Soros the Austrian?
George Soros grabbed headlines yesterday with an interview in Newsweek. The rabid leftist octogenarian investment icon and social activist ain't too optimistic. He's expecting riots in the U.S., lots of deflation, and a gold smack-down (though one source says he's buying gold . . . we won't know until the Q4 reports are released.)
It's hard to believe that this guy was once partners with Jim Rogers. Rogers is very optimistic about precious metals, and Roger holds a rather Austrian view of things. Soros is about as non-Austrian as they come.
But maybe not. Check out this passage from the article:
To Soros, the spectacular debunking of the credo of efficient markets–the notion that markets are rational and can regulate themselves to avert disaster–"is comparable to the collapse of Marxism as a political system. The prevailing interpretation has turned out to be very misleading. It assumes perfect knowledge, which is very far removed from reality. We need to move from the Age of Reason to the Age of Fallibility in order to have a proper understanding of the problems."
Fallibility? Imperfect knowledge? It almost sounds like he has read Friedrich Hayek.
The Hayekian theory of knowledge holds, correctly, that no one has much knowledge, so you need the marketplace: each person bringing his micro-knowledge or micro-ability to the plate, then the marketplace coordinating, in a chaotic fashion, all the microbes in the best way possible. It's not perfect, far from it, but it's the best option we have. It's a humble approach that acknowledges our limited knowledge. Big government, on the other hand, assumes a superior level of knowledge and ability that neither the government nor any entity outside of the metaphysical possesses.
So what side is the leftist Soros on? On the side of imperfect knowledge and humility? Or on the side of a deity-complex and hubris? I was certain of the answer 48 hours ago. Now I'm not so sure.
Received in an Email
With the advent of Photoshop, who knows if these are real, but I got a small kick out of them:
