Anand Giridharadas
Anand Giridharadas is the author of, most recently, Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World.
From the transcript of his interview with Fareed Zakaria:
FAREED ZAKARIA: Anand Giridharadas wrote "Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World."--Marshal Zeringue
So first let me give you a chance to explain in brief, what is the thesis of your book?
ANAND GIRIDHARADAS, AUTHOR, "WINNERS TAKE ALL": The thesis of my book is that -- and it's a book about the United States. That we live in this era defined by a paradox. On one hand, it's an age of extraordinary elite generosity, of the kind, you know, you see when people go to Davos and do stuff around Africa and do stuff around malaria. And yet the second half of the paradox is in the United States this has also been, you know, a time of rising inequality, the most unequal time in 100 years, a period in which the bottom half of the country has basically not benefited from any of the astonishing technological and global developments that have made your and my life, and many people's lives so much better.
ZAKARIA: So what I'm struck by is, I think you painted an accurate picture. The changes that are causing this widening inequality, basically globalization, technological revolutions, are happening all over the world. Inequality within societies is growing everywhere. Inequality around the world, as a whole, has actually dramatically dropped because of the rise of hundreds of millions of people in China and India.
But there are countries that I presumed you think handled this better. They tax the rich more. They have -- you know, they celebrate entrepreneurs less. They have, you know, bureaucrats deciding how to allocate resources better. I'm thinking of places like France and Germany. And they have widening inequality. They have the same sense of being dispossessed. They have the same tensions that are being produced.
So why is it that you think that the U.S. system is producing these problems? Isn't it much more likely these are very broad, structural changes sweeping the world? Inequality is rising in India dramatically, right? So if those broad structural changes -- what the billionaires and millionaires -- and look, I share your -- some of your aesthetic distaste for the way in which they boost themselves and self-promote. But what they seems to be doing at the best of them are trying to respond to these problems as best they can. Governments are also trying but nobody quite has an answer and so the problem persists.
GIRIDHARADAS: And I would agree and disagree with that. You're right that inequality is widening in a lot of places. But I think this -- your talk of forces is really important because I think that's been a very dominant rhetoric of our age that the things that are happening are because of these big forces. And one thing I think that's important to remember is forces actually hit -- these forces hit places very differently.
So, yes, you have widening inequality in Europe also. But if you work 29 hours a week at a retailer in Europe, as opposed to 30, right, you don't have our drastically different level of health care the way you do in this country. And that means that when the same forces of China and automation hit Germany, they, you know, don't lead to some people going bankrupt or dying of preventable diseases the way we do in this country.
So forces are important. But democratic choices around how to respond to those forces are also important. And what I believe has happened is that the billionaires, as you say, have realized that we live in this age. They're not dumb. They're very smart. They make a lot of money because they actually understand the world. They understand these trends, they understand rising anger, and they've been in some ways tried to get out in front of it by promoting forms of change that are meant to address these issues but meant to address them in winner- friendly ways.
So lean in, good. Maternity leave, which is a little too expensive for them, not good. Charter schools, great. You know, higher taxes to fund equal and adequately funded public schools for everybody, not so...[read on]
