“There is no denying that today’s elite may be among the more socially concerned elites in history. But it is also, by the cold logic of numbers, among the more predatory in history.”

“How can there be anything wrong with trying to do good? The answer may be: when the good is an accomplice to even greater, if more invisible, harm.”

What do you think the future holds? A lot of prosperous business founders assert that we’re moving to a future where everybody will be an entrepreneur, where technology will indefinitely extend our lives, and where online videos will substitute text communication. These may seem like possible predictions of things to happen.Presenting a specific future scenario as unavoidable is only one of the means that business elites use to act as if they do not have power. Also, they like to act as rebels against the establishment. However, it only conceals the actual power they possess and the manner the<warningtag>y use it to take advantage of those that are truly powerless.</warningtag>

The powerful deny their power

Nowadays, the majority of us obtain our information from famous online sources in bite-size pieces. All thanks to digital media, different types of complicated ideas are now more extensively accessible than ever before.That signifies that it is very easy than ever before to make oneself heard. The issue is, it’s usually not complicated, critical ideas that are conveyed. Instead, there has been a current spread of glib, reassuring messages asserting that things are okay just the way as they are. Previously, we had public intellects asking difficult questions about the manner society functions; <warningtag>now there are the thought leaders.</warningtag>

Elites depend on thought leaders to maintain their power

Corporations support ethical trade and green investing. Thought leaders host panels on worldwide justice. Philanthropists flaunt their kindness in “giving back.” Could this whole discussion of making the world turn into a better place be a sham?The influential language of transforming the world is a scam to maintain the status quo. The means that the ideologies they support allow them to maintain their power and the actual denial of that power lets them to remain in charge.

Business elites have redefined social progress to fit their own personal interests

The win-win maxim of the elites enables them to look like they’re improving the world while they are essentially benefitting from inequality.If you occur to be an extremely effective person, you might be accustomed to reasoning in terms of win-win. It’s the easy principle that in all circumstances, there’s a result that’s valuable for every side. The idea became popular from the famous book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Win-win might be an excellent maxim for personal effectiveness; however, when elites use it to the bigger world, it gets more difficult.

The win-win maxim of the elites

Consider the challenge of worldwide poverty. Businesses like to promote business answers. For instance, TechnoServe asserts to create wealth by connecting people to markets and information.However, by doing that, they pass over the real roots of poverty, such as unfair labor circumstances and low wages. Concentrating on those would need businesses to examine how they maximize their own profits at the expense of workers. Who wants to do that?

When a business approaches problem-solving dominate, social issues are disregarded

“Profitable companies built in questionable ways and employing reckless means engage in corporate social responsibility, and some rich people make a splash by “giving back”—regardless of the fact that they may have caused serious societal problems as they built their fortunes.”

Anand Giridharadas takes us into the inner sanctums of a new gilded age, where the rich and powerful fight for equality and justice any way they can--except ways that threaten the social order and their position atop it. They rebrand themselves as saviors of the poor; they lavishly reward "thought leaders" who redefine "change" in ways that preserve the status quo; and they constantly seek to do more good, but never less harm

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The groundbreaking investigation of how the global elite's efforts to "change the world" preserve the status quo and obscure their role in causing the problems they later seek to solve. An essential read for understanding some of the egregious abuses of power that dominate today’s news. "Impassioned.... Entertaining reading.” —The Washington Post Anand Giridharadas takes us into the inner sanctums of a new gilded age, where the rich and powerful fight for equality and justice any way they can—except ways that threaten the social order and their position atop it. They rebrand themselves as saviors of the poor; they lavishly reward “thought leaders” who redefine “change” in ways that preserve the status quo; and they constantly seek to do more good, but never less harm.      Giridharadas asks hard questions: Why, for example, should our gravest problems be solved by the unelected upper crust instead of the public institutions it erodes by lobbying and dodging taxes? His groundbreaking investigation has already forced a great, sorely needed reckoning among the world’s wealthiest and those they hover above, and it points toward an answer: Rather than rely on scraps from the winners, we must take on the grueling democratic work of building more robust, egalitarian institutions and truly changing the world—a call to action for elites and everyday citizens alike.

ANAND GIRIDHARADAS

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