Soros has never, to my knowledge, controlled means of production. Calling him a capitalist may be true in the sense that calling a buzzard a carnivore is true but capitalist is associated with production as carnivore is with hunter.

Not so. His funds’ investments include early-stage venture capital and later-stage private equity investments, which are about as pure a form of capitalism as you’ll find.

Soros appears to be an oligarch wannabe which makes his association with and use of the remnants of the left even more entertaining

This I agree with. Soros himself– as opposed to his various fund managers– is essentially an arbitrageur, someone who seeks to exploit pricing discrepancies between various markets or informational asymmetries within one market. In other words, what under communist law was known as the grave crime of “speculation.” Soros’s first millions were made by exploiting loopholes in US taxation of profits on foreign securities; his biggest windfall came from exploiting currency spreads.

So the notion of Soros as the latest champion of “multilateralism” must appear an especially bitter joke for any Briton or for that matter any treasury official around the world. This was the man who unilaterally– indeed, singlehandedly– trashed national currencies and lined his pockets with over a billion dollars worth of public funds. His credibility on anything related to redistribution of wealth or public services is nil.

OTOH Soros did indeed perform a noble service in his charitable career, the one that, prior to Bush’s accession to the White House, was devoted primarily to supporting democratic movements and associations in eastern Europe, where Soros is originally from. His intentions are solid, although the results are mixed: he had some impact in Hungary, less in Czech, and absolutely none in Russia. In fact he conceded as much, shutting down his operations in Russia a couple of years ago and taking a lower profile everywhere else. In this sphere his influence is a bit like Bono’s on African poverty: more for PR and devoting media attention to problems than for actually having any impact on the situation.

Then there is the other grab bag of his more recent charitable causes, the ones which bind him to the Bush-hating left. Medical marijuana. Campaign finance reform (!). Opposing US “unilateralism.” Supporting Moveon.org and vowing in 2004 — never mind his support for campaign finance reform– to “spend as many millions” of his fortune as needed to get the electoral outcome he seeks.

Soros, in sum, as a perfect example of the complete incoherence, diffusion, even silliness of the post-marxist left: a vague and contradictory motley procession of odd cultural obsessions and fierce personal animosity, and lacking any vision of society or generosity of spirit. A hollow shell, as Wretchard writes, into which all manner of intense faiths– radical environmentalism, islamism, queer theory, what-have-you — can find a home.

You are WAY off the mark here. Socialism is alive and well. The Democratic party is organized around the principles of Gramscian Marxism:

http://www.policyreview.org/dec00/Fonte.html

http://www.futurodecuba.org/Gramsci%20And%20The%20U.S.%20Body%20Politic.htm

Everybody thinks that Marxism died with the Soviet Union. Nothing could be further from the truth. The unambiguous evil of the Soviets was the greatest barrier to Western Marxists. With its collapse, they no longer had to apologize for the Soviets to advance their agenda. The iron fist of the USSR has been replaced by the “soft power” of the EUSSR.

The Marxist agenda completely aligns with the Democratic agenda. Elite rule, government redistribution, subordination of individual rights to group rights, supression of religion – which in the West is primarily supression of Chistianity – and subordination of national sovereignty. And they are successfuly using Gramscian tactics to achieve their agenda through unelected and unaccountable judges like Ruth Bader Ginsburg:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/02/politics/02ginsburg.html?

Obviously, there is no greater threat to liberty than nuclear armageddon. Absent that, Western liberty today faces greater peril from the Marxist Axis of the EUSSR, Canada and the Democrats than at any time in history. We would be wise to heed the words of Wendell Phillips:

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty?power is ever stealing from the many to the few?. The hand entrusted with power becomes ? the necessary enemy of the people. Only by continual oversight can the democrat in office be prevented from hardening into a despot: only by unintermitted Agitation can a people be kept sufficiently awake to principle not to let liberty be smothered in material prosperity.

http://www.bartleby.com/73/1073.html

“Our job, as much as possible, is to make sure this is done fairly.”

Change that last to “justly” and I’m on board.

Oh, and I didn’t see anyone touch on the pragmatic aspects of the competing ideology argument.

We have socialists, capitalists, nihilists, anarchists, marxists, hippies, yippies, blue collar, white collar, suburbanites, urbans, rurals, immigrants, expats, and illegals living here and just trying to get to tomorrow.

Politicians want offices. Some want the offices enough to use any tool today that will mean fifty- one percent in November. I believe that the majority of the “left” crowd in the contemporary political arena are about as ideologically driven as is my kid’s wind-up toys, meaning that they choose “left” because it really lends itself to emotional manipulation and advertising. If everyone is a victim it works pretty well. At least it did for most of the second half of the last century.

Doesn’t work nearly so well in a marketplace full of sovereign citizens.

I cannot listen to Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, or any A list national Dem speak without getting flashes of “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!”. They aren’t a party. They are a con gone bad.

Ever see a socialist bureaucrat at the UN or EU working for the minimum wage?

“Kickin’ It With Byron Allen” can be found playing at 330am or 4am in all major media markets. Synergy is achieved in conjunction with this program and “EntertainmentStudios.com” featuring Byron Allen.

In all honesty, relative to the news coverage, this news has affected me more than the death of the Pope.

Many of socialism’s early fans & defenders were rich, far above middle class.

When I feel sarcastic, I maintain that socialism is just another way for the idle rich to hang onto power in the face of meritocracy.

I don’t know the exact figure, though this URL http://tinyurl.com/5bcmw

suggests $5500, but the average world per-capita income is a rather small number.

Some people don’t seem to know what “average” means, and what distributing “everything” equally would mean.

We’ve got to grow the pie, not slice it with a micrometer.

“Is there anything that the Left does not perceive as a zero-sum game?”

I think that about sums it up. The corollary to the zero-sum game idea is that the government should divide the spoils fairly until the citizens become enlightened enough to do it fairly themselves.

I don’t think socialism has gone too far away at all.

Besides, there’s nothing new at all about the support of wealthy people for socialism. Many of socialism’s early fans & defenders were rich, far above middle class.