Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World

Chapter 6 extends Giridharadas’s critique of elite ventures to do good by exposing hidden aspects of what seems like an unquestionably beneficial thing: philanthropy. His method in this chapter, as elsewhere in his book, is to question the accepted truths about philanthropy to show that elite philanthropists engage in practices that protect their own way of being even though they claim to be serving less fortunate individuals. Giridharadas takes a historical view of philanthropy, noting how it functioned in early America before being transformed by wealthy capitalists during the 19th century. The example of Andrew Carnegie is particularly essential to Giridharadas’s argument because Carnegie theorized modern philanthropic practice in his essay “Wealth.” Carnegie’s ideas ignored the problem of inequality, accepting it as a byproduct of capitalism and insisting that philanthropy could redistribute elites’ gains while protecting their own interests. Giridharadas shows that criticism of modern philanthropy was present from the start, which helps suggest that his own argument has merit.

Turning attention to contemporary examples, Giridharadas shows that the consequences of the so-called “good” promoted by philanthropists can be harmful. For instance, Kat Cole, CEO of Focus Brands, began waiting tables at Hooters, working her way up into franchise management. Having grown up poor and worked her way to economic security, Cole believed that the potential exploitation of women at Hooters was “offset by good deeds” through the company’s philanthropic ventures (187). This, Giridharadas implies, is a sign of the ideological power of elite-led philanthropy to convince others of its good intensions while ignoring its ills.

Another notable example of this issue is the Sackler family, cofounder of Purdue Pharma. The Sacklers have given extensively to arts and cultural organizations and other groups. However, their fortune was built in large part through the aggressive marketing of the opioid OxyContin. Their steadfast refusal to limit sales and prescriptions of OxyContin is a major factor in the epidemic of opioid abuse that has devasted communities and taken countless lives across the US. Such examples show how elites’ claims that their money “will be spent more wisely on you than it would be by you” (164) ring false. If elites not only personally benefit from financial structures that encourage philanthropy rather than more direct means of redistributing wealth, but as a result they also increase inequality and even harm, then the philanthropic system must be reevaluated.

The story of Darren Walker frames Giridharadas’s critique in this chapter. Walker, Giridharadas shows, knows inequality firsthand, and has been unable to forget the “moments along the way which reminded him that nothing changed if you didn’t change the system as a whole” (168). He has spoken out against the ills of philanthropy even as he heads the Ford Foundation, most notably in his essay “Toward a New Gospel of Wealth,” which provides an alternative to the tradition that follows Carnegie’s ideas. Walker comes from a background outside the elite world, and Giridharadas uses Walker’s perspectives to tell the story of someone familiar with elite philanthropy but not beholden to it in the same way, which increases his argument’s believability. Nevertheless, when Walker speaks to the private equity firm KKR, he tones down his critique of philanthropy. Giridharadas sees this as a sign of the continuing hold that elites have on philanthropy—and as a reminder that more must be done. Thus, Walker provides an important critique of philanthropy that helps Giridharadas make his own argument, but it doesn’t fully respond to the concerns that Giridharadas has.