Capitalism threatens freedom, says Soros

When George Soros speaks, the world's markets listen. This time, though, they may not believe what they hear. Mr Soros is proclaiming that capitalism and its system of speculative trading - the same system that has brought him billions - has supplanted Communism as the principal threat to freedom.

It is a stunning conversion from the man who has long been viewed as the Midas of the currency markets. His extraordinary success was vividly demonstrated in 1992 when bets he made on the pound knocked Britain's currency out of the European exchange rate mechanism.

The new Soros doctrine is laid out in a 7,000-word article, "The Capitalist Threat", in the magazine Atlantic Monthly. It argues that worship of "the magic of the marketplace" is undermining social values of morality and responsibility and risks giving rise to extremist political leaders.

"The arch enemy of an open society is no longer the Communist threat but the capitalist one," Mr Soros writes in the article. "It is wrong to make `survival of the fittest' a leading principle in a civilised society." He argues that inequality is rampant because "laissez-faire ideology has [in effect] banished income- or wealth-redistribution".

Mr Soros goes on: "I have made a fortune on the international financial markets, and yet I now fear that the untrammelled intensification of laissez-faire capitalism and the spread of market values into all areas of life is endangering our open and democratic society".

Mr Soros's own fortune is worth about pounds 6bn. But since 1979 he has been channelling part of his wealth to pro-democracy causes through his own Open Society Foundation.