, the Bush doctrine is built on two pillars: First, the
United States will do everything in its power to maintain its unquestioned
military supremacy; and second, the United States arrogates the right to
preemptive action. Taken together, these two pillars support two classes of
sovereignty: the sovereignty of the United States, which takes precedence over
international treaties and obligation; and the sovereignty of all other nations,
which is subject to the Bush doctrine.
In Mr. Soros' mind, the sovereignty of the United States must be subordinated to
international law and international institutions, such as the United Nations and
its International Criminal Court.
A world order based on the sovereignty of states, say Mr. Soros, cannot take
care of our common human interests because the principle of sovereignty stands
in the way.
But nowhere is Mr. Soros' hypocrisy more transparent than his recent double take
on campaign finance reform. Beginning in the mid-1990s and continuing through
the enactment of the so-called Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, Mr. Soros
was one of the leading proponents of the campaign finance reform. According to a
report published by the American Conservative Union Foundation, he funneled
millions in contributions to the reform movement. In 1998, for example, Mr.
Soros funneled more than $600,000 to an outfit called Arizonans for Clean
Elections, which was the main organization behind a drive to create public
financing for Arizona state candidates. Mr. Soros support accounted for more
than 70 percent of the group's funding.
And that's just the beginning; Mr. Soros also donated $18 million to groups
supporting campaign finance reform, including Common Cause and Democracy 21.
"Soft money contributions taint our political system and taint our political
leaders. They create, at a minimum, the appearance of undue access and influence
and conflict of interest," he said.
Now, however, Mr. Soros has apparently had a change of heart. Having succeeded
in restricting the fund raising and spending activities of political candidates
and political parties, Mr. Soros has found a way to skirt the very laws he
helped enact in order to advance his personal political agenda. He has committed
up to $5 million to MoveOn.org, an organization that airs ads and organizes
rallies denouncing the president's policies at home and abroad. To date, Mr.
Soros says he has spent upwards of $15.5 million to oust Mr. Bush, and he's
prepared to spend even more.
Of course, there's no outcry from the liberal establishment and media elites
that worked so hard to impose the reforms that Mr. Soros once supported. To
these so-called reformers, Mr. Soros' goal of defeating Mr. Bush is paramount to
standing on principle.
In George Soros' world, the ends always seem to justify the means. His blind
hatred of Mr. Bush motivates him and the groups he supports.
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