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Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World

Anand Giridharadas (Goodreads Author)

4.20 · Rating details · 5,444 ratings · 917 reviews

An insider's 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.

Former New York Times columnist 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 ...more

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Hardcover, 288 pages

Published August 28th 2018 by Knopf Publishing Group

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Nov 05, 2018 BlackOxford rated it it was amazing

Shelves: sociology

What Trump and Idealists Have in Common

‘Making a difference’ could be the idealistic theme of my generation’s collective ethos - at least among those of us who survived the drug-culture of the 60’s and 70’s with intact minds. The world had been opened to us by cheap access to good education, a long post-war economic boom, a range of radical new philosophies and more or less guaranteed employment. We had choices. And the right people appeared to be demonstrating how to exercise power around the ...more

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Oct 20, 2018 Bill Kerwin rated it it was amazing

Shelves: politics, nonficion, business

Did you watch Zuckerberg testify before the Senate committees about Facebook and the 2018 election? Were you struck by how blithely unrepentant he seemed, how convinced that his titanic, poorly monitored data base—which he habitually describes as “a community”—is an unalloyed benefit to us all? “Facebook was not originally created to be a company,” Zuckerberg claims, “It was built to accomplish a social mission—to make the world more open and connected.”

So how is it that a billionaire like
Did you watch Zuckerberg testify before the Senate committees about Facebook and the 2018 election? Were you struck by how blithely unrepentant he seemed, how convinced that his titanic, poorly monitored data base—which he habitually describes as “a community”—is an unalloyed benefit to us all? “Facebook was not originally created to be a company,” Zuckerberg claims, “It was built to accomplish a social mission—to make the world more open and connected.”

So how is it that a billionaire like Zuckerberg can presume to appear so smugly virtuous? Although a few reasons come immediately to my mind—a poorly chosen defense strategy, the habitual arrogance of wealth, some personality or character defect—I believe the truer explanation is more universal. It lies in the philosophical attitude toward wealth and social change of all the Silicon Valley billionaires, which is shared in large part by the Wall Street/Clinton Foundation crowd too. Such people inhabit a distinct intellectual universe, and an excellent way to learn about their world is to read Winners Take All: the Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridhardas.

Giridhardas calls this universe “MarketWorld”, and he encountered it up close and personal when, in 2011, he was chosen as a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute, an “’organization of leaders’ that seeks to deploy a “new breed of leaders’ against ‘the world’s most intractable problems.’” It involved an inspiring series of one-week seminars, held in luxurious places, where he “mingled with the ultra-rich in decorated mansions.” Still something made Anand uneasy about the whole thing:

Even as I savored these luxuries and connections, I found something amiss about the Aspen institute. Here were all these rich and powerful people coming together and speaking about giving back, and yet the people who seemed to reap most of the benefits of this coming together were the helpers, not the helped. I began to wonder what was actually going on when the most fortunate don’t merely seek to make a difference but also effectively claim ownership of “changing the world.” . . .

I began to feel like a casual participant in . . . a giant, sweet-lipped lie. . . . Why were we coming to Aspen? To change the system, or to be changed by it? To speak truth to power, . . . or to help make an unjust, unpalatable system go down a little more easily? Could the intractable problems we proposed to solve be solved in the way that we silently insisted—at minimal most to elites, with minimal distribution of power?

Giridharadas continued to think about these matters, and five years later, at his Aspen Institute summer reunion, he delivered a speech in which he summed up what he called the Aspen Consensus: “The winners of our age must be challenged to do more good. But never, ever tell them to do less harm.”

This, essentially, is the philosophy of “MarketWorld.” We can all—especially the rich--”do good by doing well.” Apply market solutions, empower a few, attempt to solve a few isolated social problems, and—guess what?—we can make ourselves even more money and feel better about ourselves while we do it. We’ll work with governments, sure, but only if necessary (for democracy is messy and difficult to control), but please don’t speak to us about increasing corporate regulations, or raising marginal tax rates, or increasing estate taxes, and—while you’re at it—leave that deduction for the purchase of private jets alone too.

Giridharadas attends and takes notes on many MarketWorld events, conducts interviews with a few of the ultra-rich and many of their minions (an interview near the end of the book with Bill Clinton is particularly illuminating), and in addition he speaks with a number of aspiring entrepreneurs who adopt the MarketWorld philosophy.

But he speaks with critics of MarketWorld too, one of the most incisive being Chiara Cordelli, professor of political philosophy at the university of Chicago. She argues that one of the most dangerous things about the MarketWorld method is that it not only routinely marginalizes government institutions but also insists on benefits (tax breaks, elimination of regulations) which damage and hamper its mechanisms, and that as a result these institutions are becoming more and more ineffective. And after all, Cordelli says, “The government is us.”

...more

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May 20, 2019 Thomas rated it really liked it

Shelves: own-physical, nonfiction

An excellent exposé of the wealthy and powerful who aim to do "good" and just perpetuate systems of injustice. Anand Giridharadas creates a compelling argument about how elites who work at corporations and companies like McKinsey and Goldman Sachs say they "work for social change," yet never address the core of what causes inequality in the first place. He provides several detailed anecdotes of young adults who get swept up into these corporations based on the ideal that they will learn a skill An excellent exposé of the wealthy and powerful who aim to do "good" and just perpetuate systems of injustice. Anand Giridharadas creates a compelling argument about how elites who work at corporations and companies like McKinsey and Goldman Sachs say they "work for social change," yet never address the core of what causes inequality in the first place. He provides several detailed anecdotes of young adults who get swept up into these corporations based on the ideal that they will learn a skill set that will later help them do good, or that through these firms they will work on projects that benefit all of society, even when these firms often drive the marginalized further downward. The book carries valuable implications, ranging from how business will not solve society's pressing problems, to why some disenfranchised folk distrusted Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election and more. A quote from the end of the book I liked a lot:

"But that is a choice, Cordelli tells us. To do a modest bit of good while doing nothing about the larger system is to keep the painting. You are chewing on the fruit of an injustice. You may be working on a prison education program, but you are choosing not to prioritize the pursuit of wage and labor laws that would make people's lives more stable and perhaps keep some of them out of jail. You may be sponsoring a loan forgiveness initiative for law school students, but you are choosing not to prioritize seeking a tax code that would take more from you and cut their debts. Your management consulting firm may be writing reports about unlocking trillions of dollars' worth of women's potential, but it is choosing not to advise its clients to stop lobbying against the social programs that have been shown in other societies to help women achieve the equality fantasized about in consultants' reports."

A limitation of the book includes that Giridharadas did not include the perspectives of the marginalized people he purports to care about. It would have been helpful to read more from the perspectives of those with less privilege, to read what they think we should all do. I wish Giridharadas focused more on tangible actions toward the end of the book. Instead of just pointing out the problem with rich people engaging in philanthropy that maintains economic inequality, perhaps providing steps to dismantle capitalism or work toward reparations would have made the book feel more aligned with its stated mission. I would still recommend it though, as it has made me examine my own class privilege and complicity in these systems of oppression. ...more

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Nov 17, 2018 Dolly rated it it was ok

Before you read this book, read the author’s bio. For someone who is so critical of elites hiding in their hobbit holes, he waits until the acknowledgments section at the end to let you know that he is one of them. I found this incredibly bizarre. He says the reason is because he didn’t want to make the book about him, but at the same time he states, “The best way to know about a problem is to be a part of it.” I think the premise of the work would have been infinitely more powerful had he ...more

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Sep 30, 2018 Cesar rated it it was amazing

Winners Take All is the hardest book I have ever read. Not because it was inaccessible or esoteric, but because it forced a long overdue look in the mirror.

Being in the tech industry I’ve been swept up in thought leadership, heroic philanthropy, and the promise of innovation to impact lives at scale. For a moment I was becoming more convinced that maybe the market place was in fact the best place to solve our social ills. Maybe the right combination of philanthropies and technology could fix Winners Take All is the hardest book I have ever read. Not because it was inaccessible or esoteric, but because it forced a long overdue look in the mirror.

Being in the tech industry I’ve been swept up in thought leadership, heroic philanthropy, and the promise of innovation to impact lives at scale. For a moment I was becoming more convinced that maybe the market place was in fact the best place to solve our social ills. Maybe the right combination of philanthropies and technology could fix most of our biggest issues. With each page, I slowly realized the lie I was telling myself to justify my newfound privilege in society.

I saw myself in the story of Hilary Cohen, a young idealistic college grad swept by corporate furor over a desire to change the world and make impact at scale through the marketplace. I rationalized momentarily selling out with the promise of building skills so one day I may be better suited to truly make the impact I desired in the public sector. I could have my cake and eat it too.

I saw myself in the story of Darren Walker, the philanthropist who against all odds went from poverty to riches. We share the same central questions. How do you reconcile the incompatible identity transition from a poor upbringing to another of riches and opportunity? How do you navigate the new elite social circles life throws you in? Am I too comfortable in my newfound privilege?

How do you respond to the uncomfortable cooing and admiration? “Look at Cesar… Why can’t they all be like him? He had a single mother. He put himself through school.” Even the most well-meaning, do not understand the selfish ways we contribute to a society where we increasingly make stories like mine and Darren’s impossible to continue to emerge. The largest or most frequent donors to charity won’t change the fact that for my story to emerge again, the stars would need to align yet again, but in a more unlikely way.

When you join the club of winners in society and you champion causes that ignore the fundamental structures and systems in place that led to your victory, you become complicit in the oppression that makes your success possible. The slaveholder who would rather treat his property with love and care instead of working to live in a free world was every bit as complicit as the most brutal slaveowners. True progress demands a sacrifice of privilege and power.

Those of us who ride the wave of prosperity have a responsibility to think of the people for whom this change systemically fails. We have a shared moral obligation and commitment to the public good. My promise to the world is to never lose sight of that. ...more

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Sep 23, 2018 Trevor rated it it was amazing

Shelves: biography, behavioural-economics, economics, social-theory

This is another book recommended to me by Richard. In many ways this is a similar and perhaps an even better book than ‘Small Change: Why business won’t save the world’ by Michael Edwards. Under my review of that book Jan-Maat mentions Andrew Carnegie – and he gets quite a run in this book, although, I wouldn’t be able to say he comes out of that looking particularly good. In fact, he is presented, as Jan-Maat says, as the classic case of what philanthropists are like. Their point is to not pay ...more

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Sep 28, 2019 Pouting Always rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I really enjoyed this but it might be just because fundamentally I'm ideologically opposed to people being that wealthy. I think it does a really good job of what the intended purpose is, to show that a lot of times philanthropy itself is just a way to ameliorate problems caused by the same people doing the philanthropy and that much of the philanthropy can not make up for the systemic issues we have created by letting people accumulate as much wealth at the expense of others as we do. I think ...more

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Sep 14, 2018 Linh rated it liked it

Shelves: read-in-2018

As someone who has dithered on the edges of "elites changing the world", much of this rings true and I believe (and grapple) with the tension between the sometimes necessary power/influence/fortune needed, as we strive for justice and equity. An article that I always refer back to is Noam Chomsky's dissection of justice vs power. That and thoughts about how social movements and protest no matter how "ineffectual" will always be more powerful levers to create systemic change than social ...more

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Aug 31, 2018 Mehrsa rated it it was amazing

This is an excellent book and a must-read! It's also totally readable and even quite funny at times. And it's the kind of book that you keep bringing up in conversation and then trailing off and saying---you just really have to read this book. The oversimplified thesis is that you can't use the master's tools to break down his house. I hope this book is widely read and circulated.

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Oct 19, 2018 Darnell added it

Shelves: non-fiction

Very mixed feelings about this book. I liked some parts too much to give a low rating, disliked other parts too much to give a high rating, and don't feel those should average out.

While I was reading, I was considering a criticism that this book is ultimately not engaged in critical thought, but is just another "thought leader," simply for a different demographic. But it doesn't entirely fall into this trap, and it isn't shallow or vapid. There are definitely pieces that were solid.

Yet I still Very mixed feelings about this book. I liked some parts too much to give a low rating, disliked other parts too much to give a high rating, and don't feel those should average out.

While I was reading, I was considering a criticism that this book is ultimately not engaged in critical thought, but is just another "thought leader," simply for a different demographic. But it doesn't entirely fall into this trap, and it isn't shallow or vapid. There are definitely pieces that were solid.

Yet I still feel like this book's project is fundamentally flawed. I don't think someone who started out disbelieving in the book's premise would be convinced, nor does the book seem to even attempt to convince them - agreement with central tenets is presumed. As someone favorably inclined toward the premise, I was hoping for a rigorous analysis of the issue that would deepen my understanding of the subject. I didn't get that as much as I'd like.

For example, the criticism of the family that made their wealth via OxyContin was exactly along the lines I wanted. Direct empirical analysis of their impacts on both sides, which in my mind is a serious criticism of their philanthropic efforts that undermines all their rhetoric. I'd have preferred a whole chapter devoted to it, but I enjoyed that segment.

But many other segments don't engage on that level. For example, criticizing business executives who reduce Indian economics to a market chain seems promising, but there's no analysis, just throwing out hypotheticals that might undermine their position. Those are questions with real answers that would be a far stronger response, so why bring them up without getting into the facts of the situation?

Now, a book doesn't need to be empirical analysis, there's a place for simply expressing ideas. For example, I was fascinated by the section about early objections to Carnegie's philanthropy. But as much as some parts were interesting, I feel like a book with an aggressive thesis needs to present a high degree of either novelty or rigor, and this book didn't go all the way with either.

I'd be more favorable inclined toward its attempt if not for my last problem with the book: the tendency to smugly contradict interviewees in the text itself instead of raising those objections to their face and recording their response. ...more

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Sep 18, 2019 Diane S ☔ rated it really liked it

Shelves: 5000-2019, lor-2019

Thoughts soon.

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Sep 15, 2018 Meredith rated it really liked it

I ADORED this book. It was not without its flaws, including being super biased, one sided and judgmental, but I LOVED it. I’ve been a total MarketWorlder, assuming business was the best vehicle for making change and business school was the most effective way to learn now. And this book helped me see an alternate way. Which released over a decade of cognitive dissonance I didn’t fully realize I was wrestling with. I don’t have all the answers yet about what this means for how I want to live my ...more

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Sep 30, 2019 Monica rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: business-economics, soc-sci-politics, aoc, audio, aoc-male, kindle_nonfiction, pub_2010s, borrowed, pub-2018

rtf

My first thought is nothing new here. Take all of the thoughts on white privilege and apply them to wealth privilege and you have the concept of this book. I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that tremendous income inequality and/or maintenance of that condition is the root of evil...

4+ Stars

Listened to audio book. Author was the narrator. He did a good job.

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Feb 16, 2019 Jenn "JR" rated it liked it

Shelves: politics-economics-history

Winners Take All (2018)
Anand Giridhardas

People who are making money at the expense of the common good are not ignorant about the effects they are having on the world around them.

Take as an example – the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, built by the widow who was the heir to the fortune of Winchester rifles. She earned something like $10,000/minute without having to do a thing because of the pivotal role that those weapons served in the genocide that took place across the US West in the ...more

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Nov 21, 2018 Peter Mcloughlin rated it really liked it

Shelves: late-capitalism, 1990-to-2019, american-history, general-history, nonfiction, intellectual-history, economics, media, owned-books, politics

Very much in the tradition of Thomas Frank and the Baffler Magazine. This lampoons the TED talking Thought leaders and Elon Musks hanging around Davos and Martha's Vineyard. You know the plutocrats on a mission to save us all. I don't know if they do it the avoid scrutiny or salve their conscience I am not a shrink and I certainly don't hang out in their circles but its a dog and pony show which makes billionaires look good and deflect attention from the glaring problems of inequality and ...more

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Jan 26, 2019 Wendy Liu rated it it was amazing

Shelves: capitalism-etc

so good! an insider look at the moral bankruptcy of philanthrocapitalism. very accessible but still riveting. highly recommended

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Mar 16, 2019 Jason Furman rated it really liked it

Shelves: nonfiction, journalism

I am very glad that “Winners Take All” was written and that it is being widely read in precisely the circles that need to read it. I could see it actually making the world a better place. A lot of the reportage is excellent, in many ways looking from multiple perspectives, being as sympathetic as possible, and by virtue of that sympathy its criticisms are that much more biting and compelling. The weakness of the book, however, is the superficiality of its underlying analysis of the economy and I am very glad that “Winners Take All” was written and that it is being widely read in precisely the circles that need to read it. I could see it actually making the world a better place. A lot of the reportage is excellent, in many ways looking from multiple perspectives, being as sympathetic as possible, and by virtue of that sympathy its criticisms are that much more biting and compelling. The weakness of the book, however, is the superficiality of its underlying analysis of the economy and politics. But that is much less important than its strengths and those strengths and very strong.

The target of “Winners Take All” is the “doing good by doing well” crowd. The people that populate the Aspen Ideas Festival (full disclosure, I go pretty much annually), flying out in private planes, talking about their minor initiatives that may by themselves do a small amount of good but leave the system itself intact.

It is easy to satirize this set but Anand Giridharadas doesn’t just do that. He conveys sympathy for their desire to change the world. His targets are less the people that populate the book than the system that puts them there and that they themselves reinforce.

Giridharadas’ argument is that all of the “doing good by doing well” efforts aren’t just harmless and slightly annoying, but profoundly harmful. They undermine the notion of democracy and collective governance. Instead of the government collecting taxes and democratically deciding what to do with them, plutocrats decide how much of their money to give and what to give it to. Giridharadas argues that these efforts can reinforce the bad aspects of the current system by allowing corporations and individuals to effectively whitewash their rent seeking and bad actions and argue they don’t need regulation because they’re busily making the world a better place.

To the degree that Giridharadas is portraying people who—for example—oppose the taxes needed to fund the types of issues they agree need more funding, I’m sympathetic to his perspective.

But I’m also much more sympathetic to capitalism than Giridharadas is and in some ways I find his views confused. Many of the CEOs that show up at the Aspen Ideas Festival touting their minor initiatives to train the disadvantaged are actually not talking about the biggest good they do in the world which is innovating in the core businesses, increasing productivity and wages, making products consumers want, and the like.

If that innovation is in the form of, for example, making better cigarettes or marketing them better that will make the world a worse place. But most of it isn’t and when it is the answer is regulation and taxes so that when businesses are maximizing their profits they are doing it in a way that increases social welfare. Giridharadas powerfully advocates for the stronger regulations and taxes, but still somehow often finds himself drawn into the argument that the solution is corporations being more communally oriented, caring more about the public good, and the like—without recognizing that this is an unrealistic basis to build a better society on and lends itself to precisely the “elite charade” that he is criticizing. Better corporations that are honest, saying all they care about is profits, so that it will be clearer that we need to set the rules so that their profit maximization is socially beneficial.

Often the solution is more market not less. The denizens of what Giridharadas calls “Marketworld” are themselves often unsympathetic to the market. Business leaders don’t love competition and run large centrally planned organizations. They can see this lack of competition and central planning as a model for society more broadly. The solution is not more planning but less, with greater competition within well-defined rules leading to the types of innovation we should want. We should be calling the “Marketworlders” on their bluff.

The question is whether all the superficial world changing stuff that I also find annoying suppresses these types of public policies. Some efforts at self governance, self regulation, and self donation are substitutes for collective action and, as a result, share Giridharadas’ concern about these. But I don’t think he does enough to grant the many ways that private action can complement the types of public action he supports. For example the business community doesn’t say it is sufficient for them all to use green lightbulbs but also is reasonably decent at advocating carbon taxes and supporting the Paris Agreement.

This point is indicative of some of the limitations of Giridharadas’ political theories. He depicts a world of a monolithic all powerful elite that wants to stamp out all use of the word “inequality” because it views it as threatening its own power and prerogatives. But the elite is not monolithic, in fact many of them actively support different sides of the debate, including many that actively support higher taxes on themselves. Nor is the elite all powerful, just witness Donald Trump getting the Republican nomination against the entire elite of the Republican Party and then winning the election. The elite wants all sorts of things, like immigration reform, that seem to never happen. Finally, it is not like the “people” are completely innocent. In Giridharadas’ telling, the elite are offended by talk of inequality and instead want to hear euphemisms like expanded opportunity. But much of the public has exactly the same preferences around framing nd is less excited about the term and concept of inequality than I personally am or think they should be

All of these arguments and quibbles, however, pale in comparison to the fact that the book aims at broadly the right target, hits it squarely, and might actually accomplish something in the process. There really is a bit too much of an “elite charade of changing the world”. And not enough actual engaging with the public policies that are needed to change the world. Giridharadas has written a compelling book that just might help to change that. ...more

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Jan 31, 2019 Michael Siliski rated it it was ok

Recommended if you’re angry at liberal elites and want to lean into that anger with some anecdotes and an uncomplicated narrative.

Winners Take All tells the story of how a new elite of market-oriented, globe-trotting philanthropists have convinced themselves and the rest of us that they’re acting in our best interests, while in fact they’ve created a broken civil society and hoarded all the wealth and power for themselves.

There's a lot of truth to the story, and I agree with many of the policy ...more

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May 12, 2018 Nils rated it it was amazing

Shelves: democracy, future-of-capitalism

Philanthropy exists mainly to enable the super-rich and super-powerful to defer any serious discussion of a serious reordering of power and wealth, argues Giridharadas. Through a series of vignettes both of the super-rich and super-powerful themselves, who prove themselves unable to conceive that righting the world’s wrongs might require that they cede some of the their privileges, and their servants in the philanthropic world, who realize queasily their own compromised position (which ...more

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Apr 27, 2019 Marks54 rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This is a fairly effective trade book on political economy, globalism, elites, consultants, and philanthropy. It is effective because it ties together a bunch of related ideas under a broader and persuasive story. That story is about a class of business activities that can be viewed with such headings as “positive” “socially directed” “entrepreneurial”, “social entrepreneurship”, and “sustainable”. Mix and match on these terms as you wish, but this approach towards socially conscious business is This is a fairly effective trade book on political economy, globalism, elites, consultants, and philanthropy. It is effective because it ties together a bunch of related ideas under a broader and persuasive story. That story is about a class of business activities that can be viewed with such headings as “positive” “socially directed” “entrepreneurial”, “social entrepreneurship”, and “sustainable”. Mix and match on these terms as you wish, but this approach towards socially conscious business is a big deal in universities, business schools, internships, and corporate recruiting. The problem is how to separate the intuition behind this activity from the buzzwords that seem to surround. Mr. Giridharadas argues that these all represent ways to claim social and environmental activism and a sensitivity to world problems while avoiding positions that actually threaten the positions of big corporations and global elites. It is social activism that is comfortable for the elites because it seeks to ameliorate the conditions of the needy without identifying the sources of their problems or the actors who are responsible for those problems.

The author presents this as the left of center “loyal opposition” to the antigovernment movements that have been popular in US politics since Reagan. It also captures the conflicts between internationalism and localism that have been stirring in Europe and against the globalists more generally for years, the Brexit vote being a recent manifestation. This is also the general indictment that has developed to explain the generally failings of the Democrats since 2000 and the surprise victory of Trump in 2016.

As such, the book is a nice set of chapters that tie together several related themes. The book is also a thoughtful examination of the commodification of ideas in the “idea business” or the “guru business”. This is the world of TED talks, and YouTube tapes, and Facebook pages. It highlights the tensions of dealing with ideas, or what pass for ideas today, in a world where it is hard to get traditional intellectual work in academia or the news media and nearly impossible to make a living writing for publication. So lets give speeches for a fee a prestigious private conferences sponsored by billionaires and issue oriented think tanks in glamorous places!

The book is well written and allows for reading at a nice pace. It comes across as a tasting menu for these topics, however, and some might see it as lacking detail. Many of the topics additional readings = and the author provides guidance for those who wish to read more. That is OK - the author delivers on what he promises.

The author is a regular guest on some of the cable channels, but I had not placed him with his onscreen presence. Now I know and I look forward to other books from him.
...more

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Nov 01, 2018 Michael Perkins rated it really liked it

on point synopsis by Masha Gessen from The New Yorker....

Anand Giridharadas takes on the ethos of “doing good by doing well”: the feel-good ideology that enables people who think of themselves as good, principled, politically aware, and even woke to contribute to—and benefit from—ever-increasing inequality. Giridharadas’s characters are McKinsey consultants who believe that they are changing the world for the better, academics who have traded thinking for reductive and lucrative “thought ...more

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Dec 28, 2018 Emily rated it liked it

Shelves: set-aside, 2018, nonfiction

I enjoyed reading about this topic in the New Yorker and am sympathetic to the author's view of things. But the beginning of this book was so relentlessly repetitious that I couldn't carry on reading it. I felt that it went beyond "not my taste" to "where is your editor?".

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May 05, 2019 Divya rated it did not like it

I was looking for some critical soul searching as a member of the "elite" that the author rails against but Mr. Giridharadas very quickly lost me when he tries to make a point in page 2 about how poor American men *only* live as long as men in Pakistan or Sudan. Far from celebrating the great gains that Pakistan or Sudan have made in increasing the average lifetimes, this factoid is seen as a something worth lamenting as though Americans have a god given right to live longer than the rest of the ...more

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Mar 16, 2019 Daniel Beck rated it did not like it · review of another edition

I basically agreed with the thesis of this book and yet I cannot recommend it at all.

I was looking forward to this one. I listened to an interview with Anand Giridharadas and was excited to read the book. I was hoping to learn how to talk critically about the favorite myth of technologists, financiers, and other wealthy, powerful people: that corporate greed can function as a substitute for public institutions in improving the world. I was fully predisposed to like this book. Instead, I got a I basically agreed with the thesis of this book and yet I cannot recommend it at all.

I was looking forward to this one. I listened to an interview with Anand Giridharadas and was excited to read the book. I was hoping to learn how to talk critically about the favorite myth of technologists, financiers, and other wealthy, powerful people: that corporate greed can function as a substitute for public institutions in improving the world. I was fully predisposed to like this book. Instead, I got a dishonest, sexist, and petty hate read.

Dishonest is not a word I use lightly, but Giridharadas withholds a key piece of information until the very end of the book that recasts every page before it. Giridharadas is one of the elite he rails against. He was a McKinseyite, was an Aspen Institute fellow, and is associated with elite, private universities that crank out the targets of his critique. He says "this is a work of reportage" yet it seems he's friends with many of the subjects of the book. For example, Hilary Cohen is profiled in an early chapter, and, in the acknowledgements, we learn she read drafts of the book and provided feedback to the author. I'd have still been interested in what he had to share, but I would've liked to have an honest disclosure of his privileged heterodoxy. Instead, the delayed disclosure repositions everything before it as gossipy sniping at his peers.

Stylistically, the book is a failure. His critique of a worldview that favors privatization, austerity, deregulation, and unmoderated free trade routinely apes its rhetorical style. He gives the worldview a corporate-friendly brand name, MarketWorld; it's a cute irony in chapter 1, but the joke quickly gets old. Worse is every time he describes wealthy, powerful people as "winners" and ordinary people as "losers", which actively takes part in the construction of a worldview where wealthy, powerful people are intrinsically better. At the beginning of the book I thought it was irony, but by the end of the book I was starting to think that Giridharadas actually believes that the elite (presumably including himself) are in fact better than the rest of us, even if they're not our moral superiors.

The way Giridharadas writes about women is troubling to say the least. Throughout the book, he profiles women in an ways that dismisses the systemic disadvantages they have. He casts Hilary Cohen as a naïve, misled young woman who chooses the evils of McKinsey instead of becoming a rabbi, but doesn’t interrogate the presumption that it’s preferable for a woman to go into a caring profession instead of, say, guaranteeing her own economic independence. He profiles Amy Cuddy as an inadequate feminist because she doesn’t attack her clients in the talks those clients pay for, again without considering the economic punishment women can face for feminism. He casually projects Bill Clinton’s politics onto Hillary Clinton, as if she’s not a person with her own identity and words. Hell, he could not even be bothered to lower case danah boyd's name properly. Ironic misogynistic (and cisnormative) trash like “the feminists wanted us to look at a vagina and zoom out to see Congress” is still misogynistic trash. Giridharadas thinks he can put women into tidy categories of "serious" and unserious feminists; if it was a joke, I wasn’t laughing.

By the end of the book, I was beginning to wonder whether Giridharadas is some kind of crypto right-winger. His attacks are mostly aimed at people who want to believe that doing what feels morally good is the same as doing something effectual, but rarely targets people who feel no duty to create a better world at all. He spends a whole chapter bemoaning Bill Clinton's shift from political left-to-center, while only giving passing acknowledgment to the right's full-throated opposition to the public good. It’s not a joke to say that he spends a chapter critiquing "the Protocols" of management consulting and George Soros, as if I’m not supposed to hear an anti-semitic dog whistle. He has deferential things to say about the xenophobic rhetoric of the likes of Donald Trump and Theresa May, but “globalist” international political integration is wholly flawed.

Having summed up the book, I’m frustrated with myself. I should’ve quit reading when I first rolled my eyes, but I didn’t. Don’t make my mistake. ...more

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Jan 18, 2019 Sonya Dutta Choudhury rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2019

To take on the philanthropists of the world, accusing them of being part of a charade, takes some nerve. Giridhardas, a former New York Times Columnist and author, appears to have this in plenty.

The fireworks start from the title, through to the opening quote from Leo Tolstoy.

“I sit on a man’s back choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am sorry for him and wish to lighten his load by all means possible…except by getting off his back”.

Giridhardas takes To take on the philanthropists of the world, accusing them of being part of a charade, takes some nerve. Giridhardas, a former New York Times Columnist and author, appears to have this in plenty.

The fireworks start from the title, through to the opening quote from Leo Tolstoy.

“I sit on a man’s back choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am sorry for him and wish to lighten his load by all means possible…except by getting off his back”.

Giridhardas takes names. He has been a fellow at the Aspen Ideas Institute , a guest at the fancy cruise ship Summit at Sea , a participant at the Clinton conferences. Listening to billionaires jet in to make presentations on world poverty , attending health and wellness retreats sponsored by Monsanto and Pepsi, Giridhardas becomes uncomfortable. He spends two year exploring this question of philanthrophy, meeting the men behind the foundations, the billionaires, the bankers and the poverty consultants. And ends up with a damning indictment of today’s billionaire do gooders .“The only thing better than controlling power and money is to control the efforts to question the distribution of power and money.The only thing better than being a fox is being a fox asked to watch over hens.” he posits.

We are introduced to Stacey Asher , founder of Portfolios with purpose. Like many of today’s do -gooders , she was more interested in starting something new than in examining how she and those around her , might change their existing ways, says Giridhardas. Asher , who worked in finance could have worked to curtail the operations of ‘vulture funds’ notorious for causing financial instability and bankruptcy in the African countries they operated in . But such an undertaking would be conflictual, it would name names of offending financial institutions ; it would pick fights with people who might one day be useful , so Asher doesn’t do that. Instead she develops a trading game , connecting traders with charities. Giridhardas observes ironically that many of the players of Portfolios with Purpose are the very same people who flash trade commodities in ways that made prices unstable in the communities they were said to be helping.

We meet young Hillary Cohen, consultant at Mckinsey and Company, Sean Hinton, chief executive at George Soros Economic Advancement Foundation, Darren Walker, President of the Ford Foundation and even Amy Cuddy of Harvard University. Each interaction is fascinating and full of insights, interpretations and opinions.

Giridhardas is castigating throughout . You will likely hate him, and certainly if you are any part of the philanthropy system. I saw a dramatic rendition of this criticism in a You Tube clip of a discussion on TV Ontario. Here Mathew Bishop of the Rockerfeller Foundation lambasts 'Winners Take All' as ‘superficial’ and ‘wildly misrepresenting’ philanthropy. A heated war of words then ensues between Bishop and Giridhardas, with the author getting up and leaving half way through the show.

But he holds his own in this book. if you have ever felt the incongruity of a glitzy group of people making presentations on global poverty as they network in five star luxury, and never had the vocabulary to take on their self congratulatory air of saving the world, you might, like me, find yourself underlining paragraphs in this modern day version of The Emperor has no Clothes. ...more

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Sep 24, 2018 Dan Connors rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2018-books

This book was definitely an eye-opener for me. As one who deals with charities and non-profits some, it saddened me to see how much that world is being abused by those with the most money to spare.
The richest 1% have managed to grow in power and influence over the past decades so that they can dominate the worldwide conversation of how to make things better. Their answer- win/win charitable projects that make people feel better without challenging the structural flaws in the economy.
Mr. This book was definitely an eye-opener for me. As one who deals with charities and non-profits some, it saddened me to see how much that world is being abused by those with the most money to spare.
The richest 1% have managed to grow in power and influence over the past decades so that they can dominate the worldwide conversation of how to make things better. Their answer- win/win charitable projects that make people feel better without challenging the structural flaws in the economy.
Mr. Giridharadas, who is honest about his own membership in and profit from the global thinking elite, puts his mentors to task for the dishonest way in which they fight for the type of change that they want, without consulting the people at the bottom whose lives are being affected.
The book covers the Clinton Global Initiative, which I've always wondered about. Bill and Hillary Clinton, while occasionally on the side of structural political change, seem to have joined the club of billionaires who want to make policy through the works of mysterious, unaccountable entities rather than through laws, taxes, and policy. "The era of big government is over," Clinton famously said, and this book shows some of the consequences of that.
It will probably take an economic upheaval to dislodge these elites, who dominate both parties right now, and clean out the money from politics once and for all. Until then, hold politicians to a higher standard and vote them out if they fail.

“Are we ready to hand over our future to the elite, one supposedly world-changing initiative at a time? Are we ready to call participatory democracy a failure, and to declare these other, private forms of change-making the new way forward? Is the decrepit state of American self-government an excuse to work around it and let it further atrophy? Or is meaningful democracy, in which we all potentially have a voice, worth fighting for?”

This book is an important, enlightening read, and it pushed me to think harder about how a true democracy is supposed to work. ...more

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Feb 13, 2019 Hamsini rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Incisive, hard-hitting critique on philanthrocapitalism full of sarcasm, humour and a ton of food for thought. The author very clearly lays out his privileges, insider-outsider status and unpacks the whole 'i want to save the world' charade that elite across the world are engaged in. If you are someone working in impact investing, non-profits, social enterprises, CSR, this is a compulsory read, that will challenge your assumptions and question your beliefs but also enable you to look at yourself ...more

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Sep 06, 2018 Steve Turtell rated it really liked it

It's hard to argue with any of the blatantly obvious points Giridharadas makes, but in chapter after chapter his targets prove themselves immune to the criticism. The whole book is a collective portrait of a class well-described by Tolstoy in one of the book's epigraphs:

“I sit on a man’s back choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am sorry for him and wish to lighten his load by all means possible… Except by getting off his back."
– Leo Tolstoy, Writings on ...more

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Sep 10, 2018 Paula Lyle rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2018

"Inspire the rich to do more good, but never, ever tell them to do less harm; inspire them to give back, but never, ever tell them to take less; inspire them to join the solution, but never, ever accuse them of being part of the problem."

I say, sometimes, "How do those people sleep at night?" Now I know. They do so much to help already, how can they possibly be asked to pay taxes, too.

This is an important book and should be read by every citizen. Then, each of those citizens should take ...more

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Nov 04, 2019 Eric Lin rated it liked it

An interesting counterweight to the seemingly endless stream of optimism and inspiration coming out of the vast majority of leaders in tech these days.

Creating a startup to solve the problem should not be the default answer to every problem, argues the author. The populism that has sprung up in the past few years, ushering leaders like Trump and Boris Johnson to power is rooted in a very wide gulf between these 'market worlders', and the people they claim to be helping.

For example, the economy ...more

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About Anand Giridharadas

Anand Giridharadas

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Anand Giridharadas writes the Admit One column for the New York Times's arts pages and the Currents column for its global edition. He is the author of India Calling: An Intimate Portrait of A Nation's Remaking. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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“There is no denying that today’s elite may be among the more socially concerned elites in history. But it is also, by the cold logic of numbers, among the more predatory in history.” — 13 likes

“By refusing to risk its way of life, by rejecting the idea that the powerful might have to sacrifice for the common good, it clings to a set of social arrangements that allow it to monopolize progress and then give symbolic scraps to the forsaken—many of whom wouldn’t need the scraps if the society were working right.” — 13 likes

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