Grim Britannia

[version]

I read an interview he gave in the 80s where he said the market must be regulated because he and his competitors will not self-regulate. That you had to be amoral.

 

[RWY]

What in god's name have you lot done to this thread

 

[RWY]

I came here expecting more anecdotes and photos of London in the 1990s, not Tea banging on about his bloody nostrils!

 

[IdleRich]

Well Soros fits in to the grim britain stuff cos of when he broke the bank of England and inadvertently pushed us in the right(?) direction... though no-one knew it at the time.

 

[version]

I don't think this is the same interview, but he's saying something similar.

BRANCACCIO: Does it worry you, for instance, that maybe some of your actions in the past would have hurt some people, when you withdrew capital from certain countries?

SOROS: Yes. No, you see you can't… as a market participant, if you want to be successful, I think you just have to look out for your own interests.

BRANCACCIO: It sounds amoral.

SOROS: Pardon?

BRANCACCIO: It sounds amoral.

SOROS: It is amoral. Now, it's very often understood and understood as immoral. And that is a very different, being immoral. If you hurt people deliberately or you know, that's immoral. If you break the law, that's immoral. If you play by the rules, that is the market itself is amoral.

If you impose morality on it, it means that you are actually with your hands tied behind your back and you're not going to be successful. It's extremely hard to be successful.

 

[version]

BRANCACCIO: Do you think, on balance, that your philanthropic work counteracts the more ruthless decisions that you had to make when you were a financier?

SOROS: It is no connection whatsoever. I'm not doing my philanthropic work, out of any kind of guilt, or any need to create good public relations. I'm doing it because I can afford to do it, and I believe in it.

 

[IdleRich]

I find that position inconsistent. Or at least problematic.

 

[version]

Which bit?

 

[Leo]

the AMAZING food we can enjoy from all over the old dominions.

 

[vimothy]

its a distinction without a difference, a rationalisation

 

[IdleRich]

Which bit?

OK... he is in a position to do it and he believes in it so he does it... but before he was (at least arguably) in a position not to do the things that he said he didn't believe in (or worse disapproved of) and yet he did them. Possibly later he put himself himself in a position to do more good than the harm he felt he had caused, but he can't have known that that was what would happen.

 

[IdleRich]

And I think the way out of that is to say "I was wrong and I'm guilty" but he's deliberately blocking that off.

 

[version]

its a distinction without a difference, a rationalisation

Soros' comments or the white and brown toasted bread?

 

[vimothy]

I wasnt out to intentionally harm ppl, I just didnt care if I did

 

[IdleRich]

I wasnt out to intentionally harm ppl, I just didnt care if I did

And now I think it's important that I do the opposite... but it's definitely not guilt.

 

[vimothy]

which isnt immoral, actually its amoral, totally different thing

 

[version]

"Don't hate the player, hate the game" says man who went out of his way to play the game.

 

[vimothy]

dont blame me, its systemic

 

[version]

'structural'

Lee Fang One rhetorical trend on the left is using the term “structural” for everything, often for problems that are just interpersonal or anecdotal. The word is rapidly losing meaning. Jamie McCallum No, there’s a growing recognition on the left that systems of oppression are more usefully...

dissensus.com

 

[IdleRich]

But I can handle that position... it just jars with "and now I'm a billionaire I must do good things". That's what I mean by inconsistent.