Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridharadas (PDF)

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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 PostAnand 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.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐According to Anand Giridharadas, the winners want it both ways. They want to solve social problems which may have been created largely by their business models and/or their social status. The problem: they are willing to embrace change which won’t affect their business models and/or their social standings. And the reason is simple: those in charge will never make decisions which might compromise and possibly jeopardize their status and/or incomes at the top. It’s human nature to protect your own interests first. Only those without a real stake in the game are probably more willing to propose change which might affect the status quo elite.One aspect which Giridharadas sites repeatedly is the area of education. While many people have decried the problems of high school education in the US, there is a fundamental flaw which gets very little attention. Giridharadas points out that schools are funded by local property taxes. This means that those children who live in more affluent communities will by design attend better schools than in areas where the properties are not worth as much. Why? Because the revenue generated from lesser-valued properties will be lower. So Beverly Hills High School looks like a private college prep school like Exeter in New England but just a few miles away, inner city Los Angeles schools are underfunded and overcrowded.However, the elites probably would be resistant to that kind of change, because it could mean that the inner city students would have a better chance to compete with their elite counterparts across the way. And also the schools of their kids may not be as well-funded as they were in the past in order to better fund other schools. Much easier just to keep the inner-city kids in their place and guarantee the rich kids do better with a lot of assistance. (A friend of mine attended school with Charlie Sheen in Malibu, and she pointed out he was one of the laziest students in junior high and high school, often not doing his homework. But he received a huge advantage by being in Malibu than being in inner-city Los Angeles. And being from a prestigious acting family obviously helped him get film and television roles.)So the elites sometimes fund charter schools. They believe they’re helping the community by doing so while at the same time guaranteeing their elite communities remain unaffected. Giridharadas furthers that funding a few charter schools here and there while on the surface seems like a good thing, and certainly is a welcome opportunity for the few kids who receive the benefits, it doesn’t address and push to solve the real problem: lower income areas of the country have inferior schools while higher-income areas have much better schools, thereby maintaining the divide between the have’s and have not’s.Another example Giridharadas concerns Google and Facebook. Google and Facebook through their powerful social media tools have compromised what used to be traditional news. Google and Facebook have pledged to give money to news organizations which is generally a good thing. BUT, they are not probably going to give up their news feeds. If the real way to foster the press and revitalize traditional news reporting is for Google and Facebook to give up some of their news feeds, such a change could diminish revenue for both organizations. If Google and Facebook are in charge of revitalizing the press, they are probably only going to do so in a manner which doesn’t compromise their profits and standing. And that’s not saying anything negative about Google or Facebook. It’s just a reality of human nature. People and organizations when put in charge of whatever it is will never make decisions which might jeopardize their own standing. However, if people who understand well the plight of the press and are also outside of Google and Facebook are put in charge of such changes, they are more likely to be less sympathetic to these companies’ profits. They might force change which Google and Facebook might find uncomfortable.Giridharadas also tackles certain myths about change. In the 1980’s, entrepreneurial gurus, such as Stephen Covey, advocated a “win-win” philosophy in his book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”. Covey I think was mainly referring to business negotiations in which if each side was dedicated to helping the other side achieve its goals, both parties would feel good about the final deal. Win-win was definitely a break-through idea, but it does not necessarily translate as well into other areas.In Giridharadas’ view, the win-win notion has been taken too far. While a win-win attitude may be wonderful in a business or similar type of negotiation (even in a marriage), this attitude/theory may be weak in the arena of enacting lasting social change. Social change means Change! It means whatever benefits one group was enjoying from the current status quo may be diminished. And real change is very difficult and often takes a lot of time and effort. Think of slavery in the mid-19th century and the Civil Rights Movement in the mid-20th century. These changes were enacted while those who desired the status quo were kicking and screaming.If the African-American leadership during the Civil Rights Ear, such as figures like W.E.B. Du Bois and Dr. Martin Luther King, had compromised for a “win-win” solution to social change and civil rights for minorities, they probably would not have been successful. Whites politically dominated the South, and allowing African-Americans to have more of a voice concerning political issues, such as education and housing, would mean one side would lose out on some benefits in favor of the greater good. In the earlier controversy of slavery, Frederick Douglass knew that the abolition of slavery would definitely compromise and possibly jeopardize the standing of wealthy White plantation owners. The Civil War was not a win-win proposition. It was a war to abolish an unjust and inhuman institution. Most likely a win-win solution would have meant the retention of slavery as an institution in the South in some form or other.So Giridharadas book is a long way of saying that social change probably has to come from organic movements, elected leaders, and legislation. If the elites are put in charge, they are probably going to (and already have) enacted change which is quite watered down. The elites of Wall Street nearly destroyed the entire financial well-being of the world with their bad investments and flawed business models.If Giridharadas main thesis can be summed up, it’s the ludicrous notion that an arsonist is the best person to fight fires . And yet, the elites have acted like they are the best and most-equipped to deal with social change. In his book Giridharadas sites many examples of young idealistic college grads who desire to enact real change and are courted by large corporations who promise them tools to make the world a better place. However, when they arrive, they find it’s business as usual: cutting costs, making new products, ultimately enriching themselves with huge profits. Where’s the great philanthropy? Oh, make a charter school here, a funding program there, a fund for homeless people over there. Those are nice projects, but they’re not social change on a large scale.While I don’t believe Giridharadas is completely against the elites giving money to causes, I think his point is they shouldn’t be the instrument of change itself. The elites have hoarded much of the profits and gains of an ever-growing American economy which benefits mostly the top 1% and the college-educated. While the elites have increased their wealth by many times, the lower 50% of American workers have seen little wage increases. If real social change meant that the elites wouldn’t have quite so much, you can bet your bottom dollar they will fight against it. Elites don’t give up power easily. But if the divide keeps growing, we can expect more nationalistic leaders who play into people’s fears. What is scary is this is what leads to fascism, and I don’t think that’s what most people in American desire. Giridharadas’ book has my vote for possibly the most important book of 2018 with Bob Woodward’s book “Fear” about Trump a close second.Another example Giridharadas concerns Google and Facebook. Google and Facebook through their powerful social media tools have compromised what used to be traditional news. Google and Facebook have pledged to give money to news organizations which is generally a good thing. BUT, they are not probably going to give up their news feeds. If the real way to foster the press and revitalize traditional news reporting is for Google and Facebook to give up some of their news feeds, such a change could would diminishment of revenue for both organizations. If Google and Facebook are in charge of revitalizing the press, they are probably only going to do so in a manner which doesn’t compromise their profits. And that’s not saying anything negative about Google or Facebook. It’s just a reality of human nature. People and organizations when put in charge of whatever it is will never make decisions which might jeopardize their standing. However, if people who understand well the plight of the press and are also outside of Google and Facebook are put in charge of such changes, they are more likely to be less sympathetic to these companies’ profits. They might force change which Google and Facebook might find uncomfortable.Giridharadas also tackles certain myths about change. In the 1980’s, entrepreneurial gurus, such as Stephen Covey, advocated a “win-win” philosophy in his book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”. Covey I think was mainly referring to business negotiations in which if each side was dedicated to helping the other side achieve its goals, both parties would feel good about the final deal. Win-win was definitely a break-through idea, but it does translate as well into other areas necessarily.In Giridharadas’ view, the win-win notion has been taken too far. While a win-win attitude may be wonderful in a business negotiation, this attitude/theory may not be weak in the arena of enacting lasting social change. If the African-American leadership during the Civil Rights Ear, such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Dr. Martin Luther King, had compromised for a “win-win” solution to social change and civil rights for minorities, they probably would not have been successful. Whites politically dominated the South, and allowing African-Americans to have more of a voice concerning political issues, such as education, would mean one side would lose out on some benefits in favor of the greater good. In the earlier controversy of slavery, Frederick Douglass knew that the abolition of slavery would definitely compromise and possibly jeopardize the standing of wealthy plantation owners. The Civil War was not a win-win proposition. Most likely a win-win solution would have meant the retention of slavery as an institution in the South.So this is a long way of saying that social change probably has to come from organic movements, elected leaders, and passed legislation. If the elites are put in charge, they are probably going to (and already have) enacted change which is quite watered down. The elites of Wall Street nearly destroyed the entire financial well-being of the world with their bad investments and flawed business models.If Giridharadas may thesis can be summed up, it’s the idea that an arsonist is the best person to fight fires is a ludicrous notion. And yet, the elites have acted like they are the best and most-equipped to deal with social change. In his book Giridharadas sites many examples of young idealistic college grads who desire to enact real change and are courted by large corporations who promise them tools to make the world a better place. However, when they arrive, they find it’s business as usual: cutting costs, making new products, ultimately enriching themselves with huge profits.While I don’t believe Giridharadas is completely against the elites giving money to causes, I think his point is they shouldn’t be the instrument of change itself. The elites have hoarded much of the profits and gains of an ever-growing American economy which benefits mostly the top 1%. While the elites have increased their wealth by many times, the lower 50% of American workers have seen little wage increases. If real social change meant that the elites wouldn’t have quite so much, you can bet your bottom dollar they will fight against it. Elites don’t give up power easily. But if the divide keeps growing, we can expect more nationalistic leaders who play into people’s fears. What is scary is this is what leads to fascism, and I don’t think that’s what most people in American desire.

⭐The premise of this book is that we are attempting to solve our many and obvious social ills through business globalists using the language and tools of their wealth-first trade: “doing well by doing good.” In theory it’s the elusive win-win. The truth, however, is that the rich use philanthropy, often with genuine sincerity, to solve problems that they themselves often contributed to.The reason is that in the mythical world of win-win, in which there is no pain to anyone, the solutions are superficial, not structural. When it comes to society, however, to things like income inequality, racism, and gender and identity bias, the causes are structural, not superficial. Topical solutions to such blemishes may create the appearance of progress, but will not make them go away.As a retired CEO and GM who has served on four corporate boards, I could not agree more with Giridharadas’ conclusions. Corporations and capitalists (and the two have merged to become one and the same) talk about social responsibility and helping the less fortunate but it is truly a charade because they believe that the only way to do that is through unbridled profit-taking, unregulated markets and workplaces, and wealth accumulation.Beginning with the emergence of trickle-down economics in the 1980s, our political and social discourse has revolved around the relative benefits and penalties of the free market versus government regulation. That is, however, a false choice. No sane person would argue that we should let corporations dump whatever they want into our lakes and rivers. And there are clearly regulations, such as the government certification of barbers and manicurists, which impede economic opportunity for the poor with little offsetting value to society. (The for-profit beauty schools support it, of course.)While words have always had meaning we’ve allowed them to morph into absolutes. If you support the universal right to healthcare you are a progressive. If you want to give the poor better access to education you are a socialist. If you believe that the key to improving public education is changing the way we fund our public schools, not the destruction of teachers unions, you are a communist.Technology hasn’t helped. Technology has stripped our vocabulary and our discourse of both context and nuance. It is no surprise that our politics, which turns on words, is so polarized. (You can tell the author is on to something when you look at how polarized the reviews of this book are.)The real problem, however, is not any political or economic –ism. The real problem is that we have killed the institutions at the heart of a healthy democracy. We have abandoned the ideals of fairness and truth, the rule of law, even democracy itself. A truly healthy democracy is a collective one. We have sacrificed the collective good at the altar of individualism, both in opportunity and outcome. The biggest complaint about helping to address the student debt crisis, as an example, is “I didn’t get it, so why should they.” That’s individualism in its most extreme and divisive form.A successful democracy is a collective one. It’s built on the recognition that we’re all in this together and that by putting constraints on individual greed and rejecting the myth of the personal and collective win-win, we’re all better off.Collective democracy, despite what the MarketWorld globalists, as Giridharadas refers to them, preach, does not mean the death of self-reliance and personal responsibility. It simply filters it through a perspective that without society there is only anarchy and chaos. There can be no progress. There can be no individual achievement or success.The keys to collective democracy are the institutions by which it is governed. Government can and does get in the way sometimes, just as we sometimes trip over our own feet. That doesn’t mean we should abandon them completely.Governments are not defined by political philosophies so much as they are defined by the institutions on which they are built. There can be, we are now witnessing, authoritarian democracies in the same way there can be authoritarian socialist states. The difference is not the political philosophy but the extent to which we collectively acknowledge the importance of the institutions of fairness, restraint, and the rule of law. And these are the pillars of collectivism, not MarketWorld – “fix yourself” – individualism.Attacking the teachers unions won’t solve our educational crisis. Changing the way we finance public schools can. Sensitivity training won’t stop racism any more than simply telling our daughters to lean in will give them an equal chance in the workplace. These are all structural problems that can only be solved with structural (i.e. collective) solutions. And those, as much as we don’t want to admit it, will require strengthening the institutions of government and the policies they pursue.And, yes, there will be some pain to some people. When it comes to solving the world’s problems the win-win is an illusion. That doesn’t mean that win-lose is the only answer, however. It simply means that some will win a little bit less than they might otherwise. Is that really so much of a sacrifice when the eventual alternative will surely be pitchforks at the gate?We need, in short, to give democracy back to the people. The populists are not angry because they lost their factory jobs so much as they feel irrelevant to the larger decisions that define their lives. It won’t be hunger that brings revolution. It will be the sense among the vast majority of Americans that they have no control over their lives – that the collective institutions that historically gave them a voice have been taken away.There have always been rich people. And there always will be. Even the populists get that. By maintaining strong democratic institutions devoted to truth, fairness, and the equality of all people, however, regardless of color or personal identity, everyone, rich and poor, can again feel like they are part of something, that they are connected to society at large.Whatever other reviewers have said, this book is not simplistic or poorly written. It is the voice of collectivism, clearly spoken, well researched, and well written. I could not recommend it more highly.

⭐Must start this book review with a MASSIVE disclaimer.I epitomize the class of people the author of this book has placed at its crosshairs: my kids hold three G7 passports apiece, with an additional OECD passport waiting for them if they ask. I’m comfortable in five modern languages. My business is in automation. It is registered in Delaware, headquartered in Boston and, for now, I run it out of London. Our clients are hedge funds, banks and pension funds. I once started the world’s first live-online restaurant reservation service and was fully prepared to take money from the wonderful people at Carlyle to do so. Oh, and to cap it all (and fit the author’s stereotype to a T) not too long ago we were diverting fully one third of my family’s income to a French-based international charity that sends doctors to dangerous places…If that would give him any comfort, I’m happy to supply Anand Giridharadadas with a long-nosed, balding, middle-aged voodoo doll to poke. Get in there, brother!With that out of the way, let’s get down to the serious business of actually reviewing “Winners Take All:”Surprise! For all the wrong reasons, I liked it a lot.It’s beautifully written. The man can write. He gets his message across very crisply, but without shouting. Not only that, the book is very accessible: you don’t need to have studied any Economics to read “Winners Take All.” Neither do you need to be familiar with the public discourse on the issues he addresses. With the exception of a single, annoying, neologism I’ll get to later, it uses no jargon. You won’t find any mumbo jumbo in here about concepts like “the Washington Consensus” or “the End of History” or “Neoconservatism” or anything else like that. If he can avoid namedropping, moreover, you can trust the author to do so. Names are in here only if mentioning them helps the argument. Tremendous stuff! If I could write half as well as Anand Giridharadadas, I’d be a happy man.Significantly, the criticism leveled at the hypocrisy of (the upper echelons of) my class is 100% justified. These days, when I hear “philanthropist,” I run the mile. This book has explained to me where my visceral distaste comes from and traces it back to the seminal writing behind the hypocrisy, the “manifesto” Andrew Carnegie wrote for his deeds before that was really a word you could use in polite conversation, along the lines of “I make my money how money’s made and I get to give back how I know is best.” There are also entire chapters that demolish the idea of the “win-win” (also known as “doing well while doing good”), poke fun at the idea of a “thought leader” (a guy who dances around the topic of redistribution when addressing ways to improve society) and summarize well how bad we’ve been swindled by the Sacklers and their ilk.And yet, the book fails! Here’s how:The alleged straw man in this book is “MarketWorld,” the concept that we can deal with all problems on the planet using the framework of the market. Throughout the book it’s MarketWorld this, MarketWorld that, until you, the reader, are ready to hit somebody. Advice to my new friend Anand: ask Matt Taibbi to grant you an audience and get his advice on a better name for your concept.But here’s the funny thing about “Winners Take All:“ Around p. 143 it finally dawned on me that the author’s muse is not his distaste for Marketworld. What actually informs this book is anticolonialism. He’s (justifiably) sick of western experts and do-gooders flying into far-away places like India or Rwanda and proposing ready-made solutions to local problems without having done an iota of homework on how the locals deal with these issues even more than he’s annoyed that the helicoptered-in experts all hail from Marketworld. This much he actually tells us in a well-penned chapter.He goes on to identify this as the biggest issue with private interventions of the pluto-philanthropists WITHIN the border: not only is it presumptuous of us to think we’ve got the answers, he says, not only does our hypocrisy irk the recipients of our munificence so much that they voted for Trump, but by failing to engage with the authorities, the local governments and the local beneficiaries of any philanthropic efforts, we are no different than a privileged kid on his gap year that’s flying into Bangladesh to teach housewives how to program in Python.Well!In this case, it’s Anand Giridharadas who’s guilty of not having done his local reconnaissance! It’s fine to argue that we, the one percenters are flouting “our political institutions -our laws, our police, our constitutions, our regulations, our taxes, our shared infrastructure,” but it is also to 100% ignore that the approach of adding our own, private, improvements one at a time is PRECISELY, 101%, HOW THE GOVERNMENT ITSELF WORKS IN AMERICA.I’m quoting from Edward Luce’s “Time to Start Thinking” here, so numbers may have in the meantime changed (upwards, I’m willing to bet, Trump notwithstanding), but all government interventions in America are incremental. As Obama was starting his second term, the US government had 51 entirely duplicative schemes for worker assistance, 82 different programs to improve teaching and 56 different programs to promote financial literacy. Obama himself had 37 “policy czars.” Both sides doing it, btw: George W Bush had 64 “chiefs of staff.” There were at least 12 protocols for de-activating IEDs in Afghanistan. (See, I can also say “protocol” and I’m using it literally, how about that?)The American way is not to scrap existing programs. It’s to tack on new ones. Remember how Obama was crucified for saying “if you’ve got a plan you can keep your plan?” It’s because, for once, he did the right thing. Good deeds like that don’t go unpunished.So the main message in “Winners Take All” is right in theory, but wrong in practice. The failure is a failure to study one’s domain. When in Rome, do as Romans do. The kids that could be earning millions working for Goldman Sachs but only earn thousands working on some more charitable project of very narrow scope are doing the best they can, actually. The billionaire’s kid that takes a year off to teach high school somewhere that has metal detectors is doing the right thing.That is not to say that the pendulum has not swung too far away from the commons and too close to the interests of capital. It has.That is not to deny that some things we have privatized lie in the domain where the government is the more natural protagonist.Most to the point, that is not to say that the Sacklers are true philanthropists or that Clinton does the right thing by charging corporates 250k to tell them what they want to hear (even if he declares taxes on it, unlike his new billionaire friends).But, contrary to the central message of this book, it’s healthy to fight the good fight wherever it is that the border lies today. Let’s concentrate our efforts on gaining ground and on moving that border in the right direction.

⭐This book is an excellent, cogent, fluent and engaging anaysis of the shallow hypocrisy of the philanthropists who seek to polish their reputations for generosity whilst lining their pockets. Instead of paying fair wages to their employees, engaging in fair trade or paying their taxes, they ruthlessly extract and hoard their wealth and return a few crumbs to the poor, in ill-informed, patronising ways – and expect us all to be grateful!

⭐The title tell allThe financial system as been rigged since Romansbrought taxation on the workersAnd democracy as always been a clever facade no such thing as equality

⭐A friend asked me to review her daughter’s essay about Africa and being a Nigerian, I agreed. The 15-year-old writer produced a very well researched piece of work with a lot of detail. I immediately thought about buying her this book to provide her with an alternative perspective about aid in the African continent.

⭐I’ve spent the last decade documenting large-scale, privately-funded efforts to improve public health and sanitation in India and Kenya. Based on that experience, I find Anand Giridharadas’s Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World refreshingly candid and insightful. The book is a courageous, in-depth critique of the social reform and international development efforts of billionaire philanthropists and corporations.Giridharadas calls such efforts a charade because they don’t address the causes of inequality. He writes, “when elites assume leadership of social change, they are able to reshape what social change is—above all, to present it as something that should never threaten winners.” (p. 8) Quoting OECD leader Angel Gurria, Giridharadas writes, “Elites have found myriad ways to change things on the surface so that in practice nothing changes at all.” (p. 9)To explain and illustrate why the elites’ efforts fail to address structural causes of poverty and inequality, Giridharadas examines the methods that foundations and corporations use. He describes a meeting of the Open Society Foundations’ Economic Advancement Program’s advisers in which, “the issues . . . would be presented in the business way, in the form of slides with graphs and charts. The question of building more inclusive economies would be atomized into endless subcategories, until the human reality all but vanished. The fundamental problems would grow almost unrecognizable. Justice and inequality would be converted into problems the private equity executive was preeminently qualified to solve.”(p. 132)Giridharadas explains that the protocols by which McKinsey consultants help corporations to become more competitive are now commonly viewed by foundations and NGOs as essential for analysing and addressing social problems. He writes, “Our age of market supremacy has blessed the protocols with a remarkable change of fortune: They have evolved from being a specialized way of solving particular business problems to being, in the view of many, the essential toolkit for solving anything.” (p. 139)The problem, according to Giridharadas, with using the protocols for analysing and addressing social problems is that, “problems reformatted according to the protocols were recast in the light of the winner’s gaze. After all, the definition of the problem is done by the problem-solver and crowds out other ways of seeing it.” (p. 142) “The protocols’ spread to social questions also gave elites a chance to limit the range of possible answers.” (p. 152)Giridharadas’s cites the final Clinton Global Initiative’s one-sided panel discussions to demonstrate that private social reform efforts fail to understand and address the causes of poverty and inequality because they exclude divergent perspectives and voices: “The organizers of this final CGI, held in the throes of the antiglobalist revolt, decided that a panel on the topic was a must. And the organizers evidently concluded that the panel should consist entirely of globalists, with no one representing the other side.” (p. 214)Giridharadas devotes Chapter 4 to examining the sycophancy of thought leaders, to show how the elites reward the generation and promotion of winner-safe prescriptions for social change.Frank Giustra of the Giustra Foundation wrongly accuses Giridharadas of not offering solutions to the problems presented in Winners Take All. Giridharadas does propose solutions. To more equitably distribute the gains from the increasing productivity of the workforce, Giridharadas calls for “tighter regulations on trading, higher taxes on financiers, stronger labor protections to protect workers from layoffs and pension raiding by private equity owners, and incentives favouring job-creating investment over mere speculation.” (pp. 40-41)I strongly recommend Winners Take All to anyone working in philanthropy or CSR.

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