George Soros is in his mid eighties. “This is his last active decade,” said Anna Porter in her new book Buying a Better World: George Soros and Billionaire Philanthropy. “He has been in feverish overdrive since his seventieth birthday, wishing to accomplish what he set out to do back in his fifties: inspire people to embrace ‘open society’ and convince the world of intellectuals that his theories and ideas are fundamental to understanding the human condition.”
Titans of industry have long sought redemption and some measure of immortality in the charitable work they have undertaken. Think Nobel, Carnegie, Rockefeller and Pew. Men today like Bill Gates and Toronto’s Peter Munk carry on in much the same tradition, endowing charitable works and academic institutions with their very public benevolence. As Porter reveals, Soros is consumed with an even grander vision: to use his...
Shawn McCarthy is a national business correspondent for The Globe and Mail, covering energy and the environment from the paper’s parliamentary bureau in Ottawa. He has served as The Globe’s New York correspondent and parliamentary bureau chief. He is also president of the Canadian Committee for World Press Freedom.
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