IP: The Penn Current - April 25, 2002 - Soros blasts how Bush fights terror

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

 http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/current/2002/042502/feature2.html

Soros blasts how Bush fights terror

BY SANDY SMITH 
------------------------------------------------------------------------

The event was billed as a conversation on globalization with
financier-philanthropist George Soros.

But Soros managed to add American foreign policy to the agenda at the
Granoff Forum on International Development and the Global Economy April 8.

In his opening remarks, Soros, now known as much for his efforts to promote
open, democratic societies worldwide as for the billions he made in the
capital markets, departed from a talk on the virtues and defects of
globalization to deliver sharp criticism of the Bush administration¹s
approach to fighting terrorism.

³I find the foreign policy of the Bush administration exceedingly
dangerous,² he said. ³Although the terrorist threat is real and must be
defended against, they are going about it in the wrong way.²

His strongest criticism was reserved for those in the Bush
administration‹namely Attorney General John Ashcroft and Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld‹who, he said, ³have the same mindset² as Palestinian
Authority head Yasir Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Judging
from the applause, many in the near-capacity Zellerbach Theater crowd
agreed.

Soros and his interlocutors‹Michael Granoff (C¹80), CEO of Pomona Capital,
Jacob Safra Professor of International Banking Richard J. Herring and
Lawrence R. Klein Associate Professor of Economics Antonio Merlo‹did manage
to discuss the good and bad sides of globalization during the 90-minute
forum.

Soros noted that under the current system, money was free to move about the
world, while labor was still restricted in its movement. The enormous
amounts of wealth created by this system has given rise to what he called
³the false ideology of market fundamentalism²‹the belief that markets are
the only legitimate way to determine what is worthwhile and what is not.

As he pointed out in response to a question from the audience, ³Markets are
amoral. But society cannot live without morality.² And political and social
institutions, which by their nature are inefficient, are the proper places
to introduce moral considerations into market societies, he said.

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