winner takes all the elite charade of changing the world

How did we get here, and why does it remain this way? Not so much a book on answers, Winners Take All is a book solely devoted to facts, insights and questions on the status quo.

In a study published in late 2018 titled, “A Guide to Statistics on Historical Trends in Income Inequality,” the report authors state, “Data from a variety of sources contribute to this broad picture of strong growth and shared prosperity for the early postwar period, followed by slower growth and growing inequality since the 1970s.” We need to look no further than the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) to corroborate the findings of Giridharadas. He writes, “We must decide whether, in the name of ascendant values such as efficiency and scale, we are willing to allow democratic purpose to be usurped by private actors who often genuinely aspire to improve things but, first things first, seek to protect themselves.”

Indeed, he suggests that they may be the biggest benefactors of the divide.Ĭiting example after example, Giridharadas’s book details how the 1% have cleverly crafted a system that continues to benefit them rather than society on the whole.

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.Giridharadas meticulously breaks down how the plutocratic class are perhaps the biggest part of the problem. 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. 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. An essential read for understanding some of the egregious abuses of power that dominate today's news. The New York Times bestselling, 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.

Winner takes all the elite charade of changing the world