Anand Giridharadas: Democracy, Power, and the Elite Charade
Anand Giridharadas examines how power works, why elite philanthropy fails democracy, and what it actually takes to persuade people to want a fairer world.
Why we picked this
Giridharadas is particularly worth hearing in San Francisco, a city whose tech elite have perfected the exact philanthropic patterns he diagnoses in *Winners Take All* — the tension between audience and argument is part of what makes this event interesting.
Winners Take All named something that felt true to a lot of people: that the wealthy have constructed a philanthropic apparatus that lets them appear to solve the problems their own wealth creates, without actually changing the systems that generate inequality. Anand Giridharadas wrote it as a former McKinsey consultant and New York Times journalist who had been inside the rooms he described — which gave the argument an edge that outside critique rarely carries.
The Persuaders shifted to a different question: not just what’s wrong, but what it takes to actually change minds about it. Drawing on activists, organizers, and communicators who have succeeded in winning people over to progressive causes, it’s a more practical investigation — though no less sharp.
Co-presented with Manny’s, the San Francisco civic space. An evening that will put a pointed argument in front of an audience that has complicated relationships with both democracy and wealth.