Soros and overdetermination

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Last night it occurred to me that trying to set Soros up as a kind of
monocausal factor in the collapse of the Thai economy (among others)
lends itself to the sort of demonology (if not anti-Semitism) that
Malathir was involved with.

This was not what I was arguing. If anything, I think that the
Althusserian concept of overdetermination applies here. Just as for
Althusser, there are a multiplicity of "concrete determinations" that
can explain some key historical event, like the Russian revolution.

The same thing is true for the East Asian meltdown. It was not just
currency speculators. It was also the neoliberal structural changes that
allowed foreign currency to operate within the Thai borders. It also
included speculation in the Thai stock market, a prime example of
"emerging markets" that were flooded with money and then abandoned. You
also have to include the growth of the Chinese economy, which as
Hart-Landsberg and Burkett point out, swamped rival economies in East
Asia. There are other "overdeterminations" that can probably spring to mind.

So, if Soros by himself was not responsible, neither he is guiltless.
Perhaps the best analogy is an arms trader. It would not be quite
accurate to blame the terrible internecine wars in Africa on them, but
they still are the scum of the earth.


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