Not Changing the World

Winners Take All: the Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridharadas
Penguin Random House, August 18, 2018

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‍Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World is a sobering assessment of the mindset of the global elite. Stitched together as a mix of vignettes and incisive social commentary, the book tackles elite assumptions about social progress and the process of promoting social change. Although Giridharadas does not explicitly focus on private schools, they are certainly a part of the system he sees maintaining and inculcating the values of the global elite. Indeed, this book will undoubtedly lead to productive discomfort for those of us in independent schools that claim to want to prepare kids to change the world while really - according to Giridharadas - helping preserve and sustain systems of wealth and inequality that he argues inhibit true societal progress. Giridharadas is especially critical of the idea that elite institutions need to be at the forefront of social change. The book does strike "an empathic tone" which, according to Mark Kramer, reviewer at Stanford Social Innovation Review, "gives the book its persuasive power to touch the hearts of even those readers . . . who are the targets of its criticism." Independent school readers will find themselves challenged by this book, but they will also find themselves, perhaps, more equipped to understand the role of elite institutions in promoting societal progress.