When McKinsey Comes to Town: The Hidden Influence of the World's Most Powerful Consulting Firm

by Walt Bogdanich

Despite Aspen’s lofty aspirations, the “solutions” that usually emerge have a common theme: they involve little or no sacrifice from the world’s billionaires or big corporations. Instead, they focus on the private sector “doing well by doing good”—with small measures to address pressing problems that often call for collective action. It’s good PR. That’s the critique offered by Anand Giridharadas, a former McKinsey consultant and a former Aspen fellow. In a 2015 speech to his fellow fellows, he questioned the entire premise of the organization, saying it makes the rich and powerful feel virtuous about the incremental good deeds their companies do under the banner of “corporate social responsibility” while their core businesses continue to inflict harm. Giridharadas called it “the Aspen Consensus,” a belief that “the winners of our age must be challenged to do more good.” But there was a caveat, he said. “Never, ever tell them to do less harm. The Aspen Consensus holds that capitalism’s rough edges must be sanded down and its surplus fruit shared, but the underlying system must never be questioned.”