Boston Book Festival 2018

Anand Giridharadas has a controversial thesis in his new book, Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World. It is that the philanthropists who claim to be saving the world with their largesse are in fact preserving the status quo. They claim to fight for equality and justice, as long as their positions on top of the social order remain unthreatened. Giridharadas calls out the hypocritical and self-congratulatory behavior of elites and asks why our gravest problems should be solved by unelected philanthropists instead of by the public institutions they erode by lobbying and dodging taxes. His call to action involves building more robust, egalitarian institutions and truly changing the world. Publishers Weekly, in its starred review, called Winners Take All “provocative and passionate… a must-read for anyone interested in ‘changing the world.’” Come discuss this scathing critique of philanthrocapitalism, moderated by Christopher Lydon, host of Open Source on 90.9 WBUR.