Author (or Editor): Soros, George |
Title: The Crisis of Global Capitalism: Open Society Endangered |
Fiction? N |
Publisher: Public Affairs |
Date: 1994; 1996 |
ISBN: 1891620274 |
Series Name: |
Physical description: harbound 288 pgs |
Relevance to HPPUB capitalism, open society |
Review: Book Review; Soros, George; The Crisis of Global
Capitalism: Open Society Endangered; George Soros is a well-known financier, a self-made man who kept himself out of the Nazi death camps during World War II. He is widely believed to have helped participate the Asian financial crisis in 1997, a claim which he denies. Soros argues that capitalism, when completely unregulated ("market fundamentalism") tends to swerve out of control, like a car taking a curve too fast. Decisions by markets are "amoral" but not "immoral." Soros believes that capitalism can me effectively mediated by an "open society." He does not define precisely what this means, but he suggests that society needs to be able to experiment with cultural value systems. Standards of "right" and "wrong" may change with technology and with social process; however, the involvement of the state in resolving conflicts, in a democratic society, he sees as inevitable. He is more like a mainstream Democrat than a libertarian or even classical liberal. He does favor replacing criminal penalties for drugs with public health measures. He does not come close to examining the way regulation can severely curtail self-expression, and that moral values regarding self-identification might be better served in voluntary systems. Soros continues his arguments in the Dec. 2003 Atlantic Monthly with the essay, “The Bubble of American Supremacy,” summarizing a book of the same name to be published by Public Affairs in early 2004. George Soros: The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit
Crisis of 2008 and What It Means.
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