Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World

Chapter 7 and the Epilogue shift emphasis to discussing how the MarketWorld approach has influenced political spheres in the US and beyond, both before and after the election of Donald Trump. Although he promoted the “Third Way” between conservatism and liberalism, Bill Clinton increasingly embraced a market-driven approach to solving problems after his presidential terms concluded. Giridharadas implies that this is evidence that markets have increased their influence on politics in the ensuing years. In Chapter 7, Giridharadas positions Bill and Hillary Clinton as key liaisons between elites and political powers—and questions how the Clintons have profited from their involvement in MarketWorld and how they’ve used their influence.

In Giridharadas’s opinion, it’s difficult to tell if the Clintons have been as helpful as they claim. Influential figures like the Clintons claim to be working to benefit average people yet separate themselves by associating with elites and effectively talk down to average people. Since global elites aren’t relatable to the average person, they represent an “echo chamber.” Nevertheless, the power of the approach adopted by the Clintons has grown. Giridharadas characterizes the 2016 Democratic primary election defeat of Bernie Sanders—who supports far-left policies meant to lessen the power of elites—as evidence of the ascendency of the MarketWorld approach in politics. He argues that the choice between Hillary Clinton and Sanders in the primary election was essentially a choice between the billionaire class and those who fight against the growing power of elites.

While this choice between Clinton and Sanders was being decided on the Democratic front, Donald Trump was gaining power on the Republican side. Political analysis suggests that Trump’s success was fueled by (and represented) populist movements that were growing not only in the US but in other areas of the world. The success of Brexit—the decision to separate the United Kingdom from the European Union—was another sign of the growth in populism. Trump and other populist leaders promoted messages that resonated with many average people and the dissatisfaction they feel with the stark and massive gap between elites and non-elites. Nevertheless, Giridharadas argues, the subsequent political choice between Clinton and Trump in the 2016 U.S. presidential election was a false dichotomy, because Trump belonged to the same elite world as the Clintons and had cleverly exploited financial markets and capitalist possibilities in building his wealth and power. Giridharadas sees Trump’s election in 2016 as a political turning point, yet he views Trump as only symptomatic of the larger problem of power being concentrated among elites and doesn’t blame Trump for the continued distillation of that power.

Since Trump’s election, the Clintons and other elites who want to pursue a market-driven agenda of promoting socioeconomic change claimed to reconsider their methods. However, Giridharadas doesn’t see elites substantially changing their methods. For example, in a conference panel that discussed efforts to help eliminate the economic difficulties women face, the response was to encourage women to enter the beauty industry—using market methods rather than working to eliminate discrimination and other issues that contribute to the economic problems in the first place. Likewise, B corporations, as discussed in the Epilogue, are only focused on praising “good” businesses instead of dismantling policies that allow “bad” businesses to succeed.

As Giridharadas sees it, elites have continued to ignore the problem of their concentration of power. They’ve failed to see that policies focused on globalism and neoliberalism haven’t only dramatically increased the wealth gap between elites and non-elites but have also fueled the rise of populism and nationalism. By pretending that markets around the world had no borders, they opened a door for political extremists who exploit the dissatisfaction and resentment that non-elites feel. So far, elites have failed to see alternatives and that “[p]olitics, in bringing together people of divergent interests, necessarily puts sacrifice on the table” (220). Giridharadas himself doesn’t offer specific alternatives. However, he points to figures like Dani Roderik, who represents an alternative way to approach socioeconomic problems. Likewise, Giridharadas takes inspiration from Chiara Cordelli, an academic who insists that the MarketWorld approach is not the only way. Giridharadas notes, “The inescapable answer to the overwhelming question—Where do we go from here?—is: somewhere other than where we have been going, led by people other than the people who have been leading us” (246).