Unmasking the "Elite Charade to Change the World"

Anand Giridharadas is the author of the new book Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World. The book is a piercing examination of how the global elite have co-opted our mechanisms of social change. This trend manifests itself in many ways, including the belief that market forces are more important than government in affecting change.

The book is an extremely challenging, and at times discomfiting, critique of a trend that I've witnessed and certainly been on the periphery of.  The book argues that conferences like the World Economic Forum, Aspen Ideas Fest, or the Clinton Global Initiative, exemplify an approach to social change that ends up entrenching a highly inequitable status quo.

The book has a chapter dedicated to UN Week when heads of state come to New York for the opening of the UN General Assembly and also attend all manner of side events. We kick off discussing the significance of many of these events to his overall  thesis.

This book has definitely struck a ne…