TOP CURRENCY TRADER PROCLAIMS DANGERS OF CAPITALISM
NEW YORK -- When George Soros speaks, the world's markets
listen. This time, though, they may not believe what they
hear.
Soros is proclaiming that capitalism and its system of
speculative trading -- the same system that has brought
him billions -- has supplanted Communism as the principle
threat to freedom.
It is a stunning conversion from a billionaire long viewed
as the Midas of the currency markets. His extraordinary
success was vividly demonstrated in 1992 when bets he made
on the pound knocked Britain's currency out of the
European exchange rate mechanism.
The new Soros doctrine is laid out in a 7,000-word article
in the magazine Atlantic Monthly. Entitled The Capitalist
Threat, it argues that worship of "the magic of the
marketplace" is undermining social values of morality and
responsibility and risks giving rise to extremist
political leaders.
"The arch enemy of an open society is no longer the
Communist threat but the capitalist one," Soros writes.
"It is wrong to make 'survival of the fittest' a leading
principle in a civilized society." He argues that
inequality is rampant because "laissez-faire ideology has
effectively banished income or wealth redistribution."
"I have made a fortune on international financial markets,
and yet now fear the untrammelled intensification of
laissez-faire capitalism and the spread of market values
into all areas of life is endangering our open and
democratic society."
Soros' own fortune is worth about $13.8 billion (Cdn.) but
since 1979 he has been channelling part of his wealth to
pro-democracy causes through his own Open Society
Foundation.
-- The Independent
Reprinted in the Vancouver Sun, January 17, 1997
