Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World

by Anand Giridharadas

$7.95

The world’s elite often partake in philanthropic endeavors, conferences, and thinktanks to help address modernity’s great problems. However, Anand Giridharadas argues that the contributions of the elite are not altruistic efforts to change the world. Rather, the world’s elite are caught up in solving the problems they created in the first place, obscuring their role in these problems and maintaining the status quo along the way. This book focuses on this sleight of hand and the fallacies touted by the elite, deconstructing their rationale methodically. In each chapter, Giridharadas follows “insiders” who question this reality, even while they make compromises to partake in it.

  • Discover an insider’s groundbreaking investigation of how the global elite’s efforts to “change the world” actually preserve the status quo and obscure their role in causing the problems they later seek to solve.
  • Hear the limousine confessions of a celebrated foundation boss; listen to a former American president grapple with whether his plutocratic benefactors are the change agents they claim to be; and attend a cruise-ship conference where entrepreneurs celebrate their own self-interested magnanimity.
  • Observe the author asking tough questions like, “Should the world’s gravest problems be solved by unelected elites rather than the public institutions they erode by lobbying and dodging taxes?” Or, “How do those who commit injustice—like the family who helped seed the opioid crisis—use generosity to cover it up?”

About the Author

Anand Giridharadas is the author of The True American and India Calling. He was a foreign correspondent and columnist for The New York Times from 2005 to 2016, and has also written for The Atlantic, The New Republic, and The New Yorker. He is an Aspen Institute Fellow, an on-air political analyst for MSNBC, and a former McKinsey analyst. He teaches journalism at New York University and has spoken on the main stage of TED. His writing has been honored by the Society of Publishers in Asia, the Poynter Fellowship at Yale, and the New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Award. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. You can follow him on Twitter @anandwrites

What is Page to Practice™?

This one-of-a-kind professional development tool keeps you informed about great books and best practices. Each Page to Practice™ summary includes an executive snapshot, nonprofit interpretations, highlighted passages and an author interview. Informed subscribers make better book choices and, ultimately, save time and money. You can improve your personal performance, compare the views of leading nonprofit thinkers and respond to emerging trends. Learn more about how subscribers apply this time-saving tool to their professional advancement or download a free sample.