[PEN-L:8277] Warning from George Soros
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
[PEN-L:8277] Warning from George Soros
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