SOROS-'The rulers of the United States have embarked on policies that violate the principles of open society'
--My first big effort was in Hungary where, in 1984, I established a foundation in partnership with the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, then an agency of the political police. Our unannounced aim was to foster all kinds of cultural and intellectual activities that were not under the direct control of the party/state apparatus. The theory was that the official ideology was false because it laid claim to the ultimate truth, and its falsehood could be demonstrated by fostering alternatives. And it really worked like that.
That encouraged me and, as the Soviet system collapsed, I established foundations in 30-odd countries. The goal was to help with the transition from closed to open societies, based on the recognition that an open society is the more sophisticated form of social organisation. In the Soviet system, there was supposed to be only one plan, the central plan, whereas in an open society, every individual has to form his own plan and there is a need for institutions to allow different people with different plans to live together in peace.
But it became obvious that the collapse of a closed social system does not automatically lead to the formation of an open one. On the contrary, the collapse could simply feed on itself. That is what happened in the Soviet Union. It made me realise that there was something wrong with the simple dichotomy between open and closed societies with which I was working. Totalitarian dictatorship was not the only alternative to open society. There was another: the disintegration of society As the political theorist Stephen Holmes put it, "weak states can also be a threat to liberty".
Strange as it may seem, this idea was not part of my conceptual framework, and I was not alone in this respect. Most liberal thinkers were only concerned with oppressive states, not with weak states. I reconsidered my framework. Instead of a simple dichotomy between open and closed societies, I now envisage open society as a kind of embattled middle ground, threatened from all sides. It is endangered both by too much interference with the freedom of the individual and by too little. Market fundamentalism has become my favourite whipping boy because I consider it more influential today than socialism.
When I visit the former Soviet empire, however, I emphasise that, when I criticise the market mechanism, I am not endorsing the controls and constraints that are still all too prevalent in those countries. The imperfection of markets does not, in itself, justify government controls; similarly, the imperfection of regulations does not imply that markets are perfect. All human constructs are imperfect in some way or another. Open societies accept this constraint, closed societies deny it. In my definition, open society is an imperfect society that holds itself open to improvement.
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Since 11 September, the threat comes not only from terrorism itself, but from the war against terrorism. Amazingly, the government of one of the most open societies, the US, has embarked on policies that violate the principles of open society. The Bush administration contains a number of ideologues who believe that international relations are relations of power, and the US, being the most powerful state, has the right to impose its will on the rest of the world. They held this belief before 11 September and, to the extent they could, they acted upon it. They renounced international treaties and sought to make American military power absolute by militarising space. But they were constrained by the lack of a clear mandate. The events of 11 September changed that. The Bush administration could claim to be acting in self-defence and carry the nation behind it.
The Bush administration arrogates for itself the right to decide how and where to fight the invisible enemy. It fails to acknowledge the possibility that Popper always emphasised--that we may be wrong. Military power is of limited use in dealing with asymmetric threats such as terrorism. The US needs to earn the support and sympathy of the world, and following the precept that might is right is not the way to go about it.
Fortunately, we live in a democracy, and if we, the citizens of the US, believe in the principles of open society, we can prove the Bush administration wrong.
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