Anand Giridharadas, MSNBC analyst and Aspen Institute fellow, discusses his new book, “Winners Take All,” which explores the philanthropic practices of the global elite and argues that they reinforce social inequities rather than ameliorate them.
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Anand Giridharadas: Are Elites Really Making the World a Better Place?
In “Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World,” Anand Giridharadas compels us to take a deeper look at elite leaders, their institutions, and their initiatives to make the world a better place. “In the very era in which elites have done so much to help, they have continued to hoard the overwhelming share of progress, the average American’s life has scarcely improved, and virtually all of the nation’s institutions, with the exception of the military, have lost the public’s trust.”
Today’s elites are some of the more socially concerned individuals in history. Yet, according to Giridharadas, while their philanthropic missions may attempt to reform the root causes of unjust systems, many elite initiatives serve only to maintain the very power structures they claim they want to fix. So, who really benefits? To what extent are the elite working to create real progress and systemic change for people and communities?
Anand Giridharadas was a foreign correspondent and columnist for the The New York Times and currently teaches journalism at New York University. He joins us for an in-depth discussion on elite leaders, how their philanthropic efforts preserve the unjust status quo, and how communities might work together to create a more participatory democracy.
We have 74 billionaires in San Francisco and 74,000 homeless.
Philanthropy:
- changes the public conversations
- how many newspapers have a philanthropy correspondent?
Ask not what you can do for you country, first ask what you’ve done to your country and stop doing what you’ve done. Let’s stop the bleeding. (43:20)
Bezos made his money because workers didn’t have bargaining power in the time in which the internet rose.
Jeff Bezos should give money away in a way that can make sure there isn’t another Jeff Bezos.
Google’s maturity will have them accept that they are power, not fighting the power.
There is nothing more dangerous than a Goliath who thinks he’s a David. (Google didn’t want to release it).
Lebron James is making small change to a school (a band-aid), and using it as a cudgel against the cancer.
inviting documentary film makers to compare it with a “regular school”
The New Feudalism (Anand Giridharadas)
Elizabeth Warren isn’t out to get capitalism. She’s out to save it.
The heart of the Accountable Capitalism Act is a requirement that companies with more than $1 billion in revenue obtain a corporate charter at the federal level, rather than basing themselves in the most loosely regulated state they can find. (Sorry, Delaware.)
This new charter is meant to address an epidemic of bad corporate behavior, especially the tendency of top executives to value profits over wider well-being. It would obligate executives to consider the interests of all corporate stakeholders — including employees, customers and communities — not just shareholders. It would require that at least 40 percent of company board members be elected by employees, an idea known as co-determination. The bill also contains provisions curbing stock buybacks, which tend to benefit only shareholders, and unilateral political expenditures.
.. it’s a distinct break from the neoliberal capitalism of the recent Democratic Party.
In the 1980s, Milton Friedman enshrined the idea of shareholder value maximization, which told businesses that their sole purpose was to maximize profit for their owners. Rather than pushing back against this obviously selfish, wealth-favoring theory, Democrats got on board. Sure, this framing might need a tweak here, a bit of regulation there, or the carrot of a tax break or two. But super-efficient big businesses would keep the broader economy chugging along for everyone — self-interest would mean we’d all win.
.. some 80 percent of stock market value is owned by 10 percent of the population, little of that benefit trickles down to the rest.
.. All that said, the Accountable Capitalism Act still relies on a fundamental belief that capitalism is good, even as a new generation of Democrats wants to upend that system altogether. On the left, winner-take-all competition — which Warren professes to “love,” by the way — is more and more seen as the root of our country’s ills, not something to preserve. A new wave of socialist candidates are loudly making that case.
.. But Warren isn’t out to get capitalism. She’s out to save it. The senator clearly believes that markets can create wealth.