Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2018

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue and Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7 and Epilogue

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Chapter 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 3 Summary: “Rebel-Kings in Worrisome Berets”

Summit at Sea is an elaborate conference-cruise for elite business leaders, social entrepreneurs, philanthropists, and associates. The event features motivational speakers and “thought leaders” who share their views and visions on how to use the power of business to solve world problems. Venture capitalist Shervin Pishevar is one of the primary speakers at the summit. He made a fortune investing in companies like Uber and Airbnb, and positions these companies as disruptors fighting a corrupt, government-regulated way of running business.

At the same time as the summit, Giridharadas notes, companies like Airbnb, Uber, and Lyft faced criticism for racial discrimination, for concentrating power, and for limiting their contractors’ opportunities while refusing to extend them the benefits typically provided to regular employees. Other companies similarly control and limit opportunity, such as those in the fields of technology (control of information sharing) and finance (control of buying and selling on the market).

Whistleblower Edward Snowden was invited to speak via video at the Summit at Sea. He initially seemed to side with business leaders and associates, praising their attitude of disruption, start-up mentality, and spirit of fighting the system. When an interview asked Snowden how he was going to build and capitalize on his ideas, however, Snowden backed away, insisting that he wasn’t a capitalist or promoter of ideas.

Giridharadas contrasts the self-congratulatory rhetoric of the Summit at Sea to a summit held at the Goethe Institute in New York City, which asked challenging questions about the role of business, such as imagining how the Internet could be managed differently. The summit at the Goethe Institute believed “that there were such things as power and prestige” (82). It shared the ideas of figures like Trebor Scholz, who developed the concept of “platform cooperativism” as an alternative to practices centering market returns as the most important thing. An example of this concept put into practice is the cleaning service app Up & Go, created by Emma Yorra, which funnels 95% of proceeds directly to workers.

Chapter 3 Analysis

Chapter 3 critiques another aspect of the MarketWorld: a tendency to cast certain individuals as leaders taking on established institutions—including governments, non-profits, and traditional business practices—to create positive good. More generally, thought leaders like Shervin Pishevar embrace the language of disruption, believing that by being cavalier in challenging traditional business practices, corporations can spur change that is socially beneficial while financially lucrative.

Giridharadas’s analysis of Pishevar’s presentation at the Summit at Sea implies that these claims are often overblown and expressed as vapid insights. He notes that Pishevar is “casting venture capitalist and billionaire company founders as rebels against the establishment, fighting the power that be on behalf of ordinary people” (67). It’s contradictory, according to Giridharadas, that Pishevar makes these claims during a lavish conference on a cruise ship attended by wealthy elites. Such ironies expose the self-serving nature of many elite ventures that are presented as helping ordinary people.

Edward Snowden’s participation in the Summit at Sea is a telling example of this elite “charade.” Snowden, who became well-known after leaking classified documents revealing massive secret surveillance programs run by the US government, is the quintessential whistleblower. However, the leaders of the Summit at Sea seem less interested in Snowden as either an individual seeking justice or a traitor than as a figure to be commoditized. Rather than seeking to support or further Snowden’s mission, they ask how he plans to profit from that mission.

However, in describing the Goethe Institute summit, Giridharadas suggests that businesses can have more authentic relationships to social benefits and market practices. The same can be said, for example, of David Heinemeier Hansson, the founder of Basecamp. Hansson developed the Basecamp software to help companies improve their productivity, but he kept his own vision of success for Basecamp relatively modest instead of aiming to dominate the market. Such examples are notable because Winners Take All rarely points to direct alternatives to the MarketWorld approach, instead focusing on critiquing it. Thus, examples like the Goethe Institute meeting and Hansson give a good idea of the kinds of alternatives to the MarketWorld approach that Giridharadas finds most promising.