What are the goals of George Soros?
I promised a while back to tackle this subject, and here’s my effort. I don’t claim to really know the answer – that’s the short version of this post. But I’ll give it a try.
A great many people would probably answer that his goal is to do evil. But of course, that’s not the way he would conceptualize it. He’s also supported some causes that, objectively, seem inarguably good, such as the end of Communism in the eastern European countries. So, what gives?
One hint is the name of his philanthropic foundation: Open Society. What does that mean?:
Under George Soros’s leadership, the Open Society Foundations support individuals and organizations across the globe working to advance human rights, equity, and justice.
So far, it sounds like basic leftist boilerplate.
More:
Starting in Hungary in the mid-1980s, George Soros used his fortune to build a philanthropic network that became the Open Society Foundations—the name reflecting the influence of the philosopher Karl Popper, whom Soros first encountered as a student at the London School of Economics. In his book Open Society and Its Enemies, Popper argues that no philosophy or ideology is the final arbiter of truth, and that societies can only flourish when they allow for democratic governance, freedom of expression, and respect for individual rights—an approach at the core of the Open Society Foundations’ work.
Except for the “no final arbiter of truth” part, that sounds more like classical liberalism or libertarianism.
He started with efforts that weren’t expressly leftist:
George Soros began his philanthropy in 1979, giving scholarships to Black South Africans under apartheid. In the 1980s, he helped promote the open exchange of ideas in Communist Hungary by funding academic visits to the West and supporting fledgling independent cultural groups, as well as other initiatives. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, he created Central European University as a space to foster critical thinking—which at that time was an alien concept for most universities in the former Communist bloc.
With the Cold War over, he gradually expanded his philanthropy to Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the United States, supporting a vast array of new efforts to create more accountable, transparent, and democratic societies.
He then segued into libertarian efforts to end restrictions on drugs and same-sex marriage, the latter of which is certainly a more conventional leftist cause but could also be considered libertarian. The website explains his “evolving causes” this way:
Though his causes have evolved over time, they continue to hew closely to his ideals of an open society.
I suppose that he would consider anything traditional to be non-open – that is, closed. Which brings us to things such as this:
Since 2016, Soros has been donating sums exceeding $1 million to the campaigns of progressive criminal justice reform proponents through the Safety and Justice PAC in local district attorney elections. In many districts, such large contributions were unprecedented and the campaigning strategy was “turned on its head” with a focus on incarceration, police misconduct and bail system, according to the Los Angeles Times.
There’s nothing more “closed” than a prison, right?
Soros also has promoted “death with dignity” euthanasia and assisted suicide efforts; also basically a libertarian and/or leftist cause. He’s become persona non grata in his native Hungary, because (among other things) he backs lots of “migration” from third-world countries into Europe – again, that seems a very “open” and boundary-free cause.
I’ve written about Soros many times before; see this. For post about his Jewishness, please see this, this, and this. Soros was born an ethnic Jew but had zero education in Judaism and in fact he has said the following:
With Soros there’s also the fact that, that although he was born a Jew by the Nazis’ definition—in other words, he was born in Hungary to parents of Jewish ancestry—he was never given any instruction in Judaism and his parents had actually repudiated Judaism. They weren’t just non-practicing Jews (although they were indeed that), they were actually anti-Jewish, according to Soros himself, who said that he “grew up in a Jewish, anti-Semitic home,” and called his parents “uncomfortable with their religious roots.”
So one wouldn’t expect him to support Israel. What he’s said on that subject is this:
“I don’t deny Jews the right to a national existence – but I don’t want to be a part of it”. According to hacked emails released in 2016, Soros’s Open Society Foundation has a self-described objective of “challenging Israel’s racist and anti-democratic policies” in international forums, in part by questioning Israel’s reputation as a democracy. He has funded NGOs which have been actively critical of Israeli policies including groups that campaign for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel
Typical leftist stuff and quite unsurprising.
I’ve probably barely scratched the surface on this, but I think the basic template is Soros’ opinion that whatever he sees as “open” is good, and what he sees as “closed” is bad.
[NOTE: Here’s a summary of Popper’s book about “open societies.” His definition doesn’t seem exactly the same as that of Soros.]
Poor George glommed onto an anti-philosophical putz in Popper, so it’s hardly surprising he spins about as an unguided, politcally destructive missile in consequence. A pity, what with the gathering of his monetary power, all this waste and corruption had to follow.
Puppet master. Rule by like-minded oligarchs paid for by elite-captured governments.
Re: Karl Popper
Popper always struck me as a good-faith liberal with an eye to critical thinking. He seemed to be a generalist whom specialists considered to be poaching on their territories.
I’m surprised how many different sides dislike Popper. Maybe he was doing something right!
He’s less libertarian and more one world government. Not expressly communist, but at least fascist.
Popper is the antithesis of a critical thinker, if — as critical thinker — we ought mean anything serious by the term. Doing right, sure, where exposing himself as an untrustworthy interpreter is implied.
It would be nice to hear some specific criticisms of Popper beyond that he didn’t arrive at one’s preferred positions.
Popper’s falsifiability stands up for me as fine critical thinking.
Like Popper I wouldn’t want to live under Plato’s Republic, communism, fascism or technocracy.
Popper thinks he understands Plato, huxley (he doesn’t). He goes on to build his world on his utter misunderstanding of Plato. It’s a terrible waste of energy, completely unconcerned with the truth, wholly invested in a fanatasy of his own creation. Together a waste of time and a miseducation of a couple of generations of impoverished students, to say nothing of the destruction wrought by those seal-clapping students in the world.
As far as philosophy of science goes, “falsifiability” was an important contribution into understanding what makes science different from things that are not science. I think the most you can fault him for there is that it’s more useful for knowing how things get winnowed out of science then for how things get brought into science.
That and the problem of auxiliary hypotheses–if the comet isn’t where it’s supposed to be we don’t first throw out the theory of gravitation, we first check to see if that dumbass Melvin deleted the calibration again, and then we check to see if there’s an undiscovered planet or whatever. Falsifiability doesn’t address how those decisions are made or how they should be.
“Unfalsifiable” of course does not mean “bad”. There are a few Dunning-Krugerrands who will say that a scientific principle is unfalsifiable and therefore false… The Z-man (for those who remember him) got “unfalsifiability” hilariously wrong.
Popper has since become a bee in a certain kind of bonnet, in the same way Darwin has, and for some of the same reasons. There are people who believe in something I’m against, those people cite Popper approvingly, ergo Popper must have been dumb and bad and if I can prove Popper wrong those people will vanish in a puff of logic.
Like so many fine-sounding ideas in theory, in practice it breaks down. If there is no actual “truth,” standards end up being established by the loudest or most aggressive groups. In practice, Soros’s contributions have ended up directly opposed to democratic governance, freedom of expression, and respect for individual rights.
@Kate:If there is no actual “truth,”
is not the same thing as “there is no actual truth”. Very different. Not saying “no truth”, saying no guarantee that a particular philosophy or ideology will always identify the truth.
I would not sum up Popper as saying either, personally. I read “The Open Society and Its Enemies” in college, a long time ago, it’s pretty long and says a lot of things, some of which I would defend and some of which I wouldn’t.
What Soros wants? Instead of what he says he wants, what is the logical result of what would happen if his current activities were far more influential than today?
Say warm and fuzzy things about the criminal justice system and get soft-on-crime people into the system. Great increase in innocent victims of those whose earlier criminal activities should have put them in prison and thus protected the innocent. Eventually, the innocent are desperate enough to call for an oppressive system which then justifies Revolution. Cloward-Piven in another field.
Calling Israel “anti-democratic” is word paste. Even Soros isn’t dumb enough to believe that, no matter how his upbringing warped him and to what degree he’s been Popperized. Call something you don’t like or don’t want by a name everybody else is already supposed to not like and…you fool the lowest decile of the foolish, provide smokescreen for those wishing to mislead others and think others may be dumb enough to believe it. And for those who wish to mislead themselves.
Ditto “open” and other warm fuzzies. He can’t have been as smart as it takes to be rich as he is and be dumb enough to believe what he says.
He wouldn’t promote soft-on-crime if he didn’t WANT legions of innocent victims, need them for his purposes. He can’t be unaware of what is happening, yet he carries on. Thus, it’s a goal.
I think Popper is used by others the same way Nietzche is used by others – as a starting-off point for all sorts of disparate ideas, some of them very bad.
Open-shmopen;
Soros’ goals have nothing to do with this. It’s clear to me that he wants to watch the world burn. More specifically, his plan can be viewed as a more realistic version of Manson’s “Helter Skelter”.
I read both volumes of “The Open Society aned Its Enemies”
I see that I only paid $3.95 per volume: 1. Plato 2. Hegel and Marx but that was 1971.
As the joke goes when I lived Europe years ago his book had been cleverly renamed as :
“The Open Society and its Enemies by one of its Enemies.”
Popper isn’t saying that there is no truth, but that we live in a society in which people often disagree vehemently about the truth, so we must make room for fractious debate rather than some top-down truth decreed by some authority.
Popes and ayatollahs definitely believe in truth and that they possess it. Spare me from popes and ayatollahs. As well as Soros and Foucault.
Popper thinks he understands Plato, huxley (he doesn’t). He goes on to build his world on his utter misunderstanding of Plato.
sdferr:
So you say.
As a poet I jumped ship when I reached the point where Plato banished poets from his Republic unless they played by Plato’s rules.
I know tyranny when I see it.
@neo:I think Popper is used by others the same way
Helps that Popper isn’t around to dispute their mischaracterizations.
He wasn’t intending to write a manual for George Soros to use to take over the world. He was writing against Communism and Nazism and anything else like them. He’d had to leave Austria due to his Jewish ancestry, despite being baptized Lutheran. He left his manuscripts to the Hoover Institution after all…
But everything is a team sport nowadays so if George Soros is for it we have be against it, I suppose.
Regardless, no one is responsible for how other people use their name and work, or who cites them as an authority, especially when they’re thirty years dead.
In my early college days I was an enthusiastic libertarian. Back then there were libertarian clubs and societies one could be a part of, and I was. The most useful thing about this era of my life is that it cured me of libertarianism.
At first it was exciting that there were such different varieties of libertarianism, including a left-wing varietal that I wasn’t familiar with at all. It eschewed all forms of patriotism, nationalism, even borders. I suppose you could call those folks Open Society types.
I learned then that one could get carried away with philosophy and become blind to the impracticalities when taken to the logical extreme. Most people outgrow this. I’ve always just assumed Soros is one of those people that never did.
I’d suggest you can profitably reconsider huxley. Plato loves the poets so much, he became one himself.
Still, have a read of, say, Jacob Klein’s Commentary on Plato’s Meno (1965), if Allan Bloom’s interpretive essay accompanying his translation of Republic isn’t to your fancy (these are just two examples of what earnest Plato scholarship can look like, in contrast to the silly dreck Popper posits — Bernadette we can leave aside for later). There is so much poetic about Plato that not a single word should go missing.
Plato loves the poets so much, he became one himself.
sdferr:
So if Kim Jong Un wrote a bit of poetry on the side, it would prove that he loves poets.
Right.
C’mon man. Plato founds a school and writes dialogues illustrating dramatically (hence, poetically, i.e., in speech) the conduct of a philosophic life. And now we’ll make him into Kim Jong Un? Hilarious! Heck, Machiavelli’s whole complaint with the likes of Plato is that he is completely ineffective in the world of the political, so far from being the God of his own hermit kingdom! Plato lives in a harmless cloud-cockoo-land (Aristophanes’ Nephelokokkygia) by Machiavelli’s lights. Be serious.
Chaos.
@huxley:So if Kim Jong Un wrote a bit of poetry on the side
No need for a hypothetical. Mao Zedong wrote lots of poetry. And we all know what a paradise for poetry China was then, and is now….
Thank you, Neo. I was the one who originally asked what in the world Soros’s goals are. I’m not sure I understand better, unless he’s just one crazy dude who started with a “goal” of “open society,” and just kept moving forward no matter the consequences. Maybe thinking that, even though chaos may ensue for a while, eventually everything will just be free, free, free! And open.
“Working to advance human rights, equity, and justice.” Ah, but what do those words MEAN? To me, therein lies the rub. What is a “human right”? I’ve heard people say with absolute certainty that “health care is a human right.” Says who?
What is equity? Who gets the final say on the definition? Same with justice. I can quote at length from Thomas Sowell’s wonderful books The Quest for Cosmic Justice and Social Justice Fallacies, his definition would contradict say, Aryanna Presley’s definition.
Who gets to decide is always the question. And it looks like, these days, it’s either who has the most money and is willing to donate it to the right people and causes, along with who controls the media/social media monster.
From Grok:
To me he’s just an anti-social being. It would seem his success has mostly been predicated on making bets against the success of rather large institutions, rightly or wrongly. Given the social mischief that he underwrites in very large numbers across a wide spectrum of activities, it’s hard to see how there is a constructive intent behind it all. I think having secured obscene wealth for himself, sufficient to be virtually untouchable, I think he views the world mostly with contempt, as deserving of his worst. But maybe this is unfair. Can anybody catalog philanthropic efforts of his that are clearly 100% for the benefit of humanity – correcting birth defects, feeding the hungry, etc?
From Grok:
My estimation has generally been in line with Aggies; he tries to make large sums of money by harming institutions/currencies.
I’ve mentioned it before, but I also find it a curious footnote that George’s father, Tivador, was big in Ludwik Zamenhof’s Esperanto “international language” movement and George was raised in an Esperanto speaking home.
One of the goals of Esperanto was to remove borders imposed by languages, by creating a “one world” language spoken by all.
I am curious about the relationship of treasury secretary, Scott, Bessent and Soros. Here’s what Grok says about it.
> Scott Bessent has a long professional history with George Soros through Soros Fund Management (SFM), the hedge fund and investment vehicle associated with Soros.
> Here’s the key relationship:
• Bessent joined Soros Fund Management in 1991 (some sources note his association beginning in the early 1980s post-Yale graduation, but his formal high-level role started in 1991).
• He rose to become managing partner of SFM’s London office from 1991 to 2000.
• In that period, he played a significant role in one of Soros’s most famous trades: the 1992 short bet against the British pound (which “broke the Bank of England” and earned billions for the fund).
• Bessent left SFM in 2000 to start his own hedge fund (Bessent Capital), then returned later.
• From 2011 to 2015, he served as Chief Investment Officer (CIO) of Soros Fund Management, managing billions in assets for Soros, his family, and related foundations.
> After leaving SFM again in 2015, Bessent founded his own global macro investment firm, Key Square Group (or Key Square Capital Management), where he served as CEO and CIO.
> Their connection is primarily professional: Bessent was a longtime senior executive and key investment strategist at Soros’s firm over two stints spanning more than two decades. Sources describe him as a protégé or close associate in the financial world, though there were reports of clashes at times (e.g., upon his earlier departure).
> Notably, despite Soros being a major Democratic donor and philanthropist, Bessent has aligned politically with Republicans and was nominated/confirmed as U.S. Treasury Secretary under President Trump (as of 2025), which drew attention to this past Soros tie in political discussions.
There is no indication of a close personal friendship beyond the professional mentor-protégé dynamic in finance.
Soros is an independent (thanks to his moola) thinker who has lost his way into la-la land.
C’mon man. Plato founds a school and writes dialogues illustrating dramatically (hence, poetically, i.e., in speech) the conduct of a philosophic life.
sdferr:
C’mon man, yourself. I’m arguing a simple bit of logic. Writing poetry doesn’t guarantee a love for poets. Whether that is Plato or Kim Jong Un.
Sure, Plato used poetic techniques (I thought you were arguing that he wrote some minor poems, which he is reputed to have done, though that’s debatable) but that does not excuse censoring poets who don’t fit within Plato’s narrow constraints.
Tyranny doesn’t have to be cruel. It just has to be tyranny. I am serious.
C’mon man:
No one expects the Spanish Inquisitors to use the Comfy Chair either.
“A kinder gentler machine gun hand ….”
Re: Soros
I had a progressive, New Age friend, though still smart, who after Soros ran his raid on the pound, described Soros as a “Stop me before I kill again” murderer.
Whatever Soros’ motivations, however well intentioned he may believe them to be,
in his case the adage fully applies, “By their ‘fruits’ shall ye know them”.
Some people just want to see the world burn.
Promotion of homosexual pseudogamy is not a ‘libertarian’ cause except in the puerile sense that public policy has to bow to any open mouth saying ‘I want’.
C’mon man it’s been centuries since the any pope had the religious (malevolent) power of this centuries ayatollahs.
The father, the son, and…Holy Orwell!!
As per the always astute Andrea Widburg:
“Alex Soros, George’s son, is worth listening to at Davos;
“I say this not because he makes good points, but because he’s a nincompoop—but an immensely powerful one. We need to know who he is.”—
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/01/alex_soros_george_s_son_is_worth_listening_to_at_davos.html
H/T Blazingcatfur blog.
Noted.
(OTOH, I’m fairly certain we all know who he is…)
Richard Aubrey —
“He wouldn’t promote soft-on-crime if he didn’t WANT legions of innocent victims, need them for his purposes. He can’t be unaware of what is happening, yet he carries on. Thus, it’s a goal.”
Yes, and his best follower, Alex, is like a young Gavin Newsome but smarter and richer.
The haters of western culture (– and I include a meritocracy in that) are put in charge by the big money, controlling elections and local “social justice” leaders — including the teachers unions and many NGO’s.
They absolutely enjoy riots, chaos, and terror. The pawns are easily indoctrinated to take over the streets & punish law officers, due to “public education”, evil politicians, and their media.
Some 20+ years ago a friend loaned me a book that was a compendium of bios on ultra successful investors. They may skipped Buffett, since was so “covered” by others.
But they described Jim Rodgers who had his first major wealth building activities along side Georgeo Soros.
From the Wiki on Rodgers:
yes I used to think jim rodgers knew what he was talking, he wears the accroutrements of a bond villain or if you want a victorian analogue james moriarty,
once he was just a currency trader, then according to sources he incorporated his Open Society in South Africa, then linked up with the State Department, for ostensibly noble causes, like promoting human rights in the East Bloc, this is how Victor Urban, one of his more prominent critics and earlier protege, one of the characters in a roman a clef by a former employee of a lesser financier Paul Singer, suggests it was the penalty levied by French and British authorities, so he decided to ‘buy the stage, takeover much of the non profit archipelago,
but like Bin Laden, he came to believe he could manipulate the West as readily as he did the east, when he started with decriminalization and prison reform exercise, at various times, he came in contact with various persons including Trump, but he was directed to more left wing causes that by 2004, he was openly
boasting of his influence, thats around the time of the 60 minutes profile, that has
been the source of much controversy,
Barry Meislin,
Barry, just a quick note:
I rarely comment on your comments because they are complete. You usually address your points concisely and there is nothing left to add. So my silence is not due to a lack of appreciation. I especially appreciate the puns and humor you often work in.
Thanks!
He likes to break things- economies, societies, people. The money he makes from the wreckage goes back into more cruelty. He is a sadist.
Yes indeed… “by their fruits”.
I think it was instapundit who observed that, while it’s difficult to find a motivation, it is fair to infer intent from result. Why the guy wanted the result he worked for is not particularly relevant and can derail any discussion. Probably the intent of asking about some bad actor’s motivation.
The result of his action is his intent. We can judge it, like it, not like it, support or oppose it, all without needing to know the motivation.
The obvious implication is…no matter what he’s telling us about what he wants to happen. The likely result is/was his intent.
Heh, this showed up at Powerlineblog picks of the day today. Timely? I dunno, possibly so. https://antigonejournal.com/2026/01/philosophy-tyranny-plato-clitophon/
Aw, shucks, Rufus…
Thanks!
(Enjoy reading yours, too…)
Also, he’s an asshole.