Peter L. W. Osnos - George Soros: A Life in Full

A Life in Full

SURVIVOR, BILLIONAIRE, SPECULATOR, PHILANTHROPIST, PHILOSOPHER, POLITICAL ACTIVIST, NEMESIS OF THE FAR RIGHT, GLOBAL CITIZEN

Edited by Peter L. W. Osnos

Platform Books

Harvard Business Review Press

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Cover design by Maryellen Tseng and Stephani Finks

Book design by Jane Raese

Set in 11.5-point Baskerville

Editorial production by Christine Marra, Marrathon Production Services.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Osnos, Peter, editor.

Title: George Soros : a life in full / edited by Peter L. W. Osnos.

Other titles: George Soros (Harvard Business Review)

Description: Boston, MA : Harvard Business Review Press, [2022] | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021021732 (print) | LCCN 2021021733 (ebook) | ISBN 9781647822798 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781647822804 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Soros, George. | Capitalists and financiersUnited StatesBiography. | PhilanthropistsUnited StatesBiography. | Hungarian AmericansBiography. | JewsUnited StatesBiography.

Classification: LCC HG172.S63 G36 2022 (print) | LCC HG172.S63 (ebook) | DDC 332.6092 [B]dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021021732

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021021733

Peter L. W. Osnos

THE NAME GEORGE SOROS IS WORLD FAMOUS. And yet the man himself is surprisingly little understood.

Depending on who or where you are, describing Soros is likely to elicit different answers. He has even more identities than he has lived decades, now into his tenth.

In addition to survivor, billionaire, speculator, philanthropist, activist, author, nemesis of the far right, and global citizen, there is husband, father, and, to an extent he may not even realize, friend.

The first eight of these are Soross public profile, and they are the focus of this book. Over the years, attempts have been made to write George Soross biography, but no single account of his life can capture its extraordinary, multifaceted character. The writers whose work appears in this volume have approached Soros from the perspective of those whose expertise in their fields have enabled them to provide a description of his activities andto the extent possiblethe motivation for them and their impact. There will be places where the narratives overlap; think of these as interlocking pieces of a puzzle covering a vast area. Some essays may not altogether reach the same conclusions. On a canvas this wide, this is perhaps inevitable. And with so much to cover, there may well be less of some activities than of others. But the breadth of these portrayals is considerable.

Essential to this process was that the writers have complete confidence in their independence of judgment, along with the responsibility to be accurate and fair-mindedwhile also recognizing that anyone writing about another person will bring his or her own experience to the task.

The essays are not intended to describe in detail how Soross activities and initiatives have developed over the decades. Suffice to say that the paths have not always been smooth. In finance there are straightforward measures of outcomemoney spent, money earned, profit and loss.

In philanthropic areas, success or failure is more difficult to assess because there are few clear metrics. Have the efforts and expenditures provided the desired results? When situations and personalities require changes to be made, how are these handled? The answers to these questionsespecially at the Open Society Foundations and Central European University, among the most ambitious philanthropic commitments of modern timesare yet to come.

These institutions have been founded by Soros, funded by Soros, and are ongoing. All the essays in the book are portrayals of George Soross experiences and vision and how he uses his wealth. He does seek counsel, advice, and information from other people. But the ultimate decisions have been and will continue to be his, as long as he can make them. This is not always popular.

So, this volume has been compiled with the assurance that it would be the best possible representation of George Soross life we can achieve. And he and his family did not read it until it was completed. I have guided the project with the assistance of Paul Golob, the estimable editor who has worked with me to bring the essays to final form. The opinions expressed, as the saying goes, are those of the authors. It will not be surprising if Soross critics find some fault with the essays.

My own dealings and fascination with Soros began in the 1980s, as he became involved with human rights issues, particularly Human Rights Watch. As a former journalist in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and Southeast Asia (including the war in Vietnam), and by personal instinct, I was also an advocate and interpreter of human rights issues.

In 1997, I founded the publishing house PublicAffairs, whose very first list included Soross book The Crisis of Global Capitalism: Open Society Endangered. All his books that have followed were likewise published by PublicAffairs, as well as in dozens of countries around the world.

My latest publishing venture, Platform Books LLC, is copublishing this book with Harvard Business Review Press to assure the broadest possible reach for the book in the world marketplace.

In a book of my own, An Especially Good View: Watching History Happen, I reflected on George Soros and our engagement over the years. I made the case that Soros was one of three individuals who were instrumental in the ultimate demise of the Soviet empire. The others were the great Soviet scientist and dissident Andrei Sakharov and Pope John Paul II. Sakharov, because of the universal acclaim for his humanism and democratic beliefs; John Paul, because he became the symbol throughout Eastern Europe of defiance of Kremlin orthodoxy; and Soros, because the combination of principles and wealth enabled him to back the avatars of Western open society where they did not exist.

As the Soviet empire entered its final stages before dissolving in 1991, Soros was in many ways the capitalist fantasy of all latter-day communistsa very, very rich man. What the Soviets and Eastern Europeans did not recognize about Soros was that his genius for making money was matched by his passion for the open society as defined by the philosopher Karl Popper. In the years of