George Soros’s understanding of global finance is rivalled only by that of Alan Greenspan.
He didn’t exactly look like one of the richest men in the world. In fact, he looked like a wandering Hungarian Jewish refugee of around 1947 — a casual check jacket worn over an unremarkable blue shirt;
grey flannel trousers sporting unfashionably large turn-ups; and plain, black slip-on shoes — no bells, buckles or whistles anywhere to be seen.
The cleaners, waiters and waitresses servicing the faded glory of the Sunnyside Park hotel in Johannesburg, where he was hanging out for a day of interviews and presentations, were wondering why so much fuss was being made about him. He looked like he hadn’t even made a particular effort to brush his hair — it was standing up in short, steely tufts all over his head.
And yet there were various luminaries of the business and NGO world, a high court judge, and a film crew all dancing awed attention as he picked at the buffet table with its unremarkable hotel fare.
The hotel staff were hardly likely to cotton on to the fact that this was George Soros, the man who broke the Bank of England, and who could probably also break the bank at Monte Carlo, if it wasn’t such a trivial pursuit. George Soros, the man who had made a high art of the science of probability, using his educated instincts to gamble against the world’s most secure money markets — and usually winning, to the tune of several billion dollars a shot.
Soros is a man a million miles removed from the common lot. His understanding of the intricacies of global finance is said be rivalled only by that of the United States Federal Reserve Bank’s Alan Greenspan — a terrifyingly gnomic, Wizard of Oz figure, if ever there was one, but one who can single-handedly defend the US and destroy distant empires just by muttering one mysterious phrase: “interest rates up”, or “interest rates down”.
What the gaping hotel servants would have found harder to understand is that the Soros who was standing unassumingly in their midst is a man who takes an intimate and friendly interest in their future. While Greenspan gives the impression that he wouldn’t give a damn if they starved to death tomorrow, Soros has been engaged for the past couple of decades in actively exploring ways in which the Wretched of the Earth can be uplifted — and putting his money where his mouth is, to boot.
No wonder he scares powerful people. He plays the market but is not prepared to treat it like an inviolable religion. He is not interested in making money for the sake of it. What he makes in the financial markets of the West, he ploughs into carefully structured institutions that he himself has set up in the developing world — Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, South America and Africa. In other words, George Soros really wants to change the world — and the powers that be don’t like it.
Not that there is much they can do about it. Soros doesn’t scream bloody revolution. He doesn’t arm terrorist groups or organise prison breakouts. He plays by the rules — in fact he encourages everyone to play by the rules — of market capitalism.
But the rules, having been created by human beings, rather than the gods, are bound to be flawed. Finding the flaws, as his own career has shown, is the key to survival and transcendence.
Of course, many Third World leaders don’t much care for the Soros approach either. While Soros makes no bones about the fact that the First World is robbing them blind, he doesn’t believe the answer is simply to pour money into Third World begging bowls, to be squandered at will by centralised bureaucracies and corrupt potentates. A balance has to be found, he argues, between the wealth-creating energies of private enterprise, and the public obligations of good governance. Both sides of the equation need to start acting in a responsible way.
The important thing about Soros’s philosophy is that he clearly states that, although there is fault on both sides, capitalism and bad Third World governments are not equal partners in the creation of poverty. Poverty creation is really a function of a perpetually lopsided relationship between what he calls the centre and the periphery. “Money always moves from the periphery to the centre [and not the other way round],” he says. “It’s not an even playing field.”
He gives an example that demonstrates why the oil wealth of African states like Nigeria, Gabon, Angola and even tiny Equatorial Guinea has not delivered the wealth creation and social transformation evident in the Arabian Gulf.
“Africa’s oil wealth is basically being stolen by the [international] oil companies, with the connivance of bad governments. The amount that could be retrieved into the national budgets is probably equivalent to the $5-billion offered by the Bush government” — referring to the aid package offered by the US administration.
Aid, and even investment, motivated as they are by self-interest rather than philanthropy, do not solve the problem. Assisting poor countries to take advantage of their own resources, just for a start, would go a long way towards setting the wheels of transformation in motion.
Even South Africa, with its large and relatively stable economy, is not free of the lopsided logic of globalisation. “South Africa has done all the right things according to the demands of the international markets,” says Soros, “but there is the danger of [an internal] backlash. You don’t have the advantage of being able to follow an enlightened social policy because [you have chosen to be] part of the global economy.”
It is a terrible irony. We are like a little Third World David trying to be let into the team of an unfriendly First World Goliath. The chances of being passed the ball are slim indeed. And if you don’t get to play the ball you don’t eat.
Is the world ready to listen to George Soros? Probably not. But Soros is unconcerned. He is not seeking the approval of heads of state. His wealth has put him beyond that. He is simply getting on with the task of putting his ideas into practice in small ways lighting small but interesting fires across the globe. That alone makes him a fearsome, fearless crusader for peace and progress — a force to be reckoned with indeed.
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