Winners Take All
by Anand Giridharadas
Vintage Books, NY
2018
This is an excellent book, written well, researched well, and with a much needed message, namely, elite corporate philanthropy is basically only interested, whether consciously or unconsciously, in putting Band-Aids over the wounds that they have caused. They like to gather and give money away, but never think of changing the structures of society by which they continue to benefit and by which inequality and misery are increased.
An example of this is Robert F. Smith, the richest African-American in the United States. During his speech as commencement speaker at an historically black college, Morehouse College in Atlanta, he announced to the delight of the graduating class that he was going to pay off all the student debt of the graduates. Smith, however, continues to profit from structures that keep him rich while others remain poor. He has made a fortune with the help of the carried-interest regulation that keeps his taxes low. What if he paid his fair share of taxes--Wouldn't there be more money in government coffers so programs could be funded that prevented students from taking on so much debt?
In Baltimore, not far from my home, there is a mansion operated by a ladies club. I'm sure they gather together and do "do-goody" projects; I'm also sure that they have no objections to the devious ways some of their husbands made their money. You can also be sure that membership to their group is quite restrictive. (The club is a relic from the past when women didn't work. It will soon be obsolete, but the spirit of privilege and exploitation will live on).
Let's face it: These major philanthropists from corporations such as Pepsico, Exxon Mobil, Walmart and IBM are interested in themselves more than anything else. They gloss over the harm they are doing to society by their greed. How to help the poor? Start a business!
They are market-oriented and globalists, seemingly unaware of or ignoring the fact that globalization has made them unbelievably rich while a worsening inequality remains the lot of most of humanity. They obviously like to keep it that way.
Giridharadas makes a useful distinction between critic and thought leaders. Critics challenge the system and are thus very unpopular with the elites. Thought leaders give the elites assurance and the self-satisfaction they crave; they provide the comforting knowledge that they are doing some good, while not challenging the system that allows them to become very rich and which maintains inequality. They do this by following, without knowing it, these three principles:
1. They reduce structural problems to the personal. For instance, they might provide grants to some women to start a small business, and ignore what keeps them poor in the first place.
2. They provide a "zooming in" focus on individuals without "zooming out," that is, seeing the whole picture.
3. They provide interventions that are demonstrable, that is, apply Band-Aids to various societal wounds.
If the elites can profit by their interventions, all the better. For instance, one proposed empowering women by setting some up with beauty salons. The person who proposed this just happened to be the CEO of a cosmetics company.
It is also highly undemocratic that elites get to decide what the poor need, without any representation from the poor themselves--the ladies club model.
.
Giridharadas advocates that democracy, as messy as it is, should decide where funds are allocated. This might be a bit too optimistic, given the rise of populism around the world--an angry reaction to globalization. The poor know that the system is rigged against them. They are angry. What do they do with their anger? Elect Donald Trump. That politics is especially messy these days is obvious.
Giridharadas quotes an actual critic at the end of the book, Chiari Cordelli: "You can't speak in their name. I can speak in the name of my child, but other people are not your children."
The only thing we can do, I suppose, is to remain politically active and vote. We must work toward the goal of the eventual "Finlandiziton" of America, that is, where wages are fair, schools are good, health care is universal, opportunities to live the "American dream" exist for all, etc.--a difficult endeavor, but perhaps not a Sisyphus task. If we work together, many improvements in our society can be made, no doubt about that. "It seems to me that you (the elites) might owe a responsibility or duty to return to others what they have been unfairly deprived of by your common institutions." Thus Cordelli sums up the theme of the book.
Read it!
by Anand Giridharadas
Vintage Books, NY
2018
This is an excellent book, written well, researched well, and with a much needed message, namely, elite corporate philanthropy is basically only interested, whether consciously or unconsciously, in putting Band-Aids over the wounds that they have caused. They like to gather and give money away, but never think of changing the structures of society by which they continue to benefit and by which inequality and misery are increased.
An example of this is Robert F. Smith, the richest African-American in the United States. During his speech as commencement speaker at an historically black college, Morehouse College in Atlanta, he announced to the delight of the graduating class that he was going to pay off all the student debt of the graduates. Smith, however, continues to profit from structures that keep him rich while others remain poor. He has made a fortune with the help of the carried-interest regulation that keeps his taxes low. What if he paid his fair share of taxes--Wouldn't there be more money in government coffers so programs could be funded that prevented students from taking on so much debt?
In Baltimore, not far from my home, there is a mansion operated by a ladies club. I'm sure they gather together and do "do-goody" projects; I'm also sure that they have no objections to the devious ways some of their husbands made their money. You can also be sure that membership to their group is quite restrictive. (The club is a relic from the past when women didn't work. It will soon be obsolete, but the spirit of privilege and exploitation will live on).
Let's face it: These major philanthropists from corporations such as Pepsico, Exxon Mobil, Walmart and IBM are interested in themselves more than anything else. They gloss over the harm they are doing to society by their greed. How to help the poor? Start a business!
They are market-oriented and globalists, seemingly unaware of or ignoring the fact that globalization has made them unbelievably rich while a worsening inequality remains the lot of most of humanity. They obviously like to keep it that way.
Giridharadas makes a useful distinction between critic and thought leaders. Critics challenge the system and are thus very unpopular with the elites. Thought leaders give the elites assurance and the self-satisfaction they crave; they provide the comforting knowledge that they are doing some good, while not challenging the system that allows them to become very rich and which maintains inequality. They do this by following, without knowing it, these three principles:
1. They reduce structural problems to the personal. For instance, they might provide grants to some women to start a small business, and ignore what keeps them poor in the first place.
2. They provide a "zooming in" focus on individuals without "zooming out," that is, seeing the whole picture.
3. They provide interventions that are demonstrable, that is, apply Band-Aids to various societal wounds.
If the elites can profit by their interventions, all the better. For instance, one proposed empowering women by setting some up with beauty salons. The person who proposed this just happened to be the CEO of a cosmetics company.
It is also highly undemocratic that elites get to decide what the poor need, without any representation from the poor themselves--the ladies club model.
.
Giridharadas advocates that democracy, as messy as it is, should decide where funds are allocated. This might be a bit too optimistic, given the rise of populism around the world--an angry reaction to globalization. The poor know that the system is rigged against them. They are angry. What do they do with their anger? Elect Donald Trump. That politics is especially messy these days is obvious.
Giridharadas quotes an actual critic at the end of the book, Chiari Cordelli: "You can't speak in their name. I can speak in the name of my child, but other people are not your children."
The only thing we can do, I suppose, is to remain politically active and vote. We must work toward the goal of the eventual "Finlandiziton" of America, that is, where wages are fair, schools are good, health care is universal, opportunities to live the "American dream" exist for all, etc.--a difficult endeavor, but perhaps not a Sisyphus task. If we work together, many improvements in our society can be made, no doubt about that. "It seems to me that you (the elites) might owe a responsibility or duty to return to others what they have been unfairly deprived of by your common institutions." Thus Cordelli sums up the theme of the book.
Read it!
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