(IPS) analysis

- Billionaire financier and philanthropist George Soros, whose last foray into book writing struck many reviewers as a Jeckyll-and-Hyde act, has another volume in the pipeline.

Soros's last book, 'The Crisis of Global Capitalism: Open Society Endangered', appeared in 1998 and took aim at what he saw as the destructive excesses of capital markets and especially speculators in currencies and derivatives.

His new book, due out in February, lays out Soros's vision for reform of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the institutions and operations that, together, generally are referred to as the ''global financial architecture''.

Reviewers from various political backgrounds greeted the 1998 book as an act of contrition by the Dr Jeckyll in Soros after his Mr Hyde had taken prominent and extremely profitable part in the very volatility-inducing gambling he decried in the book.

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and others went further, accusing Soros of helping to precipitate and exacerbate the Asian financial meltdown of 1997 and 1998.

This duality won Soros few friends among pro-Third World activists and intellectuals. Martin Khor, of the Third World Network, at the time ridiculed Soros's tome thus: ''He's crying out, 'Stop me before I kill again'.''

Less baggage

Soros may have embarked on his latest venture with less baggage than the last time around but whether he'll win new friends remains a decidedly open question.

Experts in multilateral finance and development may assail not only his motives but also his credentials. When he wrote about capital markets, by contrast, they questioned his motives but not his expertise - he is, after all, the founder of the hugely successful Quantum investment fund.

He addresses these misgivings in a synopsis of his upcoming book, thus: "I am only one of many experts on financial markets; but my commitment to seeking tangible improvements sets me apart from most others.

"I am often told that there is some kind of contradiction between profiting from global financial markets and trying to reform them," he writes. "I do not see it. I am passionately interested in improving the system that has allowed me to be successful so that it will become more equitable and more enduring."

However, activists may yet take umbrage that Soros describes them as meaning well but misguided.

He shares their concerns about the harmful impact of the Bretton Woods institutions' policies on poor countries and people ''but I think civil society is misguided,'' Soros told IPS . "We need the international institutions and we need to strengthen them."

In the synopsis, Soros complains that "an unwitting alliance has emerged between anti-globalisation activists on the left and market fundamentalists on the right."

"They make strange bedfellows but between them they threaten to destroy or weaken our existing IFTIs," Soros writes, referring to international financial and trade institutions.

The Hungarian-born hedge fund pioneer, who spoke with IPS during a recent visit to Washington, said, "The prevailing tendency in the US is to downsize the World Bank. That would be a step in the wrong direction.''

Reforms urged

"I think there has been a significant change of direction in the World Bank's activities under the presidency of James Wolfensohn where instead of financing large-scale programmes like major dams in China for example, which are ecologically damaging, (it is) focusing on the creation of human capital," Soros said.

Rather than trim the Bank's resources, shareholding governments should give it ''more flexibility and more independence,'' he argued.

He urged a series of reforms, however. The lender's executive directors should be appointed for a fixed term and be independent of the governments that appoint them, as are governors of the US Federal Reserve.

Likewise, the Bank's much-maligned bureaucrats also should serve under time limits to "prevent dominance by an entrenched bureaucracy and to recycle desperately needed talent back to the poor countries," Soros writes.

"I think there's a need to reorganise and rethink the functions of the World Bank but I am personally opposed to any radical reorganisation now because it will result in the diminution of funds and activities," Soros told IPS.

In parallel to reforming the Bank, Soros proposes an ambitious but vague plan for the IMF to issue Special Drawing Rights - essentially, a form of IMF money derived from a basket of shareholder nations' currencies - to poor countries annually to help them pay for ''public goods''.

"The IMF should introduce credit enhancements for countries pursuing sound policies to match the burden-sharing required of creditors to less sound economies," he writes. The idea is not new; IMF officials have never smiled upon it.

Soros said he went into semi-retirement last year to devote more of his time and money to philanthropy and to airing his views on globalisation.

These views are promoted mainly through his Open Society institute and foundation, which fund programmes in education, social work, and economic management, and through Soros's own books and speeches.