WC Archive

As a follow-up to our earlier post about George Soros' article (and new book) The Bubble of American Supremacy, here's a newly-posted interview with Soros on Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo political blog. In it, he provides further discussion of the need for open societies, for an international regime based on respect for law, and for a recognition that might does not always make right:

SOROS: I think that the reliance on military power is sort of an excess of this Social Darwinist point of view. I had been opposed to market fundamentalism as a philosophy or as an ideology. Namely, that life is a struggle for survival, and the struggle manifests itself mainly in competition. And the competition is, who is stronger? And the survival of the fittest is basically the survival of the strongest in competition. But, in actual fact, survival also requires cooperation. And there is a need for having rules to which everybody agrees for us to survive. And there are also problems like the environment, that can only be … and maintaining peace in the world, that can only be achieved through cooperation. So there's a misinterpretation of the Darwinist theory of survival of the fittest --- that achieving power over others is the goal. And that is not really the basis of our civilization.