To those right of center, George Sorors is evil incarnate. Whatever goes wrong, it’s Sorors fault. Given such position, the specifics of what he does goes unaddressed.

George Soros, the billionaire investor and philanthropist founder of Open Society Foundations, has made his philosophy, objectives, and modus operandi perfectly clear, especially in the numerous very quotable quotes in his books, speeches, and public conversations.

Soros is an intellectual who is considered one of the best hedge fund managers in the world. His fortune, estimated at $8.6 billion, attests to his acumen. His Open Society Foundations, endowed at around $18 billion, is a grant-making machine amply capable of transforming markets and societies.

His objectives, as clearly expressed in his own words, matter.

A man with a mission

Soros objectives could be boiled down to two of his quotes:

When I had made more money than I needed for myself and my family, I set up a foundation to promote the values and principles of a free and open society.

An open society is a society which allows its members the greatest possible degree of freedom in pursuing their interests compatible with the interests of others.

Back in the late 1970s, when Soros started his philanthropic work, he funded educational initiatives for Black South Africans and gave financial support to dissidents of the Communist regime in the European Eastern Block. When South African apartheid dissolved and the Soviet Union collapsed, Soros turned his attention to other “enemies of open societies.”

The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.

According to information on its website, Open Society Foundations spends approximately one in five dollars in the United States.

Why? Because most people, including George Soros, view the U.S. as the hot bed of capitalism.

The main enemy of the open society, I believe, is no longer the communist but the capitalist threat.

Capitalist threat?

Such view of capitalism espoused by someone who made his fortune in the world’s capital markets is surprising.

However, today, Soros views his same theory of reflexivity that led to his success in the capital markets as a destabilizing force that needs government regulation.

Reflexivity is the “gap between perception and reality.” According to Soros markets often operate on perception, so prices reflect perception not reality. Reliance on past performance and ideas of how markets should behave can become useless when perceptions of the day interfere with prices.

Add to reflexivity what Soros sees as a tendency of markets toward excess, and we have, according to Soros, a recipe for instability, uncertainty, and economy mayhem.

His solution is to regulate institutions and the market

Throughout the 19th century, when there was a laissez-faire mentality and insufficient regulation, you had one crisis after another. Each crisis brought about some reform. That is how central banking developed.

A global regulatory system would be even better, as Soros explains in one of his books, The Crisis of Global Capitalism.

To stabilize and regulate a truly global economy, we need some global system of political decision-making.

In short, we need a global society to support our global economy.

Soros explained during his remarks on October 1, 2013, at the Global Economic Symposium,

Behind the invisible hand of markets lurks the visible hand of politics. Both the markets and the authorities are fallible; that is what makes their interaction reflexive.

The downside? According to Soros, reflexivity applies to society as a whole, not just to capital markets. He willingly admits that his views and actions are a result of his perceptions of reality. As his perceptions change given new information or new developments, he recalibrates.

Unfortunately political decision makers are seldom blessed with such wisdom. Their perceptions mushroom into eternal rules

More downsides

* Soros view of the ideal society “which allows its members the greatest possible degree of freedom in pursuing their interests compatible with the interests of others” clashes with his desire to achieve stability through heavy regulation. Nevertheless, he acts on his perception that wide-spread regulation is desirable.

* The perception is that capitalism, especially American capitalism, is the cause of imbalance, uncertainly, and economic disaster. The reality is that capitalism has been transformed into cronyism. Already excessive regulation exclude competitors from markets, low interest rates facilitate acquisitions and monopolies, largess showered on the populace disincentivizes workers.

* Power corrupts. Thus, it stands to reason that politicians with the power to heavily regulate and control markets, especially on a global scenario, face temptations to act in corrupts ways.

* Soros is quick to clarify that when he refers to global decision makers, he means a decision-making body that supports sovereign open societies. A nation that must take orders from a global decision maker cannot be called sovereign, whether it is an open society or not.

Watch who supports your political candidates

George Soros’ Open Society Foundations aim to transform economic and social systems in America. Some systems like the creation of elites through inflated stock or real estate prices, for example, could use improvement. But transformation from a sovereign nation with still some semblance of free markets and still some semblance of individual freedom into a subsidiary of a global decision-making body is not what we should want.

Open Society Foundations has created a vast network of grant-making entities that target candidates who will support George Soros’ vision of what America should look like.

Voters need to pay attention for whom they vote. Voters that reject the U.S.’s form of capitalism as does Soros are certainly free to vote for Soros-supported candidates. However, voters who still place faith in our markets and our sovereignty, might want to choose other candidates.

In this article the JVN blog discussed Soros’ economic objectives and how he is advancing those objectives in the U.S. In an earlier article, published in California Political News & Views, JVN discussed Soros’ focus on transforming America’s judicial system by funding selected candidates for district attorney.

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Pictured: This picture, from a timeline of initiatives on the Open Society Foundations website, shows Step by Step, an early childhood education institution funded by Open Society. These institutions are now in 120 countries, including the U.S.

Source of Soros’ Quotable Quotes: Most of the quotes in this JVN article come from Everyday Power: Daily Inspirational Quotes