Giridharadas proposes that the government is well suited for this task. Solution One: Increase Taxes on the Wealthyīecause the rich will not address inequality, another group has to step up. I sit on a man’s back choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am sorry for him and wish to lighten his load by all means possible. The rich have a blindspot when it comes to inequality. To illustrate his point, Giridharadas begins his book Winners Take All with a memorable epigram by Tolstoy: Without the status quo, they wouldn’t have become rich. Today’s philanthropists donate, but they preserve the status quo that makes such donations necessary.

And that, writes, Giridharadas, is the heart of the contradiction: MarketWorlders create the problem, then ease their conscience by writing a cheque. But they never target the inequality itself that lies at the root of poverty. They target a social and economic issue such as poverty, for example. And then they donate money to the causes that they support. They harness the inequalities in the system to become the power brokers. The problem, according to Giridharadas, is that MarketWorlders become who they are by exploiting the masses. Winners Take All is written as a tell-all exposé revealing the dark side of philanthropy all the way from Andrew Carnegie in the late nineteenth century to The Clinton Global Initiative and The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation today. Other examples include how MarketWorlders who own companies that target African Americans with more addictive menthol cigarettes give grants to help African Americans eat healthier in Harlem (Loews Corporation).

In Winners Take All, Giridharadas points out the irony of how MarketWorlders donate money to rehab programs after raking in profits selling opioids (Purdue Pharma). Giridharadas defines MarketWorld as “an ascendant power elite that is defined by the concurrent drives to do well and do good, to change the world while also profiting from the status quo.” He has a beef with MarketWorld because of its inherent contradiction.

The elite charade of changing the world