Book Review:Winners Take All
The book Winners Take All, the Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridharadas deals with the wealthy giving away money and establishing business models to fix social problems. However, the systems in place that created said problems are how the rich derive power and wealth. It’s a peek into a world that most know nothing about, but as an artist seeking resources to further my practice, it’s a territory that I must become acquainted with. To be honest, I’ve always known that the wealthiest among us use charitable institutions to wash their hands of the stigma of greed associated with their mega fortunes and the often dubious ways fortunes are attained.
My position has always been “who am I to judge,” if they want to give money away for the sake appearances or posterity then more power to them, right? This book substantiates the claim that giving “more power to them” is precisely what institutions of charitable giving want. The mega-rich at their helm, private sector institutions have been co-opting social change at their discretion and ultimately to their long term benefit. Spoiler alert! Giridharadas is writing from a privileged position, as he admits that he has sat on boards and committees of private sector elites that aim to solve social woes. Giridharadas is an insider, and that’s why he can bring his views to light. For Giridharadas, privatizing social change in the forms of philanthropy and corporate do-gooding sways power away from people to enact the democratic process to legitimatize proportionality at the level of the state.
In the book, we revisit the “win-win-ism” of the Clinton Presidency, we meet the guilt-ridden heirs of big Pharma corps who are eager to support the arts, the hopeful Georgetown U. grads that were lured into training programs promising that big business had the protocols to solve social ills and a consciously minded financial advisor that knew to communicate systemic change to his peers would confront them with a sense of culpability.
My favorite part was about our very own neck of the woods, Silicon Valley. Technotopia CEOs and Venture Capitalists have big dreams of engineering a future of better social conditions into which they will seamlessly integrate their software, and own every part of the purported solutions. What I learned is that private sector solutions to social problems must never involve stopping the powerful from taking any amount less, only in finding ways those of us with much less can have a comparatively small amount more. I liked this book so much I may reference it in my up coming symposium that will deal with the presentation of ethical deliberations surrounding available funding for POC and Queer artists.
