George Soros doesn’t need an introduction. This book offers a unique insight into how someone like Soros sees the world and, perhaps more interestingly, how he wants the world to be. The high-level concepts conveyed are very valuable for anyone interested in capital markets and how they impact the world. Soros breaks down his way of thinking into three core principles and, from there, he conveys concepts like Open Society and the Feel-Good Society, points out problems with what he refers to as The World Order and finally leads the reader to his views on the Global Energy Crisis. The core principles Soros’ puts forwards as a premise to his essay can be summed up as follows:
- Understanding social events is not the same as understanding natural events because, in social events, the subjects (i.e. humans) are self-reflective
- Nobody knows the absolute and definite truth – anyone can be wrong
- We should continue to pursue knowledge and ‘truth’, but only under the premise that we can, and often will be, wrong.
For Soros, accepting the three postulations above takes us from the Age of Reason into the Age of Fallibility – hence the title of the book. Soros’ idea of reflexivity is perhaps the most relevant – financial markets are not perfect, we have to be ready to accept that some times we’ll be wrong, nobody knows the ‘truth’, and that’s ok.