128-434: The Global Business Coalition (GBC) is an organization founded in 2001 by George Soros and Ted Turner , headed by Richard Holbrooke until 2009. It is involved in fundraising for HIV/AIDS research . Bill Gates also provided funding, and Trevor Neilson served as executive director. The GBC is involved with large-scale public-private partnerships . This article about a philanthropic or charitable organization in
256-618: A Reuters story, "Soros: not a funder of Wall Street Protests ", was published after several commentators pointed out errors in an earlier Reuters story headlined "Who's Behind the Wall St. Protests?" with a lead stating that the Occupy Wall Street movement "may have benefited indirectly from the largesse of one of the world's richest men [Soros]". Reuters's follow-up article also reported a Soros spokesman and Adbusters ' co-founder Kalle Lasn both saying that Adbusters—the reputed catalyst for
384-558: A "race struggle" and an hygienist vision of the world. The purity of the bio-mystical and primordial nation theorized by the Völkischen then began to be seen as corrupted by foreign elements, Jewish in particular. Translated in Maurice Barrès ' concept of "the earth and the dead", these ideas influenced the pre-fascist "revolutionary right" across Europe. The latter had its origin in the fin de siècle intellectual crisis and it was, in
512-434: A "we" excluding a "they". The far right tends to absolutize differences between nations, races, individuals or cultures since they disrupt their efforts towards the utopian dream of the "closed" and naturally organized society, perceived as the condition to ensure the rebirth of a community finally reconnected to its quasi-eternal nature and re-established on firm metaphysical foundations. As they view their community in
640-439: A Jewish wife in hiding. On one occasion, rather than leave the 14-year-old alone, the official took Soros with him while completing an inventory of a Jewish family's confiscated estate. Tivadar saved not only his immediate family, but also many other Hungarian Jews, and Soros later wrote that 1944 had been "the happiest [year] of his life", for it had given him the opportunity to witness his father's heroism. In 1945, Soros survived
768-545: A clerk and later moved to the arbitrage department. A fellow employee, Robert Mayer, suggested he apply at his father's brokerage house, F.M. Mayer of New York. In 1956, Soros moved to New York City, where he worked as an arbitrage trader for F. M. Mayer (1956–59). He specialized in European stocks, which were becoming popular with U.S. institutional investors following the formation of the Coal and Steel Community , which later became
896-732: A co-chairman of the super PAC's national finance committee. In June 2015, he donated $ 1 million to the Super PAC Priorities USA Action , which supported Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race . He donated $ 6 million to the PAC in December 2015 and $ 2.5 million in August 2016. Soros launched a new super PAC called Democracy PAC for the 2020 election cycle . By July 2019, he had donated $ 5.1 million to it. Since 2016, Soros has been donating sums exceeding $ 1 million to
1024-623: A former police officer founded the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (Afrikaner Resistance Movement), a South African neo-Nazi paramilitary organisation, often described as a white supremacist group. Since its founding in 1973 by Eugène Terre'Blanche and six other far-right Afrikaners, it has been dedicated to secessionist Afrikaner nationalism and the creation of an independent Boer -Afrikaner republic in part of South Africa. During negotiations to end apartheid in South Africa in
1152-799: A huge short position in pounds sterling for months leading up to the Black Wednesday of September 1992. Soros had recognized the unfavorable position of the United Kingdom in the European Exchange Rate Mechanism . For Soros, the rate at which the United Kingdom was brought into the European Exchange Rate Mechanism was too high, their inflation was also much too high (triple the German rate), and British interest rates were hurting their asset prices. By September 16, 1992,
1280-651: A large part of their 20% performance fees, thereby expanding their stake. By 1981, the fund had grown to $ 400m, and then a 22% loss in that year and substantial redemptions by some of the investors reduced it to $ 200m. In July 2011, Soros announced that he had returned funds from outside investors' money (valued at $ 1 billion) and instead invested funds from his $ 24.5 billion family fortune, due to changes in U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission disclosure rules, which he felt would compromise his duties of confidentiality to his investors. The fund had at that time averaged over 20% per year compound returns. In 2013,
1408-543: A lesser extent neo-Fascism are now used exclusively for parties and groups that explicitly state a desire to restore the Third Reich or quote historical National Socialism as their ideological influence." One issue is whether parties should be labelled radical or extreme, a distinction that is made by the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany when determining whether or not a party should be banned. Within
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#17328526594921536-450: A major shift in political thought by challenging the established ideas supporting hierarchy with new ones about universal equality and freedom . The modern left–right political spectrum also emerged during this period. Democrats and proponents of universal suffrage were located on the left side of the elected French Assembly, while monarchists seated farthest to the right. The strongest opponents of liberalism and democracy during
1664-493: A military comradeship that rejected Marxist class analysis , or what Oswald Spengler had called a "socialism of the blood", which is sometimes described by scholars as a form of " socialist revisionism ". They included Charles Maurras , Benito Mussolini , Arthur Moeller van den Bruck and Ernst Niekisch . Those thinkers eventually split along nationalist lines from the original communist movement , Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels contradicting nationalist theories with
1792-524: A profit of $ 1 billion, during the 1992 Black Wednesday UK currency crisis. Based on his early studies of philosophy, Soros formulated the General Theory of Reflexivity for capital markets , to provide insights into asset bubbles and fundamental / market value of securities, as well as value discrepancies used for shorting and swapping stocks. Soros supports progressive and liberal political causes, to which he dispenses donations through
1920-531: A railway porter and as a waiter, and once received £40 from a Quaker charity. Soros would sometimes stand at Speakers' Corner lecturing about the virtues of internationalism in Esperanto , which he had learned from his father. Soros obtained his Bachelor of Science in philosophy in 1951 and a Master of Science in philosophy in 1954 from the London School of Economics. After graduating, he wanted to stay in
2048-655: A range of ideologies that are typically marked by radical conservatism , authoritarianism , ultra-nationalism , and nativism . This political spectrum situates itself on the far end of the right, distinguished from more mainstream right-wing ideologies by its opposition to liberal democratic norms and emphasis on exclusivist views. Far-right ideologies have historically included fascism , Nazism , and Falangism , while contemporary manifestations also incorporate neo-fascism , neo-Nazism , white supremacism , and various other movements characterized by chauvinism , xenophobia , and theocratic or reactionary beliefs. Key to
2176-407: A sort of anti-thesis against their own beliefs." While the existence of such a political position is widely accepted among scholars, figures associated with the far-right rarely accept this denomination, preferring terms like "national movement" or "national right". There is also debate about how appropriate the labels neo-fascist or neo-Nazi are. In the words of Mudde, "the labels Neo-Nazi and to
2304-669: A special law prohibiting NGOs from taking money from foreigners. I think this should be banned in Turkey as well." In 1997, Soros closed his foundation in Belarus after it was fined $ 3 million by the government for "tax and currency violations". According to The New York Times 1997, the Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko has been widely criticized in the West and in Russia for his efforts to control
2432-468: A state of decay facilitated by the ruling elites, far-right members portray themselves as a natural, sane and alternative elite, with the redemptive mission of saving society from its promised doom. They reject both their national political system and the global geopolitical order (including their institutions and values, e.g. political liberalism and egalitarian humanism ) which are presented as needing to be abandoned or purged of their impurities, so that
2560-516: A unified party family, despite the heterogeneity of the far right parties." Kopeček concludes that a comparison of Central European far-right parties with those of Western Europe shows that "these four elements are present in Central Europe as well, though in a somewhat modified form, despite differing political, economic, and social influences." In the American and more general Anglo-Saxon environment,
2688-718: A unique evolution of far-right movements that emphasize nativism and radical opposition to central government. Far-right politics have led to oppression , political violence , forced assimilation , ethnic cleansing , and genocide against groups of people based on their supposed inferiority or their perceived threat to the native ethnic group , nation , state , national religion , dominant culture , or conservative social institutions. Across these contexts, far-right politics has continued to influence discourse, occasionally achieving electoral success and prompting significant debate over its place in democratic societies . According to scholars Jean-Yves Camus and Nicolas Lebourg ,
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#17328526594922816-472: A variety of jobs and I ended up selling fancy goods on the seaside, souvenir shops, and I thought, that's really not what I was cut out to do. So, I wrote to every managing director in every merchant bank in London, got just one or two replies, and eventually that's how I got a job in a merchant bank." In 1954, Soros began his financial career at the merchant bank Singer & Friedlander of London. He worked as
2944-534: A vice president at Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder resulted in little enthusiasm for the job; business was slack following the introduction of the Interest Equalization Tax , which undermined the viability of Soros's European trading. He spent the years from 1963 to 1966 with his main focus on the revision of his philosophy dissertation. In 1966, he started a fund with $ 100,000 of the firm's money to experiment with his trading strategies. In 1969, Soros set up
3072-503: Is a Jew who triggered the currency plunge") and implied Soros was orchestrating the crash as part of a larger Jewish conspiracy. Nine years later, in 2006, Mahathir met with Soros and afterward stated that he accepted that Soros had not been responsible for the crisis. In 1998's The Crisis of Global Capitalism: Open Society Endangered , Soros explained his role in the crisis as follows: The financial crisis that originated in Thailand in 1997
3200-672: Is against "the Cathedral". Schmitt's friend–enemy distinction has inspired the French Nouvelle Droite idea of ethnopluralism . In a 1961 book deemed influential in the European far-right at large, French neo-fascist writer Maurice Bardèche introduced the idea that fascism could survive the 20th century under a new metapolitical guise adapted to the changes of the times. Rather than trying to revive doomed regimes with their single party , secret police or public display of Caesarism , Bardèche argued that its theorists should promote
3328-467: Is known as the reverse post-material thesis blames both left-wing and progressive parties for embracing a post-material agenda (including feminism and environmentalism ) that alienates traditional working class voters. Another study argues that individuals who join far-right parties determine whether those parties develop into major political players or whether they remain marginalized. Early academic studies adopted psychoanalytical explanations for
3456-479: Is no general agreement as to where the mainstream ends and the extreme starts, and if there ever had been agreement on this, the recent shift in the mainstream would challenge it." Proponents of the horseshoe theory interpretation of the left–right political spectrum identify the far left and the far right as having more in common with each other as extremists than each of them has with centrists or moderates . This theory has received criticism, including
3584-460: The 1973 Rwandan coup d'état , the far right National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development (MRND) was founded under president Juvénal Habyarimana . Between 1975 and 1991, the MRND was the only legal political party in the country. It was dominated by Hutus , particularly from Habyarimana's home region of Northern Rwanda. An elite group of MRND party members who were known to have influence on
3712-578: The Auschwitz II (Birkenau) concentration camp, who fled first to Argentina, then Paraguay, before finally settling in Brazil in 1960. Mengele eventually drowned in 1979 in Bertioga , on the coast of São Paulo state, without ever having been recognized in his 19 years in Brazil. The far right has continued to operate throughout Brazil and a number of far-right parties existed in the modern era including Patriota ,
3840-1070: The Bolsonaro family in Brazil , José Antonio Kast in Chile and Keiko Fujimori in Peru . Nationalists from Europe and the United States met at a Holiday Inn in St. Petersburg on March 22, 2015, for first convention of the International Russian Conservative Forum organized by pro-Putin Rodina -party. The event was attended by fringe right-wing extremists like Nordic Resistance Movement from Scandinavia but also by more mainstream MEPs from Golden Dawn and National Democratic Party of Germany . In addition to Rodina, Russian neo-Nazis from Russian Imperial Movement and Rusich Group were also in attendance. The event
3968-876: The Brazilian Labour Renewal Party , the Party of the Reconstruction of the National Order , the National Renewal Alliance and the Social Liberal Party as well as death squads such as the Command for Hunting Communists . Former President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro was a member of the Alliance for Brazil , a far-right nationalist political group that aimed to become a political party, until 2022, when
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4096-588: The Central European University in his Hungarian hometown. Soros's extensive funding of political causes has made him a " bugaboo of European nationalists ". Numerous far-right theorists have promoted claims that characterize Soros as a dangerous "puppet master" behind alleged global plots. Criticisms of Soros, who is of Jewish descent , have often been called antisemitic . In 2018, The New York Times reported that " conspiracy theories about him have gone mainstream, to nearly every corner of
4224-613: The Common Market . In 1959, after three years at F. M. Mayer, Soros moved to Wertheim & Co. He planned to stay for five years, enough time to save $ 500,000, after which he intended to return to England to study philosophy. He worked as an analyst of European securities until 1963. During this period, Soros developed the theory of reflexivity to extend the ideas of his tutor at the London School of Economics , Karl Popper . Reflexivity posits that market values are often driven by
4352-562: The Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda continue to wage an insurgency against Rwanda from neighboring countries, where they are also involved in local conflicts and terrorism. The Interahamwe were the main perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide, during which an estimated 500,000 to 1,000,000 Tutsi, Twa and moderate Hutus were killed from April to July 1994 and the term Interahamwe
4480-695: The Jobbik party in Hungary. During the rise of Nazi Germany, far-right international organizations began to emerge in the 1930s with the International Conference of Fascist Parties in 1932 and the Fascist International Congress in 1934. During the 1934 Fascist International Conference, the Comitati d'Azione per l'Universalità di Roma [ it ] (CAUR; English: Action Committees for
4608-502: The Ligue des Patriotes , with the common goal of a uniting the masses beyond social divisions. The Völkisch movement emerged in the late 19th century, drawing inspiration from German Romanticism and its fascination for a medieval Reich supposedly organized into a harmonious hierarchical order. Erected on the idea of " blood and soil ", it was a racialist , populist , agrarian , romantic nationalist and an antisemitic movement from
4736-581: The Open Society Foundations . Between 1979 and 2011, he donated more than $ 11 billion to various philanthropic causes; by 2017, his donations "on civil initiatives to reduce poverty and increase transparency, and on scholarships and universities around the world" totaled $ 12 billion. He influenced the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and provided one of Europe's largest higher education endowments to
4864-695: The Republican Party and establishing strong ties with American contacts. In March 2019, Abascal tweeted an image of himself wearing a morion similar to a conquistador , with ABC writing in an article detailing the document that this event provided a narrative that "symbolizes in part the expansionist mood of Vox and its ideology far from Spain". The charter subsequently grew to include signers that had little to no relation to Latin America and Spanish-speaking areas. Vox has advised Javier Milei in Argentina ,
4992-570: The Republican Party ". György Schwartz was born on 12 August 1930 in Budapest in the Kingdom of Hungary to a prosperous non-observant Jewish family, who, like many upper-middle class Hungarian Jews at the time, were uncomfortable with their roots. Soros has wryly described his home as a Jewish antisemitic home. The family of his mother Erzsébet (also known as Elizabeth) operated a successful silk store. His father Tivadar (also known as Teodoro Ŝvarc)
5120-492: The Siege of Budapest , in which Soviet and German forces fought house-to-house through the city. George and his mother also spent some time hiding with the family of Elza Brandeisz and even attended their Lutheran church with them. When he was 17, Soros relocated to Paris before eventually moving to England. There he became a student at the London School of Economics . While a student of the philosopher Karl Popper , Soros worked as
5248-648: The Union for the Republic . Throughout the reign of the Gnassingbé family, Togo has been extremely oppressive. According to a United States Department of State report based on conditions in 2010, human rights abuses are common and include "security force use of excessive force, including torture , which resulted in deaths and injuries; official impunity; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrests and detention; lengthy pretrial detention; executive influence over
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5376-477: The devaluation that he would borrow nearly $ 15 billion to defend sterling, we were amused because that was about how much we wanted to sell." Soros was believed to have traded billions of Finnish markkas on February 5, 1996, in anticipation of selling them short. The markka had been put floating as a result of the early 1990s depression . The Bank of Finland and the Finnish Government commented at
5504-709: The génocidaires . Kabuga was arrested in France on 16 May 2020, and charged with crimes against humanity . The Interahamwe was formed around 1990 as the youth wing of the MRND and enjoyed the backing of the Hutu Power government. The Interahamwe were driven out of Rwanda after Tutsi -led Rwandan Patriotic Front victory in the Rwandan Civil War in July 1994 and are considered a terrorist organisation by many African and Western governments. The Interahamwe and splinter groups such as
5632-421: The late-2000s recession , Soros referred to it as the most serious crisis since the 1930s. According to Soros, market fundamentalism with its assumption that markets will correct themselves with no need for government intervention in financial affairs has been "some kind of an ideological excess". In Soros's view, the markets' moods—a "mood" of the markets being a prevailing bias or optimism/pessimism with which
5760-470: The occupation . Soros later described this time to writer Michael Lewis : The Jewish Council asked the little kids to hand out the deportation notices. I was told to go to the Jewish Council. And there I was given these small slips of paper ... I took this piece of paper to my father. He instantly recognized it. This was a list of Hungarian Jewish lawyers. He said, "You deliver the slips of paper and tell
5888-424: The political spectrum : "the left considers the key inequalities between people to be artificial and negative, which should be overcome by an active state, whereas the right believes that inequalities between people are natural and positive, and should be either defended or left alone by the state." Aspects of far-right ideology can be identified in the agenda of some contemporary right-wing parties: in particular,
6016-731: The "most generous giver" (in terms of percentage of net worth). He is a resident of New York . Born in Budapest to a non-observant Jewish family, Soros survived the Nazi occupation of Hungary and moved to the United Kingdom in 1947. He studied at the London School of Economics and was awarded a BSc in philosophy in 1951, and then a Master of Science degree, also in philosophy, in 1954. Soros started his career working in British and American merchant banks , before setting up his first hedge fund , Double Eagle, in 1969. Profits from this fund provided
6144-467: The "redemptive community" can eventually leave the current phase of liminal crisis to usher in the new era. The community itself is idealized through great archetypal figures (the Golden Age , the savior, decadence and global conspiracy theories ) as they glorify non-rationalistic and non- materialistic values such as the youth or the cult of the dead. Political scientist Cas Mudde argues that
6272-451: The 1900s onward as a consequence of a growing exclusive and racial connotation. They idealized the myth of an "original nation", that still could be found at their times in the rural regions of Germany, a form of "primitive democracy freely subjected to their natural elites." Thinkers led by Arthur de Gobineau , Houston Stewart Chamberlain , Alexis Carrel and Georges Vacher de Lapouge distorted Darwin 's theory of evolution to advocate
6400-423: The 1920s and 1930s, a local brand of religious fascism appeared known as Brazilian Integralism , coalescing around the party known as Brazilian Integralist Action . It adopted many characteristics of European fascist movements, including a green-shirted paramilitary organization with uniformed ranks, highly regimented street demonstrations and rhetoric against Marxism and liberalism . Prior to World War II,
6528-528: The 1980s, far-right groups began to solidify themselves through official political avenues. With the founding of the European Union in 1993, far-right groups began to espouse Euroscepticism , nationalist and anti-migrant beliefs. By 2010, the Eurosceptic group European Alliance for Freedom emerged and saw some prominence during the 2014 European Parliament election . The majority of far-right groups in
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#17328526594926656-627: The 1990s, the "winning formula" was often to attract anti-immigrant blue collar workers and white collar workers who wanted less state intervention in the economy, but in the 2000s, this switched to welfare chauvinism . In comparing the Western European and post-Communist Central European far-right, Kopeček writes that "[t]he Central European far right was also typified by a strong anti-Communism, much more markedly than in Western Europe", allowing for "a basic ideological classification within
6784-474: The 19th century, such as Joseph de Maistre and Friedrich Nietzsche , were highly critical of the French Revolution. Those who advocated a return to the absolute monarchy during the 19th century called themselves "ultra-monarchists" and embraced a " mystic " and " providentialist " vision of the world where royal dynasties were seen as the "repositories of divine will". The opposition to liberal modernity
6912-424: The 2010s began to establish international contacts with right-wing coalitions to develop a solidified platform. In 2017, Steve Bannon would create The Movement , an organization to create an international far-right group based on Aleksandr Dugin 's The Fourth Political Theory , for the 2019 European Parliament election . The European Alliance for Freedom would also reorganize into Identity and Democracy for
7040-641: The 2019 European Parliament election. The far-right Spanish party Vox initially introduced the Madrid Charter project, a planned group to denounce left-wing groups in Ibero-America , to the government of United States president Donald Trump while visiting the United States in February 2019, with Santiago Abascal and Rafael Bardají using their good relations with the administration to build support within
7168-594: The Belarus Soros Foundation and other independent NGOs and to suppress civil and human rights. Soros called the fines part of a campaign to "destroy independent society". In June 2009, Soros donated $ 100 million to Central Europe and Eastern Europe to counter the impact of the Great Recession on the poor, voluntary groups and non-government organisations. Far-right politics Far-right politics , often termed right-wing extremism , encompasses
7296-708: The Double Eagle hedge fund with $ 4m of investors' capital including $ 250,000 of his own money. It was based in Curaçao , Dutch Antilles . Double Eagle itself was an offshoot of Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder's First Eagle fund established by Soros and that firm's chairman Henry H. Arnhold in 1967. In 1973, the Double Eagle Fund had $ 12 million and formed the basis of the Soros Fund. George Soros and Jim Rogers received returns on their share of capital and 20 percent of
7424-404: The European Union cut off aid in reaction to the regime's human-rights offenses. After's Eyadema's death in 2005, his son Faure Gnassingbe took over, then stood down and was re-elected in elections that were widely described as fraudulent and occasioned violence that resulted in as many as 600 deaths and the flight from Togo of 40,000 refugees. In 2012, Faure Gnassingbe dissolved the RTP and created
7552-402: The Nazi Party had been making and distributing propaganda among ethnic Germans in Brazil. The Nazi regime built close ties with Brazil through the estimated 100 thousand native Germans and 1 million German descendants living in Brazil at the time. In 1928, the Brazilian section of the Nazi Party was founded in Timbó, Santa Catarina. This section reached 2,822 members and was the largest section of
7680-418: The Nazi Party outside Germany. About 100 thousand born Germans and about one million descendants lived in Brazil at that time. After Germany's defeat in World War II, many Nazi war criminals fled to Brazil and hid among the German-Brazilian communities. The most notable example of this was Josef Mengele , a Nazi SS officer and physician known as the "Angel of Death" for his deadly experiments on prisoners at
7808-467: The President and his wife Agathe Habyarimana are known as the akazu , an informal organization of Hutu extremists whose members planned and lead the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Prominent Hutu businessman and member of the akazu, Félicien Kabuga was one of the genocides main financiers, providing thousands of machetes which were used to commit the genocide. Kabuga also founded Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines , used to broadcast propaganda and direct
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#17328526594927936-439: The Quantum Fund made $ 5.5 billion, making it again the most successful hedge fund in history. Since its inception in 1973, the fund has generated $ 40 billion. The fund announced in 2015 that it would inject $ 300 million to help finance the expansion of Fen Hotels, an Argentine hotel company. The funds will develop 5,000 rooms over the next three years throughout various Latin American countries. Soros had been building
8064-481: The Rwandan genocide. The far right in South Africa emerged as the Herstigte Nasionale Party (HNP) in 1969, formed by Albert Hertzog as breakaway from the predominant right-wing South African National Party , an Afrikaner ethno-nationalist party that implemented the racist, segregationist program of apartheid , the legal system of political, economic and social separation of the races intended to maintain and extend political and economic control of South Africa by
8192-452: The Société Générale and had no insider knowledge of the business, but he did possess knowledge that a group of investors was planning a takeover attempt. Initial investigations found Soros innocent, and no charges were brought forward. However, the case was reopened a few years later, and the French Supreme Court confirmed the conviction on June 14, 2006, although it reduced the penalty to €940,000. Soros denied any wrongdoing, saying news of
8320-575: The Soros Foundation were the cradle of democratization and that all the NGOs that gravitated around the Soros Foundation undeniably carried the revolution. She opines that after the revolution the Soros Foundation and the NGOs were integrated into power. Some Soros-backed pro-democracy initiatives have been banned in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan . Ercis Kurtulus, head of the Social Transparency Movement Association (TSHD) in Turkey , said in an interview 2006 that "Soros carried out his will in Ukraine and Georgia by using these NGOs ... Last year Russia passed
8448-408: The Soros Fund and gave investors in the Double Eagle Fund the option of transferring to that or staying with Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder. It was later renamed the Quantum Fund , after the physical theory of quantum mechanics . By that time the value of the fund had grown to $ 12m, only a small proportion of which was Soros's own money. He and Jim Rogers reinvested their returns from the fund, and also
8576-505: The United States is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . George Soros George Soros HonFBA (born György Schwartz ; August 12, 1930) is a Hungarian-American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. As of October 2023 , he had a net worth of US$ 6.7 billion, having donated more than $ 32 billion to the Open Society Foundations , of which $ 15 billion has already been distributed, representing 64% of his original fortune. In 2020, Forbes called Soros
8704-489: The United States tax code, 26 U.S.C. § 527). The groups aimed to defeat President George W. Bush . After Bush's reelection, Soros and other donors backed a new political fundraising group called Democracy Alliance , which supports progressive causes and the formation of a stronger progressive infrastructure in America. In August 2009, Soros donated $ 35 million to the state of New York to be earmarked for underprivileged children and given to parents who had benefit cards at
8832-482: The Universality of Rome), created by Benito Mussolini 's Fascist Regime to create a network for a "Fascist International", representatives from far-right groups gathered in Montreux , Switzerland , including Romania 's Iron Guard , Norway 's Nasjonal Samling , the Greek National Socialist Party , Spain 's Falange movement, Ireland's Blueshirts , France 's Mouvement Franciste and Portugal 's União Nacional , among others. However, no international group
8960-402: The White minority. The HNP was formed after the South African National Party re-established diplomatic relations with Malawi and legislated to allow Māori players and spectators to enter the country during the 1970 New Zealand rugby union team tour in South Africa. The HNP advocated for a Calvinist , racially segregated and Afrikaans -speaking nation. In 1973, Eugène Terre'Blanche ,
9088-422: The argument that it has been centrists who have supported far-right and fascist regimes over socialist ones. Jens Rydgren describes a number of theories as to why individuals support far-right political parties and the academic literature on this topic distinguishes between demand-side theories that have changed the "interests, emotions, attitudes and preferences of voters" and supply-side theories which focus on
9216-696: The bet was estimated at over $ 1 billion. He was dubbed "the man who broke the Bank of England". The estimated cost of Black Wednesday to the UK Treasury was £3.4 billion. Stanley Druckenmiller , who traded under Soros, originally saw the weakness in the pound and stated: "[Soros's] contribution was pushing him to take a gigantic position". On October 26, 1992, The New York Times quoted Soros as saying: "Our total position by Black Wednesday had to be worth almost $ 10 billion. We planned to sell more than that. In fact, when Norman Lamont said just before
9344-414: The broader family of the far right, the extreme right is revolutionary, opposing popular sovereignty and majority rule, and sometimes supporting violence, whereas the radical right is reformist, accepting free elections, but opposing fundamental elements of liberal democracy such as minority rights, rule of law, or separation of powers. After a survey of the academic literature, Mudde concluded in 2002 that
9472-493: The campaign's largest donors. For the 2022 United States elections , Soros was the country's largest donor. He donated $ 128.5 million to support the Democratic Party in the election cycle. According to Waldemar A. Nielsen, an authority on American philanthropy, "[Soros] has undertaken... nothing less than to open up the once-closed communist societies of Eastern Europe to a free flow of ideas and scientific knowledge from
9600-609: The campaigns of progressive criminal justice reform proponents through the Safety and Justice PAC in local district attorney elections. In many districts, such large contributions were unprecedented and the campaigning strategy was "turned on its head" with a focus on incarceration, police misconduct and bail system, according to the Los Angeles Times . Larry Krasner was elected as the District Attorney of Philadelphia with
9728-503: The concept of "the masses" was introduced into the political debate through industrialization and the universal suffrage , a new right-wing founded on national and social ideas began to emerge, what Zeev Sternhell has called the "revolutionary right" and a foreshadowing of fascism . The rift between the left and nationalists was furthermore accentuated by the emergence of anti-militarist and anti-patriotic movements like anarchism or syndicalism , which shared even fewer similarities with
9856-414: The core of the far right's worldview is organicism , the idea that society functions as a complete, organized and homogeneous living being. Adapted to the community they wish to constitute or reconstitute (whether based on ethnicity, nationality, religion or race), the concept leads them to reject every form of universalism in favor of autophilia and alterophobia , or in other words the idealization of
9984-605: The core philosophical idea of fascism regardless of its framework, i.e. the concept that only a minority, "the physically saner, the morally purer, the most conscious of national interest", can represent best the community and serve the less gifted in what Bardèche calls a new " feudal contract". Another influence on contemporary far-right thought has been the Traditionalist School , which included Julius Evola , and has influenced Steve Bannon and Aleksandr Dugin , advisors to Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin as well as
10112-483: The crisis, a wholly unfounded accusation. We were not sellers of the currency during or several months before the crisis; on the contrary, we were buyers when the currencies began to decline—we were purchasing ringgits to realize the profits on our earlier speculation. (Much too soon, as it turned out. We left most of the potential gain on the table because we were afraid that Mahathir would impose capital controls. He did so, but much later.) In 1999, economist Paul Krugman
10240-444: The day of Black Wednesday, Soros's fund had sold short more than $ 10 billion in pounds , profiting from the UK government's reluctance to either raise its interest rates to levels comparable to those of other European Exchange Rate Mechanism countries or float its currency. Finally, the UK withdrew from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, devaluing the pound. Soros's profit on
10368-411: The disappearance of historic frames of reference (e.g. law and order , the family, the ethnic, linguistic and religious community and nation as well as the natural environment ) and a socioeconomic program associating corporatism , state control of certain sectors, agrarianism , and a varying degree of belief in the free play of socially Darwinistic market forces. Mudde then proposes a subdivision of
10496-521: The early 1990s, the organization terrorized and killed black South Africans. Togo has been ruled by members of the Gnassingbé family and the far-right military dictatorship formerly known as the Rally of the Togolese People since 1969. Despite the legalisation of political parties in 1991 and the ratification of a democratic constitution in 1992, the regime continues to be regarded as oppressive. In 1993,
10624-403: The fallible ideas of participants, not only by the economic fundamentals of the situation. Ideas and events influence each other in reflexive feedback loops. Soros argued that this process leads to markets having procyclical "virtuous" or "vicious" cycles of boom and bust, in contrast to the equilibrium predictions of more standard neoclassical economics. From 1963 to 1973, Soros's experience as
10752-421: The far right can be viewed as a combination of four broadly defined concepts, namely exclusivism (e.g. racism , xenophobia , ethnocentrism , ethnopluralism , chauvinism , including welfare chauvinism ), anti-democratic and non-individualist traits (e.g. cult of personality , hierarchism , monism , populism , anti-particracy , an organicist view of the state), a traditionalist value system lamenting
10880-480: The far right's support. The 1933 publication The Mass Psychology of Fascism by Wilhelm Reich argued the theory that fascists came to power in Germany as a result of sexual repression . For some far-right parties in Western Europe, the issue of immigration has become the dominant issue among them, so much so that some scholars refer to these parties as "anti-immigrant" parties. The French Revolution in 1789 created
11008-409: The far right, as they have historically favored a social Darwinistic or elitist hierarchy based on the belief in the legitimacy of the rule of a supposed superior minority over the inferior masses. Regarding the socio-cultural dimension of nationality, culture and migration, one far-right position is the view that certain ethnic, racial or religious groups should stay separate, based on the belief that
11136-475: The far right. The latter began to develop a "nationalist mysticism" entirely different from that on the left, and antisemitism turned into a credo of the far right, marking a break from the traditional economic "anti-Judaism" defended by parts of the far left, in favour of a racial and pseudo-scientific notion of alterity . Various nationalist leagues began to form across Europe like the Pan-German League or
11264-480: The far-right appeals to those who believe in maintaining strict cultural and ethnic divisions and a return to traditional social hierarchies and values. In practice, far-right movements differ widely by region and historical context. In Western Europe, they have often focused on anti-immigration and anti-globalism , while in Eastern Europe, strong anti-communist rhetoric is more common. The United States has seen
11392-522: The far-right nebula into moderate and radical leanings, according to their degree of exclusionism and essentialism . The Encyclopedia of Politics: The Left and the Right states that far-right politics include "persons or groups who hold extreme nationalist, xenophobic, homophobic, racist, religious fundamentalist, or other reactionary views." While the term far right is typically applied to fascists and neo-Nazis , it has also been used to refer to those to
11520-558: The far-right worldview is the notion of societal purity, often invoking ideas of a homogeneous "national" or "ethnic" community. This view generally promotes organicism , which perceives society as a unified, natural entity under threat from diversity or modern pluralism . Far-right movements frequently target perceived threats to their idealized community, whether ethnic, religious, or cultural, leading to anti-immigrant sentiments , welfare chauvinism , and, in extreme cases, political violence or oppression. According to political theorists,
11648-452: The first Occupy Wall Street protests—had never received any contributions from Soros, contrary to Reuters's earlier story that reported that "indirect financial links" existed between the two as late as 2010. On September 27, 2012, Soros announced that he was donating $ 1 million to the super PAC backing President Barack Obama 's reelection Priorities USA Action . In October 2013, Soros donated $ 25,000 to Ready for Hillary , becoming
11776-690: The group effort, opting to personally move forward with his strategy of accumulating shares in four French companies: Société Générale, as well as Suez, Paribas, and the Compagnie Générale d'Électricité . In 1989, the Commission des Opérations de Bourse (COB, the French stock exchange regulatory authority) conducted an investigation of whether Soros's transaction in Société Générale should be considered insider trading . Soros had received no information from
11904-548: The help of a $ 1.5 million ad campaign funded by Soros in 2017. Soros was the largest donor supporting the campaign of George Gascón for Los Angeles County District Attorney in 2020, contributing $ 2.25 million to superPACs in Gascón's favor. Soros gave $ 2 million to a PAC supporting Kim Foxx 's campaign for Cook County State's Attorney in 2020. In the second quarter of 2020, Soros gave at least $ 500,000 to presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden , becoming one of
12032-540: The idea of metapolitics . The apocalyptic strain of thought begins in Oswald Spengler 's The Decline of the West and is shared by Julius Evola and Alain de Benoist . It continues in The Death of the West by Pat Buchanan as well as in fears over Islamization of Europe . Ernst Jünger was concerned about rootless cosmopolitan elites while de Benoist and Buchanan oppose the managerial state and Curtis Yarvin
12160-516: The idea that "the working men [had] no country." The main reason for that ideological confusion can be found in the consequences of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, which according to Swiss historian Philippe Burrin had completely redesigned the political landscape in Europe by diffusing the idea of an anti-individualistic concept of "national unity" rising above the right and left division. As
12288-691: The idea that superior persons should dominate society while undesirable elements should be purged, which in extreme cases has resulted in genocides . Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform in London, distinguishes between fascism and right-wing nationalist parties which are often described as far right such as the National Front in France. Mudde notes that the most successful European far-right parties in 2019 were "former mainstream right-wing parties that have turned into populist radical right ones." According to historian Mark Sedgwick , "[t]here
12416-532: The interests of one's own group should be prioritized. In western Europe, far right parties have been associated with anti-immigrant policies, as well as opposition to globalism and European integration . They often make nationalist and xenophobic appeals which make allusions to ethnic nationalism rather than civic nationalism (or liberal nationalism). Some have at their core illiberal policies such as removing checks on executive authority , and protections for minorities from majority ( multipluralism ). In
12544-501: The international economic and financial system. In 1988, Soros was contacted by a French financier named Georges Pébereau, who asked him to participate in an effort to assemble a group of investors to purchase a large number of shares in Société Générale , a leading French bank that was part of a privatization program (something instituted by the new government under Jacques Chirac ). Soros eventually decided against participating in
12672-595: The judiciary; infringement of citizens' privacy rights; restrictions on freedoms of press , assembly , and movement; official corruption; discrimination and violence against women; child abuse, including female genital mutilation (FGM), and sexual exploitation of children; regional and ethnic discrimination; trafficking in persons, especially women and children; societal discrimination against persons with disabilities; official and societal discrimination against homosexual persons; societal discrimination against persons with HIV ; and forced labor, including by children." During
12800-565: The markets look at reality—"actually can reinforce themselves so that there are these initially self-reinforcing but eventually unsustainable and self-defeating boom/bust sequences or bubbles". In reaction to the Great Recession , he founded the Institute for New Economic Thinking in October 2009. This is a think tank composed of international economic, business, and financial experts, who are mandated to investigate radical new approaches to organizing
12928-466: The modern ambiguities in the definition of far-right politics lie in the fact that the concept is generally used by political adversaries to "disqualify and stigmatize all forms of partisan nationalism by reducing them to the historical experiments of Italian Fascism [and] German National Socialism ." Mudde agrees and notes that "the term is not only used for scientific purposes but also for political purposes. Several authors define right-wing extremism as
13056-602: The most common term is " radical right ", which has a broader meaning than the European radical right . Mudde defines the American radical right as an "old school of nativism, populism, and hostility to central government [which] was said to have developed into the post-World War II combination of ultranationalism and anti-communism, Christian fundamentalism, militaristic orientation, and anti-alien sentiment." Jodi Dean argues that "the rise of far-right anti-communism in many parts of
13184-514: The new name because it is a palindrome and because of its meaning. In Hungarian, soros means "next"; in Esperanto it means "will soar". Soros was 13 years old in March 1944 when Nazi Germany occupied Hungary . The Nazis barred Jewish children from attending school, and Soros and the other schoolchildren were made to report to the Judenrat (" Jewish Council "), which had been established during
13312-522: The newly independent countries. A 2017 study found that a grant program by George Soros which awarded funding to over 28,000 scientists in the former Soviet republics shortly after the end of the Soviet Union "more than doubled publications on the margin, significantly induced scientists to remain in the science sector, and had long-lasting [beneficial] impacts". His funding of pro-democratic programs in Georgia
13440-525: The outside world". From 1979, as an advocate of ' open societies ', Soros financially supported dissidents including Poland's Solidarity movement, Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia and Andrei Sakharov in the Soviet Union . In 1984, he founded his first Open Society Institute in Hungary with a budget of $ 3 million. Since the fall of the Soviet Union , Soros's funding has played an important role in
13568-602: The party was disbanded. Since 2022, he is a member of the Liberal Party . Bolsonaro has been widely described by numerous media organizations as far right. In Guatemala, the far-right government of Carlos Castillo Armas utilized death squads after coming to power in the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état . Along with other far-right extremists, Castillo Armas started the National Liberation Movement ( Movimiento de Liberación Nacional , or MLN). The founders of
13696-490: The people that if they report they will be deported". I'm not sure to what extent he knew they were going to be gassed. I did what my father said. Soros did not return to that job; his family survived the war by purchasing documents to say that they were Christians. Later that year at age 14, Soros posed as the Christian godson of an official of the collaborationist Hungarian government's Ministry of Agriculture, who himself had
13824-430: The profits each year. In 1970, Soros founded Soros Fund Management and became its chairman. Among those who held senior positions there at various times were Jim Rogers, Stanley Druckenmiller , Mark Schwartz, Keith Anderson, and Soros's two sons. In 1973, due to perceived conflicts of interest limiting his ability to run the two funds, Soros resigned from the management of the Double Eagle Fund. He then established
13952-436: The programmes of parties, their organization and the opportunity structures within individual political systems. The most common demand-side theories are the social breakdown thesis , the relative deprivation thesis , the modernization losers thesis and the ethnic competition thesis . The rise of far-right parties has also been viewed as a rejection of post-materialist values on the part of some voters. This theory which
14080-534: The rate of $ 200 per child aged 3 through 17, with no limit as to the number of children that qualified. An additional $ 140 million was put into the fund by the state of New York from money they had received from the 2009 federal recovery act . Soros was an initial donor to the Center for American Progress , and he continues to support the organization through the Open Society Foundations. In October 2011,
14208-569: The right of mainstream right-wing politics . According to political scientist Lubomír Kopeček, "[t]he best working definition of the contemporary far right may be the four-element combination of nationalism, xenophobia, law and order, and welfare chauvinism proposed for the Western European environment by Cas Mudde." Relying on those concepts, far-right politics includes yet is not limited to aspects of authoritarianism , anti-communism and nativism . Claims that superior people should have greater rights than inferior people are often associated with
14336-583: The sake of their expediency." In Hate in the Homeland: The New Global Far Right , Cynthia Miller-Idriss examines the far-right as a global movement and representing a cluster of overlapping " antidemocratic , antiegalitarian, white supremacist " beliefs that are "embedded in solutions like authoritarianism , ethnic cleansing or ethnic migration, and the establishment of separate ethno-states or enclaves along racial and ethnic lines". According to Jean-Yves Camus and Nicolas Lebourg ,
14464-515: The seed money for Soros Fund Management , his second hedge fund, in 1970. Double Eagle was renamed Quantum Fund and was the principal firm Soros advised. At its founding, Quantum Fund had $ 12 million in assets under management , and as of 2011 it had $ 25 billion, the majority of Soros's overall net worth. Soros is known as "The Man Who Broke the Bank of England " as a result of his short sale of US$ 10 billion worth of pounds sterling , which made him
14592-576: The takeover was public knowledge and it was documented that his intent to acquire shares of the company predated his own awareness of the takeover. In December 2006, he appealed to the European Court of Human Rights on various grounds, including that the 14-year delay in bringing the case to trial precluded a fair hearing. On the basis of Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights , stating that no person may be punished for an act that
14720-459: The terms "right-wing extremism", " right-wing populism ", "national populism", or "neo-populism" were often used as synonyms by scholars (or, nonetheless, terms with "striking similarities"), except notably among a few authors studying the extremist-theoretical tradition. Italian philosopher and political scientist Norberto Bobbio argues that attitudes towards equality are primarily what distinguish left-wing politics from right-wing politics on
14848-468: The time they believed that a "conspiracy" was impossible. During the 1997 Asian financial crisis , the prime minister of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamad , accused Soros of using the wealth under his control to punish the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) for welcoming Myanmar as a member. With a history of antisemitic remarks, Mahathir made specific reference to Soros's Jewish background ("It
14976-605: The university and work as a professor, but his grades were not high enough, prompting him to work for an investment firm in London. In a discussion at the Los Angeles World Affairs Council in 2006, Alvin Shuster, former foreign editor of the Los Angeles Times , asked Soros, "How does one go from an immigrant to a financier? ... When did you realize that you knew how to make money?". Soros replied, "Well, I had
15104-720: The words of Fritz Stern , the deep "cultural despair" of thinkers feeling uprooted within the rationalism and scientism of the modern world. It was characterized by a rejection of the established social order, with revolutionary tendencies and anti-capitalist stances, a populist and plebiscitary dimension, the advocacy of violence as a means of action and a call for individual and collective palingenesis ("regeneration, rebirth"). The key thinkers of contemporary far-right politics are claimed by Mark Sedgwick to share four key elements, namely apocalyptism , fear of global elites , belief in Carl Schmitt 's friend–enemy distinction and
15232-584: The world" should be interpreted "as a politics of fear, which utilizes the disaffection and anger generated by capitalism. [...] Partisans of far right-wing organizations, in turn, use anti-communism to challenge every political current which is not embedded in a clearly exposed nationalist and racist agenda. For them, both the USSR and the European Union, leftist liberals, ecologists, and supranational corporations – all of these may be called 'communist' for
15360-599: Was a lawyer and a well-known Esperanto author who edited the Esperanto literary magazine Literatura Mondo and raised his son to speak the language. Tivadar had also been a prisoner of war during and after World War I until he escaped from Russia and rejoined his family in Budapest. His parents married in 1924. In 1936, Soros's family changed their name from the German-Jewish "Schwartz" to "Soros", as protective camouflage in increasingly antisemitic Hungary. Tivadar liked
15488-530: Was attended by several notable American white supremacists including Jared Taylor and Brandon Russell . Morocco saw a spread of ultranationalism , antifeminism , and opposition to immigration themes in digital spaces. A number of far-right extremist and paramilitary groups carried out the Rwandan genocide under the racial supremacist ideology of Hutu Power , developed by journalist and Hutu supremacist Hassan Ngeze . On 5 July 1975, exactly two years after
15616-566: Was based on the belief that hierarchy and rootedness are more important than equality and liberty, with the latter two being dehumanizing. In the French public debate following the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, far right was used to describe the strongest opponents of the far left , those who supported the events occurring in Russia. A number of thinkers on the far right nonetheless claimed an influence from an anti-Marxist and anti-egalitarian interpretation of socialism , based on
15744-713: Was considered by Georgian nationalists to be crucial to the success of the Rose Revolution , although Soros has said that his role has been "greatly exaggerated". Alexander Lomaia , secretary of the Georgian Security Council and former Minister of Education and Science, is a former executive director of the Open Society Georgia Foundation ( Soros Foundation ), overseeing a staff of 50 and a budget of $ 2.5 million. Former Georgian foreign minister Salomé Zourabichvili wrote that institutions like
15872-429: Was critical of Soros's effect on financial markets: [N]obody who has read a business magazine in the last few years can be unaware that these days there really are investors who not only move money in anticipation of a currency crisis, but actually do their best to trigger that crisis for fun and profit. These new actors on the scene do not yet have a standard name; my proposed term is "Soroi". In an interview concerning
16000-451: Was fully established before the outbreak of World War II . Following World War II, other far-right organizations attempted to establish themselves, such as the European organizations of Nouvel Ordre Européen , European Social Movement and Circulo Español de Amigos de Europa or the further-reaching World Union of National Socialists and the League for Pan-Nordic Friendship . Beginning in
16128-487: Was not a criminal offense at the time that it was committed, the court agreed to hear the appeal. In October 2011, the court rejected his appeal in a 4–3 decision, saying that Soros had been aware of the risk of breaking insider trading laws. Until the 2004 presidential election, Soros had not been a large donor to U.S. political campaigns. According to OpenSecrets , during the 2003–2004 election cycle, Soros donated $ 23,581,000 to various 527 Groups (tax-exempt groups under
16256-641: Was particularly unnerving because of its scope and severity ... By the beginning of 1997, it was clear to Soros Fund Management that the discrepancy between the trade account and the capital account was becoming untenable. We sold short the Thai baht and the Malaysian ringgit early in 1997 with maturities ranging from six months to a year. (That is, we entered into contracts to deliver at future dates Thai baht and Malaysian ringgit that we did not currently hold.) Subsequently, Prime Minister Mahathir of Malaysia accused me of causing
16384-624: Was widened to mean any civilian bands killing Tutsi. Other far-right groups and paramilitaries involved included the anti-democratic segregationist Coalition for the Defence of the Republic (CDR), which called for complete segregation of Hutus from Tutsis. The CDR had a paramilitary wing known as the Impuzamugambi . Together with the Interahamwe militia, the Impuzamugambi played a central role in
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