Winners Take All:

The Elite Charade of Changing the World
Anand Giridharadas

The Poor Get Poorer – Journalist Anand Giridharadas uses effective, evocative reporting and well-told, real-life stories to make a compelling case that “generosity is not a substitute for justice.” While U.S. philanthropy might produce marginal change, the vast majority fails to fundamentally shift power and systemically create conditions in our capitalistic society that would make such generous philanthropy unnecessary in the first place. Economic inequality is worsening dramatically while digital progress further fragments the social bonds that hold society together and growing diversity stokes fear in half the population. Americans talk – often yell – at one another about gender and race, but little conversation occurs around class. Until we reckon with “capital supremacy” – woven together with male supremacy and white supremacy – we will not get to the root of solving poverty. In the meantime, philanthropy should look toward solutions – and “we’re drowning in solutions,” Giridharadas noted in a recent conversation about the book, so he means systemic solutions – that are public, democratic, institutional and universal.