Soros uses this stuff for his own purposes.
The original idea of an open society was good, but by now we should have a protective, almost Pavlovian response when we hear it, because it has become the code-word for Soros and his "Open Society Foundation."
Soros is a very rich cultist, and the cult is worship of Soros the great genius.
The original poster denigrates private property.
Excuse please! Life, liberty, property: the Lockean triad. It is the basis. Property is one of the true, basic human rights, coming before even many of the rights in our Bill of Rights. For example, you cannot have free speech without property rights: that is even more so in the modern world than in Locke's time.
There can be no markets without private property. One is helpless to preserve lives (ones own, family members', and neighbors') without property. Without property, there is not even such a thing as charity.
Without property rights, a person is a slave. Is it any wonder that socialists of all stripes attack property, and try to contrast property rights with "human rights"? Property right is one of the most fundamental. It is also one of the things which distinguishes us from animals. Property rights are repeatedly sanctified in the Bible: for a start, look at the Ten Commandments.
The poster wonders how society should be arranged for the best benefit. Who determines what is beneficial? Who does this arranging? Man, has that been a slippery slope, as the last few hundred years show!
He suggests that society must adapt to changing times. A free society does adapt. On the other hand, human nature does not change: never has. The problems of life are always essentially the same.
When a politician hawks his wares saying, "New, new!" he sounds like an advertiser selling improved detergents, or some new bauble. Believe the soap seller: his product might actually be new. Doubt the politician, because there is nothing new conceivable in his line of offerings. This is why reading history continually brings us that deja vu feeling.
That is why we conservatives should hold fast to fundamentals, and demand a life where individuals can excercise rational, ethical, moral bevavior, free from planners and sociological theorists. We want a free life, because only in a free life can morality be expressed.
No socialism, no slavery, but only freedom!!
'Piecemeal social engineering' reminds me of "powers reserved to the states".
Regarding Utopia:
Have we not already seen enough of the fallacy and extravagance of those ideal theories which have amused us with promises of an exemption from the imperfections, weaknesses and evils incident to society in every shape? Is it not time to awake from the deceitful dream of a golden age, and to adopt as a practical maxim for the direction of our political conduct that we, as well as the other inhabitants of the globe, are yet remote from the happy empire of perfect wisdom and perfect virtue?"
Alexander Hamilton, 1789