Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The groundbreaking investigation of how the global elite's efforts to "change the world" preserve the status quo and obscure their role in causing the problems they later seek to solve. An essential read for understanding some of the egregious abuses of power that dominate today’s news.
"Impassioned.... Entertaining reading.” —The Washington Post
Anand Giridharadas takes us into the inner sanctums of a new gilded age, where the rich and powerful fight for equality and justice any way they can—except ways that threaten the social order and their position atop it. They rebrand themselves as saviors of the poor; they lavishly reward “thought leaders” who redefine “change” in ways that preserve the status quo; and they constantly seek to do more good, but never less harm.
Giridharadas asks hard questions: Why, for example, should our gravest problems be solved by the unelected upper crust instead of the public institutions it erodes by lobbying and dodging taxes? His groundbreaking investigation has already forced a great, sorely needed reckoning among the world’s wealthiest and those they hover above, and it points toward an answer: Rather than rely on scraps from the winners, we must take on the grueling democratic work of building more robust, egalitarian institutions and truly changing the world—a call to action for elites and everyday citizens alike.
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Community Reviews
2.5 stars rounded to 3. I feel like the author asked excellent questions that we need to be asking. The way he dragged people through the mud by name with petty details, however, detracted from his message. While I understand that system change is necessary, there are people doing good within the current system that shouldn't be destroyed (and possibly motivated to give up) in the process. His unwillingness to offer solutions in the name of being a thinker was selfish and weak as well. The solutions won't be easy and we all need to contribute to them in a compassionate way if they have any chance of happening. Even he acknowleges this at time. I truly was cheering at various points in the book for the challenges that he was offering to the status quo. I was encouraged by the echoes of discomfort I've had at times in the philanthropic space myself. His tone and lack of personal investment, however, left a sour taste in my mouth for the whole discussion. I worry that he has ruined a message that we all need to hear.
Frankly, if you've been paying attention to Giridharadas for the last couple of years, there's not going to be a lot new here. But this is definitely still worth the read, because it lays out the structure of the "elite charade" clearly. The hubris and illusion (willful or otherwise) underlying the wealth-first-then-maybe-philanthropy-next approach is palpable. Charity, as St. Augustine reminds us, is no substitute for justice withheld. And philanthropic organizations are no substitute for proper governance, either. This is a valuable book, exposing the hypocritical strategies and tactics of those who would have us think otherwise.
This is one of those books that really changed my perspective-- which is such a gift. I was certainly open to what he had to say, but there were many concepts in here that I hadn't considered in the way that Giridharadas analyzes it. Part of my preparation for this book includes having already read 56 "popular nonfiction" economics books and some additional behavioral economics books. I'm not sure if someone who doesn't otherwise read economics books would be open to the concepts in here.
The basic premise is that the richest 1% claim to be trying to help with social problems but what they should actually do is pay their employees living wages so that they don't need charity, stop polluting the environment so that the subsequent disaster areas don't need charity money, stop lobbying against things that help the 99% of citizens like regulations, stop creating tax shelters so that government can't function properly, stop impeding government in general. In other words, instead of being bad guys and covering up their sins with philanthropy, they should stop being bad guys. In addition, actual income equality creates a huge power inequality. Democracy cannot work when a small percent of the population wields such disproportionate power. Part of that is the money itself, part of that is the disaster of current day finance regulations. The central thesis is that the rich can't even fix problems with philanthropy because their solutions involve mostly self-interested band aids that don't address the underlying causes: them.
The basic premise is that the richest 1% claim to be trying to help with social problems but what they should actually do is pay their employees living wages so that they don't need charity, stop polluting the environment so that the subsequent disaster areas don't need charity money, stop lobbying against things that help the 99% of citizens like regulations, stop creating tax shelters so that government can't function properly, stop impeding government in general. In other words, instead of being bad guys and covering up their sins with philanthropy, they should stop being bad guys. In addition, actual income equality creates a huge power inequality. Democracy cannot work when a small percent of the population wields such disproportionate power. Part of that is the money itself, part of that is the disaster of current day finance regulations. The central thesis is that the rich can't even fix problems with philanthropy because their solutions involve mostly self-interested band aids that don't address the underlying causes: them.