The Age of Fallibility: The Consequences of the War on Terror

First of all, it must be said right off that this is not a book about trading. Soros is most famous in the financial markets for his managing of the Quantum Fund and making a billion shorting the Pound in the 90s when the currency broke from the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) which was in place then as a precursor to the eventual Euro introduction. Anyone coming in with the author's trading/investing history in mind thinking he might talk about that type of thing in this book is going to be disappointed. While he does mention events like this and others for which he is famous - or notorious, depending on your viewpoint - neither trading nor the markets are the focus of this book. The Age of Fallibility is at its core as much a philosophical treatise as an exploration of global affairs. Soros has a pretty well developed world view and philosophy. His `reflexivity' approach to events (markets and otherwise) has been expressed in his earlier books, and is further refined in this one. That is the part of the book which will appeal to traders and investors, as it helps to explain how he looks at the larger movement of markets and how predictable patterns of behavior can be seen. For those who like to take a big picture view of things, it is definitely something worth reading. As for the remainder of the book, that is a combination of explaining open society, exploring global politics, and attacking America's foreign policy, as the title would imply (though no major global player is left out of the discussion or immune from criticism). If you are an open-minded sort then you will find Soros' views very interesting. In particular, I found his discussion on the concept of the "war on terror" very interesting. No matter what you think of Soros or his politics (and many folks rightly or wrongly have a negative view of him), the fact of the matter is the man has a perspective on things few can offer based on his experience operating his various organizations. As such, he is definitely someone to whom we should at least listen. If you can do that, I guarantee he'll have you thinking at several points in the text. If not, then this may not be a book you'll want to read. I personally started the book wondering if the arrogance I found in his earlier market focused books would be apparent in this one too, but I found it wasn't. The style was very engaging throughout and what he had to say thought provoking. If that's what you look for in a current events type of book, then you will like this one, all the more for the fact that though the book was written in 2006, it has enough of a macro scope to it to make the subject matter still quite meaningful now in 2008.

Most of the meat of this decidedly philosophic opus by one of the world's most successful financial wizards concerns the differences between the closed and open societies that govern us. The closed society is characterized by traditional modes of thought while the open society is characterized by critical thought. Traditional thinking is unchanging. The past is like the present which is like the future. We think the way our fathers thought and their fathers before them. Knowledge is based on authority. In the open society change is constant. Knowledge is based on the scientific method which yields facts that are always subject to change. In the closed society knowledge is certain and absolute. In the open society knowledge is never certain and always subject to new discoveries. Yet ironically in the open society (the European Union, the United States, et al.) pure reason does not rule, partly because the pure product of the rational mind is unobtainable because of what might be seen as Russell's paradox acting in the human world. Bertrand Russell discovered (after Godel) that self-referencing systems lead eventually to paradox. What Soros is arguing is that because our perception of the world is self-referential to some extent--that is, how we think about the world colors our perception of the world--we can never see the world "as it really is," and so our view is fallible. In fact, in most aspects of life, especially in the social, economic and political spheres, our perception actually changes reality, and so reality is a "moving target" and as such can never be captured. He calls this "reflexivity." He also dubs it the "human uncertainty principle" since our perception of the world, as our perception of quantum events, alters what is being perceived. Soros goes on to argue that all cultures are built upon what he calls "fertile fallacies." The cultural ideas are false but they are successful (for a while) because of a positive feedback system, similar to the boom and bust phenomenon in financial markets. People believe that tulips have great intrinsic value, ergo, tulips have great intrinsic value and become worth more than gold. For a while. Eventually "reality" kicks in and the bust comes. So it is with cultures. Nazi Germany boomed magnificently (compared to the immediate aftermath of WWI), but soon went bust because it was built on fallacies. Ditto the Soviet Union. All this Soros explains carefully and at some length. Then comes the important point: open societies can better avoid the boom and bust syndrome because unlike closed societies they are not built on some fallacious idea of eternal truth. Instead, like science they are always open to falsification and change, whereas close societies resist falsification and change. In all of this I think Soros is making a brilliant argument. As he himself says, the argument is not original with him--he acknowledges a deep debt to Karl Popper the philosopher of science

What are the errors in thinking in our current 'war on terror'? To receive an exacting analysis, try George Soros' THE AGE OF FALLIBILITY: CONSEQUENCES OF THE WAR ON TERROR. His analysis pinpoints ways in which the country has lost its direction and some of its values in pursuing such a campaign, analyzing the Bush administration's approach and public sentiments alike. A hard-hitting survey for any interested in the current state of American thinking. Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch

In his analysis of human thinking and reality, Soros is comfortable with his reality of making money through immoral means. He claims that the money market of finance lacks moral restraints and players must win at any cost, even by siding with wrong parties. Sure he does not delve into a conscientious issue such as the money he accumulated by immoral means might have been stolen from others. That would be simple and naive stipulation that sidetracks his stream of thoughts. Yet, on political issues, he believes that he still has strong ethical framework that might make the world better place. As if he could toggle his moral switches between monetary thuggery and political idealism. He is transparent in his analysis that human selfishness has haunted him for so long to the extent that he did not wish that his philanthropic organizations survive him. Repeatedly, you sense his concern of old age and death and the purpose of leaving behind his contribution without his control. His deeply ingrained sense of constant search for potentially winning trends in politics parallels his behavior in finance. Economics underlies every international transaction, in his views. The war on terror is distracting America from the unexpected development in Russia. Soros fears that the eminence gas and oil wealth of Russia might lead to a new, different, and dangerous regime driven by wealth, greed, and desire for regaining national strength. Russia foments disaster in the Middle East by aiding Iran, Israel, and Hamas in a plot to destabilize the energy resource, he claims. Yet, the proponents of American Supremacy (his definition of the neocons) are living in the feel-good mood of appealing to consumerism. To his disappointment, the far-from-equilibrium state that chattered his childhood life in Hungary is mirrored in the neo-conservatives' politics in his new homeland. The Nazi Germany was misled by a crazy dictator because its people failed to recognize his fallibility. The communist bloc had replicated the Nazi error by claiming ownership to a perfect truth. Similarly, the Americans are misled by the neocons because of their failure to question the false premises of the war on terror. Consumerism, he claims, stimulates people's desire at the expense of demand and that lead to feel-good-society. Reagan started that trend which is an alteration of the can-do-society of Truman's era, in Soros' views. Soros predicts that our human race should have grown up to the "age of fallibility". That implies our recognition of our flawed sense of reality and the need for infinite improvements to our participation in society. That should be a natural development of the "age of reason" that started the era of Enlightenment, he claims. His Judaic faith that implies infallibility belongs to God alone and his economic shrewdness that taught him much about human fallibility, both, could be the source of his generalized prediction. Whether Soros is a stateless stat

People in other reviews have claimed "Soros hates Americans", however this is far from an accurate reflection of his beliefs. Soros *IS* the consummate rationalist. If U.S. policies that inflict massive harm on people around the world changed, he would revise his opinions. He is not irrational. He merely points out the harm the policies cause. Soros theories on how thoughts are now being made to become reality are very novel in the space of social philosophers and very real today. Soros points out the fundamental issue, namely that people who wish to prevent future atrocities will need to counteract the way in which the thoughts of people are being used to create reality and facts. Idolize Soros, or hate him because he doesn't support your political candidate ... either way, you will always learn something by listening to him and reading his books. Soros is very good at pointing out flaws in thinking. This has recently especially been the case with respect to the Iraq & Afghanistan military actions conducted by the U.S. It is a fact that these wars were imposed upon us by politicians financially backed by Texas-based oil monopolies and defense contractors. These are two major industrial groups facing complete marginalization and irrelevancy in the future in the absence of massive new orders for infantry weapons/supplies and new control of oil fields. These industries need each other, they needed the Iraq war, and they put a politician in the White House that gave it to us. Soros is a rationalist and a realist. Soros will not dismiss a hard material observation for any reason and the result is that he routinely reminds us of thought methodologies that make it more difficult for politicians to use rhetoric such as "bombing cities for freedom" without also conjuring up the image of how many people are harmed, killed, and deprived of their freedom in the process of being bombed. With geniuses like Gandhi, Roosevelt, Einstein, and Popper now passed away, Soros has emerged as one of the smartest still living people on the planet. Soros has made billions of dollars by simply predicting trade imbalances and trading on the side of them as they corrected. His theories, while not infallible, have a predictive and reliably accurate quality that is unsurpassed by the statements of any other living human being. Soros teaches us to always ask questions. Namely ... how "free" is the family cowering in their basement with their children awaiting death as their city is being bombed by "freedom fighters"?