Even at the age of 91, the financier and fighter for a democratic, open society insists on having dinner in Davos to analyze the world. This time he warns of the end of the world, but he doesn’t let his optimism take away.
George Soros receiving journalists at the World Economic Forum has long become a tradition.
For the umpteenth time George Soros invited journalists to dinner in Davos, even his 36-year-old son Alex no longer knows. “When it started, I was still a child,” he says simply. In any case, it has become a tradition that Soros comes to Davos during the World Economic Forum and invites the journalists who are present to dinner. Not at the World Economic Forum itself, but a bit away from the congress center in the Hotel Seehof.
One observer suspects that Soros and WEF founder Schwab have agreed that there is no space for a joint appearance. Others think that Soros deliberately wants to set his own counterpoint with his view of the world and with his economically sound warnings about delicate developments and too much globalization euphoria.
Around a hundred journalists are invited to listen to Soro’s words. After an aperitif, you are invited to white-covered tables. There is a richly garnished nutmeg salad, accompanied by Austrian and Swiss wine. Then he comes. Slowly and accompanied, but without a cane or outside help, the 91-year-old living legend walks along the wall through the hall, purposefully towards the small podium. There he sits down and immediately begins to speak softly, but clearly and intelligibly.
battle of the systems
“The course of history has changed dramatically since the last meeting in Davos,” he explains bluntly. «The Russian invasion of Ukraine shook Europe. The invasion could mark the beginning of a third world war that our civilization will not survive. That’s what I want to talk about today.”
George Soros was born in Budapest in 1930. His father escaped to Hungary from a Siberian prison camp in 1918. Because of his Jewish roots, he and his family had to hide from the Nazis. In 1947, when he was only 17, George Soros fled from the Soviets via Switzerland to London, where he studied economics at the LSE. And personal experience speaks for itself when Soros urgently warns today: “The invasion of Ukraine did not come out of the blue”. It is the result of a struggle between two diametrically opposed systems. That of an open society and that of a closed society. “In an open society the state must serve the individual, in a closed society the individual is there to serve the ruler.”
Soros tells how he started helping people suffering under communism in the 1980s. When the Soviet Union collapsed, he began establishing foundation after foundation in the former Soviet states that supported the development of an open civil society. His success as an investor has helped him spend more and more money on it.
The bets paid off and brought him enemies
As early as 1969, the lightning-savvy calculator and risk-taking speculator founded an extraordinarily successful investment fund in New York, which a short time later turned into what was probably the first hedge fund. In 1992 he made over a billion profits with his legendary billion-dollar bet against the European exchange rate system, which was only half fixed at the time, and against the Bank of England. It wasn’t his last financial success.
The philanthropist invested most of the wealth he acquired in this way in his Open Society Foundations, which are spread around the world and are committed to open, democratic societies. So far, it has spent $18 billion. In the end, Soros bequeathed her $28 billion in endowment; around 5 percent is spent per year and the fund management tries to keep the value to some extent.
His global activities have made Soros the enemy of all sorts of autocrats and people who sense a world conspiracy behind it. But his Open Society Foundation is showing a short film at the dinner in which the foundation’s commitment to projects for freedom and democracy is shown and the conclusion is drawn: “If we make enemies with it, we’re happy to be enemies.” Soros himself does not comment on this.
Soros also does not want to talk about the autocratic Hungarian head of state Viktor Orban, who pushed him and his foundations out of the country. Orban always claims they have a personal feud. When asked, he explained that it was not about the person at all, but the system and the open society.
Abuse of digitization and artificial intelligence
Rather, Soros is concerned with why autocrats and dictators like Putin have been on the rise again since the beginning of the millennium. “Digital technologies and artificial intelligence are actually neutral instruments, but they have been used asymmetrically by autocrats to control society and weaken open societies,” Soros concludes with concern that evening.
Nevertheless, the optimism that sometimes puts a smile on his face shows up again. Fortunately, the big mistakes made by Vladimir Putin in Ukraine and Xi Jinping with his zero-Covid strategy in China would show the world that even the new technologies were not leading to success for the autocracies in the long term. Soros is convinced that these mistakes will make democracies more popular around the world, says his son.
On this evening in Davos, Soros is also hopeful that the Ukraine crisis will weld Europe together and continue to develop in the right direction. The EU was united and responded well, and the new German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, understood that he could no longer simply continue the mistakes of his predecessor, Angela Merkel. When it comes to preserving European unity, Scholz always does the right thing – in the end, he judges with a touch of irony.
Civilization must survive
Nevertheless, Soros warns of the end of the world. And not just because of the threat of nuclear war, but because he fears that a protracted conflict will force society to neglect other pressing issues.
The first thing he thinks about is climate change. Scientists said that if action is not taken now, it could suddenly be too late. This could mean the end of civilization. “Most people accept that they will have to die at some point,” says the 91-year-old, “but they want to be sure that civilization will survive.”
“That’s why all resources must now be mobilized so that the war ends quickly,” he urged at the end of his tour d’horizon. It is best, and probably the only way, to defeat Putin.
A letter to Mario Draghi
How this is to go without a world war remains an open question. On the other hand, when asked, Soros spoke out against an oil embargo and in favor of a natural gas embargo. Oil can be sold elsewhere. But when it comes to natural gas, Putin’s negotiating position is much weaker than he is letting on. Because he had already filled the interim storage last year to drive up the price.
Now the natural gas has to flow away, which for the most part is only possible via the pipelines leading to Europe. If that is no longer possible, the Russians would have to close the boreholes, which they could not easily reverse with their outdated technology.
Because Putin can hardly help but sell to Europe, the importing countries should then buy Russian natural gas cheaper and impose high import duties. They should use the income to help Ukraine. Of course, there is a risk that Putin will turn off the gas tap beforehand in order to harm Europe while it still hurts. But it’s worth taking the risk.
There he speaks again, the fox who obviously hasn’t lost his mental vitality. “I wrote that to Mario Draghi in a letter yesterday. I want you to understand that exactly, »says Soros, turning to the journalists. And continues: “Okay, I’ll email you a copy of the letter later.”
The chicken on a sophisticated mushroom risotto is eaten. Soros has eaten nothing, gets up and leaves as he came. Spontaneous conversations with him in passing are difficult to carry on, his hearing ability has diminished too much. And yet, says one employee, he keeps calling at the weekend because he has discovered an injustice somewhere in the world and says: “Come on, we have to help them somehow, what do we do?”.
There is dessert, the cameras are cleared. Until next year.