George Soros, like so many influenced by the seductive power of a persuasive philosopher, in his case Karl Popper, is looking for the causes and cures for things in the wrong place. I doubt Plato or Hegel has anywhere near as much of an influence in politics as Popper or so many of Popper's critics insisted. At best they provided some intellectual allure to an otherwise far less idealized project. Government is always a skin of our teeth things, at some point, at the vital points of decision. And in almost ever case some of the ideas their philosophies contain can turn out to have had effects they didn't believe they would. Karl Marx, certainly did.
Which is no surprise, look at what "Christians" have done to the Gospel, which is far superior to philosophical systems if egalitarian democracy is the goal. And that history follows on another long history of the inability of those presented with a superior alternative to sustain it. The Old Testament is a record of the repeated failure of the governments of the Children of Israel to match the radical vision of Moses - though it's notable that even during the period of the Roman occupation, it was said that destitution didn't exist among the Jews, such was the power of that radical vision, one which continues today in the traditional "American-style" liberalism that is far more typical of American Jews and Jews in many other places. That is not anything surprising because the "American style" of liberalism, as opposed to the "enlightenment" 18th century European meaning of the word, is founded on that same Law and its extension by Jesus.
If you want to look at clues for better and less oppressive government, that's the place to look, not what is romantically considered the aftermath of the ancient Greeks in Europe.
There is always a difference between what is promised in philosophical-logical assertions and what you get when those are put into effect. The American Constitution coming after the Declaration of Independence - so many of the same men involved intimately with the framing of both documents - is notable in NOT producing a government which held that all men are created equal with equal rights to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" but the Constitution, framed after they found out that too many of the common men who had fought the Revolution on the promises of the Declaration wanted what it claimed were the intentions of that revolution. What it produced was an anti-democratic system masquerading as an electoral republic while not only retaining the original sins of the United States, slavery, imperialism, but of protecting and promoting those.
You can see the same thing in the French Revolution in which "liberty, equality, fraternity" quickly turned into the homicidal power plays of the intellectuals who killed each other as well as the blood bath that that debacle was.
No, the basic differences in government are between governments which serve the moral purpose of the common good on the basis of equality of people, not of ideological schemes, ideologies, theories. When government is not based on the principle that inequality is the open doorway of corruption and oppression and that material equality, equal distribution or resources is as essential as the vote, that is what's going to lead to oppression whether some academic calls it "totalitarianism" or "authoritarianism". A better comparison with Plato's fascist Republic isn't some other idea allowed into the category of "western thought" by 20th century academics, it's The Law of Moses and its further development in the radical extension of that in The Gospel. Whatever progress was made in addressing the defects of the United States Constitution only came about by people demanding things that come from that tradition. It is notable that every partially successful attempt at reform of the original Constitution was led at the start by those who explained themselves in religious terms. Abolition, the rights of workers, women's equality, had their greatest success when expressed in those terms. And none of them have been a total success, that progress impeded by Supreme Courts using the language of the Constitution and "originalism" or "literalism" and the regressive, anti-democratic features in it to impede its reform.
I think George Soros, whose experience included so notably a skin-of-our-teeth evasion of the Nazis through the ingenuity of his father, Theodore (an eminent Esperantist,by the way) has been looking in the wrong place for the solution. I suspect that's due to his formal education which, typically in 20th as in 19th century Europe and America, discouraged looking for it in the right places. It's not in the "openness" that Popper imagined was the solution. That's no better than throwing everything against the wall and seeing what sticks, at best. Ignoring that what sticks best is some of the worst. You have to start with the desired outcome of a decent life for all and admit that anything that opposes that isn't something you can safely allow to flourish and propagate. That was the same fatal mistake that the "liberals" on the American Supreme Court made in creating an "even playing field" of ideas by allowing lies in the mass media to be told with impunity. They reinforced the power of lies by doing that, the "more speech" left to those without money has failed, continually with little effect.
And if the response to that is "who is to judge" "who is to decide" which ideas are to be suppressed, the hard and clear truth is that even in an "open" society the answer is the same, WE ARE TO JUDGE, WE ARE TO DECIDE. TO REFUSE TO MAKE THAT DECISION IS TO DECIDE AGAINST EQUALITY AND DEMOCRACY, IT IS A CHOICE THAT EMPOWERS THE WORST IDEAS BECAUSE THEY CAN BE SOLD IN A DECEPTIVE, ATTRACTIVE CAMPAIGN OF LIES MADE TO SELL. To allow all ideas equality is to include those ideas which call for people to be enslaved, people to be oppressed, people to be exploited and people to be killed as desired or as suits the purpose of those with power. The opposition to those ideas will be no less reliant on WE BEING THE JUDGES, WE BEING THE CHOOSERS. Only it's a lot more dangerous because we so often will make the wrong choice especially if a fetish of "liberty" for those ideas to flourish and win over justice for all.
Update: I don't know how well it translated into English but Theodore Soros' Tivadar Soros' book, Maskerado ĉirkaŭ la morto is very good. Who knows who might need the lessons in survival it carries in the coming months and years.
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