Winners Take All: The Elite's Tricks That Don't Change the World

Anand Giridharadas has been a foreign correspondent and columnist for The New York Times for over a decade. He is a speaker on the TED conference platform and a political analyst for NBC News, having taught narrative journalism at New York University.

Before you is a groundbreaking exploration of how the efforts of the global elite to "change the world" merely preserve the status quo. In fact, the powerful and wealthy cynically create the appearance of solving problems they themselves cause. Rich and powerful philanthropists fight for equality and justice in every possible way except those that threaten their position in society. They loudly advocate for the rights of the poor, generously rewarding their favored "opinion leaders," and strive for the ideals of good and justice, often causing significant harm to the society they claim to support.
Giridharadas poses difficult questions. For example, why should our most important problems be solved by an unelected elite rather than the public institutions that they undermine by lobbying for their interests and avoiding taxes? The facts laid out in the book point to an answer: instead of settling for the scraps from the lavish table of the winners, we must take on the grueling work of creating more robust democratic institutions and truly change the world.