The Opposition…

Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World

Anand Giridharadas

Discussion: 2019-Oct-Nov-Dec

Why we're reading this: October 1, 2019
[close] October 1, 2019

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

No topics in 2019-Oct-Nov-Dec yet. Start one now »

What Members Thought

Nov 06, 2019 Andy rated it liked it

The first page packed a punch but the rest failed to deliver.
At one point the author writes in reference to the people he is questioning that he does not "doubt their intentions or results." This is the problem with the book for me. All the way after the end in the acknowledgment section (who puts important content there!?) he tells us that he is one of these insiders he is supposedly "skewering."
What matters in these or other "change the world" schemes is what works, but we never really get to The first page packed a punch but the rest failed to deliver.
At one point the author writes in reference to the people he is questioning that he does not "doubt their intentions or results." This is the problem with the book for me. All the way after the end in the acknowledgment section (who puts important content there!?) he tells us that he is one of these insiders he is supposedly "skewering."
What matters in these or other "change the world" schemes is what works, but we never really get to that. Hence, the challenge to the assorted characters remains at a hypothetical, philosophical level.
The author seems like the Parisian mothers who stormed Versailles before the French Revolution thinking that if they just told the king that his people were starving that he would give them bread. Guess what. The king knows the people are starving. Helping tobacco heiresses, corporate hacks, bankers and politicians to get over their extreme cognitive dissonance is not the issue.
If the solution is to make system changes like reinstating Glass-Steagall, as the author suggests, then it would have been good to read more about who are the authentic "thought leaders" trying to do that and how do we help them make that happen.
More narrowly it would have been good to compare/contrast effective vs. ineffective NGOs, ideas, and policies. By not critically examining results, this becomes impossible and leaves a sort of nihilistic vibe that there is just a lot of hogwash out there. Are Brené Brown and her ilk big phonies? Sure, but they are easy targets—the court jesters, not the “elite” ruling the world. Bill Clinton on the other hand gets a pass for the success of his whole ‘third way’ politics, which becomes the rationalization for all the subsequent market-driven "world changing" even though it’s all a myth. Clinton would never have become President if Ross Perot hadn’t run as a 3rd party candidate sucking off votes on the right. So the whole neoliberal thing was not what won.
If you interview people and don’t reality-check what they say, you just spin around in nonsense. The author’s main solution for fixing the world seems to be that these secret conclaves of neoliberal jackasses should include more European philosophy professors who might disagree with them. I don’t think so. Again, using the author’s example of common sense banking regulations from the New Deal; did those come from Citibank-sponsored conferences? I don’t think so.
3* vs. 1* because it is sordidly interesting to see close up and personal how twisted some of our so-called leaders are. ...more

12 likes · Like · see review

May 26, 2022 Letitia rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2022, audiobook

Very readable, deeply convicting, hard to disagree with. Giridharadas lays out the progressive theater of philancapitalism, of thought leaders who don't lead TOO far out lest they lose both their funding and their audience, of politicians who have built a win/win narrative around big business and social change, without any evidence to suggest that the two can be married. It is a sad tale of selling out in subtle ways that preserve one's facade of commitment to change and justice, while the true ...more

3 likes · Like · see review