The Age of Fallibility is in two parts, the first of which proffers Soros's conceptual framework as a point of departure. He extracts meaning from the central concept of an open society, an idea that has underpinned his philosophy and much of his life's work; he has consistently refined its meaning to him and his application of it since learning it from Karl Popper, his final-year tutor at the LSE. The concept of an open society is an epistemological one built on the relational dichotomy of freedom and governance and inherent imperfection, and Soros analyses it very effectively and in detail through the separation of thought and reality as illuminated by concepts of reflexivity, fallibility and far-from-equilibrium situations.
In the second part of the book, Soros uses his conceptual framework as an applied science and postulates what in his opinion is wrong with the US. His indictment of the feel-good society and the effects of consumerism on politics as well as the marketability of the war on terror make for an interesting stance.
He goes beyond the obligatory liberal indictment of George W. Bush and his presidential puppetry at the hands of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. At times the vehemence of Soros's critique resembles that of escapees from dictatorships, and his analysis of modern America appears to owe something to the fear-driven environment of Philip Roth's fictional The Plot Against America. His study is somewhat complex and extensive but the crux of his polemical argument is that America's convergent crisis lies in the central problem that "mankind's power over nature has increased cumulatively while its ability to govern itself has not kept pace", a far from equilibrium situation that violates the principles of an open society.
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