Address to  CRANS MONTANA FORUM 
 
	For the last five years I have devoted exactly half my income and a 
substantially larger portion of my time and energy to my foundation network, 
which now covers 22 countries in the former Soviet empire and two outside: South 
Africa and Haiti.  I did so not because I am a particularly charitable person but 
because there was something important at stake.   
 
	The collapse of the Soviet empire was a historic event.  What kind of 
social organization would take its place would determine the shape of the world for 
many years to come.  Communism had tried to form a universal closed society.  
Now that it had failed, it was possible to create a universal open society.   
 
	The first few moments of creation are always the most important: that is 
when the pattern is set.  I was in a unique position.  Not only did I recognize the 
significance of the moment, I also had the resources to make an impact.  There are 
many people who are willing to sacrifice more than I am for the sake of an open 
society and there are some people with greater financial resources; but there was 
nobody else who combined both qualifications.  Occupying such a unique position, 
I felt I had a unique obligation. 
 
	My aim was to help the transition from communism to what I call an open 
society, using a term introduced by Karl Popper, the philosopher.  By open society 
I mean something akin to what we have in Western Europe and North America.  To 
most people living under a communist regime it was a very attractive prospect so, 
in promoting it, I was supporting the aspirations of the people involved.  I realized 
that an open society is a more sophisticated, more advanced form of social 
organization than a closed society and, to make the transition, people do need help.   
 
	Unfortunately, the open societies of the West did not share my vision.  Six 
years into the revolution, it is clear that the historic opportunity presented  by the 
collapse of communism has been missed.  It is dangerous to generalize -- after all, I 
am speaking about 22 countries -- but it is possible to discern a pattern emerging.  
It consists of nationalists ideologies combined with big business interests -- the 
classic recipe for fascism or national socialism.  It does not apply to every country 
and in each country where it does apply it takes a somewhat different form.  In 
most countries, neither the ideology nor the business interests are fully developed 
and the leadership is not firmly in the saddle.  Milosevic in Yugoslavia may be 
considered the most successful; Tudjman in Croatia is not doing badly, but he 
could still be unseated.  Meciar in Slovakia is strongly entrenched as the 
charismatic leader but the business interests are not yet fully formed and there is a 
good chance that they will fall out with each other over the spoils of privatization.  
In other countries -- of which Russia is the most important -- the business interests 
are better established than the leadership or the ideology.  The control of the state 
is up for grabs and the outcome is far from decided.  One thing is certain: whoever 
wants to win the support of the people must adopt a nationalistic, xenophobic 
rhetoric because people are disillusioned and angry with the West.  In yet other 
countries -- of which Ukraine is the most important -- the pattern is not yet set and 
there is a good chance that events will take a different direction, especially as the 
West seems to have woken up -- for the first time since the collapse of communism 
-- and is providing significant assistance.  It is too early to despair of the region -- I 
am certainly not ready to withdraw -- but it is not too early to ask what went wrong 
-- and I am increasingly preoccupied with that question. 
 
	It is clear that I misjudged the open societies of the West.  I thought that 
they shared my belief in open society as a desirable form of social organization and 
they were ready to exert themselves to help bring it about.   In reality, most people 
living in open societies are not even aware that they are living in open societies; 
they certainly don't regard it as a goal for which it is worth making sacrifices.  I 
was misled by the people with whom I associated in Eastern and Central Europe.  
They might not use the terminology of open and closed society but they manifested 
a passionate devotion to the idea.  I was also misled by history, because the West 
did fight for the values of open society in the Second World War and it was willing 
to make some sacrifices to establish those values in the aftermath of the War.  
America's treatment of Germany and Japan set a shining example which I thought 
might be followed in the aftermath of the collapse of communism.  But in that 
regard I was sadly disappointed.  The West seems to have lost the values for which 
it was willing to take a stand in the past. 
 
	Nowhere is this more visible than in Bosnia.  I don't want to go into a 
discussion of Bosnia because there is too much to say. The only point I want to 
make is that Bosnia has demonstrated the lack of unity and the lack of political will 
in the Western democracies.  This has fatally weakened the U.N. and, to a lesser 
extent, NATO.  As a result, we are without any effective institutions for 
maintaining peace and order in the world just at the time when we are facing 
increasing disorder.  It is in the nature of nationalist dictatorships that they tend to 
create conflicts in order to mobilize society behind the state. 
 
  Prior to Bosnia -- for instance, at the time the Yugoslavs bombarded Dubrovnik -- 
we should have worried about Eastern Europe; now we should worry about 
ourselves, about the future of Western civilization. 
 
	What do we stand for?  I don't think anybody has a clear answer to this 
question any more.  Insofar as there is a prevailing view, it is that everybody should 
be guided by his self-interest.  This holds true in the economy, where the market 
mechanism is supposed to assure the best allocation of resources; it holds true in 
politics, where politicians are supposed to represent the interests of their 
constituents without much regard to universal values; and it holds true with even 
greater force in international relations.  States don't have principles; they only have 
interests.  Statesmen who don't subscribe to this maxim are simply not accepted as 
professionals and they tend to be rejected by their electorates. 
 
	I don't believe this set of values is adequate to sustain our civilization.  
There is something missing: a concept of the common interest.  Without such a 
concept, no society can hold together. 
 
	It can be argued, and it is being argued with considerable vigor, 
particularly in the United States, that the untrammelled pursuit of self-interest 
represents the common interest.  I contend that the argument is false.  It exalts 
competition to the detriment of cooperation.  There is great merit in competition.  
It is a source of innovation and improvement and, even more importantly, it 
provides freedom of choice.  But competition is not sustainable without some 
measure of cooperation.  Unless it is circumscribed and contained by rules and 
standards of behavior, it becomes utterly destructive.  This is clearly visible in the 
international arena where the rules and standards are inadequate, but it is no less 
true internally.  Indeed, the cardinal lesson to be learned from the history of the last 
five years is that it takes more than the pursuit of self-interest to bring about an 
open society.  The collapse of a closed society does not automatically lead to the 
creation of an open society.  There is more to freedom than the absence of 
repression.  If you don't believe it, just look at what's happening in Russia -- not to 
mention Yugoslavia. 
 
	No, open society is a more complex, more sophisticated form of 
organization.  Indeed, its main drawback is that it is too abstract and it is not 
properly understood.  We had better exert ourselves to understand it because our 
civilization cannot endure without it.  Our civilization is very advanced and it has 
become global in scope.  It entails a tremendous increase in our power over our 
environment.  If our understanding cannot keep pace with our power, we are 
risking a catastrophe of unprecedented proportions. 
 
	I don't think it is clear to most people that the concept of open society is 
based on the recognition that our understanding of the world in which we live is 
inherently imperfect.  That is why we need a form of social organization which 
allows people with different opinions and different interests to live together in 
peace.  By and large, we have established such an organization in the Western 
democracies, but we are sadly deficient as far as international relations are 
concerned.  The Western democracies are not without their internal deficiencies, 
either.  Once you recognize that our understanding is inherently imperfect, this 
should not come as a surprise.  But the great merit of our imperfect understanding 
is that it can be improved.  So we should not accept faults without making an effort 
to correct them. 
 
	We have identified the main defect of the Western democracies.  To put it 
bluntly, they are morally bankrupt.  Is there a way out of this bankruptcy?  I believe 
there is.  We must establish some common values which will hold our civilization 
together.  Where can we find such values, when our civilization is global in scope 
and encompasses many different cultures?  I believe there is only one solution.  We 
must recognize the concept of open society, which allows people with different 
beliefs and different interests to live together in peace as the common interest 
which must take precedence over the pursuit of narrow self-interest.    
 
	Please note that open society does not preclude the pursuit of self-interest; 
on the contrary, in the absence of perfect knowledge, it is best left to the individual 
to define what his interests are and it is best left to the market mechanism to 
reconcile those interests.  But, in the absence of perfect knowledge, it cannot be left 
to the individual to protect the common interest.  You need institutions which take 
precedence over the individual.  These institutions are bound to be flawed but, if 
they belong to an open society, this fact will be recognized in their constitution and 
there will be a never-ending endeavor to correct the deficiencies.  That is what 
makes open society such a subtle and sophisticated concept. 
 
	Are we capable of understanding it and accepting it as a desirable goal?  
Can we base our values on the recognition that we may be wrong?  Values 
represent what we believe to be right.  Can we hold beliefs which may be wrong?  
Only if we attribute a positive value to recognizing that we may be wrong.  That is 
the intellectual hurdle we must overcome. 
 
	Open society is a sophisticated, abstract idea.  How can it compete with 
simpler, more concrete ideas such as "my family," "my tribe," "my country, right or 
wrong?"  People may be willing to die for king and country; are they willing to die 
for open society?  Judging by the example of Bosnia, clearly not.  But it may be 
unfair to invoke Bosnia in this context because in Bosnia the issues were never 
clearly defined. 
 
	The world is badly in need of some guiding principles to govern relations 
between states and also within states.  The maxim that states have only interests but 
not principles is clearly inadequate as a guiding principle.  I believe that the 
principle of open society offers a better guide.  How can it be translated into rules 
and institutions that will preserve peace in the world?  That is a difficult question 
which requires careful deliberation.  I cannot answer it on my own; we must work 
it out together.  All I can do here is to convince you that the institutions we have 
relied on -- the UN, NATO, and perhaps also the European Union -- are failing to 
preserve peace. 
 
	Prior to the collapse of the Soviet empire we lived in a stable world order.  
That order has disintegrated and no new order has taken its place.  In the absence of 
order, we face increasing disorder.  Nationalist dictatorships tend to create conflicts 
in order to mobilize society behind the State.   How are we going to preserve peace 
and order in the world when we do not even recognize the need for a world order?  
The free world used to be held together by the communist menace.  Now that the 
Evil Empire has disappeared, we need a positive idea to hold us together.  Open 
society could be that idea.  Please, think about it. 
 
George Soros 
June 1995