George Soros on Market Morality and His Wartime Experience

In the last two years, you've been blamed for financial collapse of Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, and Russia.

All of the above. All of the above. Are you that powerful?

No, I think there's a great misunderstanding.

I am basically there to make money. I cannot and do not look at the social consequences of what I do.

As a competitor, I've got to compete to win.

As a human being, I am concerned about the society in which I live.

Which George Soros am I talking to now? The amoral George Soros or the moral George Soros?

It's one person. It's one person who at one time engages in amoral activities and the rest of the time tries to be moral.

You're a Hungarian Jew who escaped the Holocaust by posing as a Christian.

And you watched lots of people get shipped off to the death camps.

Right. I was 14 years old and I would say that that's when my character was made.

In what way? That one should think ahead, one should understand and anticipate events.

And one is threatened. It was a tremendous threat of evil.

I mean, it was a very personal experience of evil.

My understanding is that you went out with this protector of yours who swore that you were his adopted godson.

Yes. Went out, in fact, and helped in the confiscation of property from the Jews.

That's right. Yes. I mean, that sounds like an experience that would send lots of people to the psychiatric couch for many, many years.

Was it difficult? Not at all. Not at all.

Maybe as a child you don't see the connection, but it created no problem at all.

No feeling of guilt? No. For example, that I'm Jewish and here I am watching these people go.

I could just as easily be there. I should be there.

None of that. Well, of course, I could be on the other side or I could be the one from whom the thing is being taken away.

But there was no sense that I shouldn't be there because that was, well, actually, a funny way, it's just like in markets that if I weren't there, of course, I wasn't doing it, but somebody else would be taking it away anyhow.

Whether I was there or not, I was only a spectator.

The property was being taken away. So I had no role in taking away that property.

So I had no sense of guilt.