Anand Giridharadas
In 2018, journalist and author Anand Giridharadas changed the national conversation about big-donor philanthropy with his best-selling book Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World. In it, he argued that elites use philanthropy to justify their unjustifiable wealth, casting themselves as part of the solution to the world's problems even as their actions reinforce the status quo.
Seven years later, Giridharadas says he has been proved right. 'I want to thank the billionaire class for making a case for what I was trying to argue much better than I ever could,' he says. 'Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, et cetera, have staged a play in public for why this level of wealth is dangerous."
The better alternative to billionaire philanthropy, Giridharadas says, is a democratic system where the ultrarich pay their appropriate share of taxes, and governments decide based on a popular mandate where to spend that money.
As pessimistic as Giridharadas might sound, he's actually optimistic about the future, seeing a shift in attitudes among younger people. 'Gen Z, they get it,' he says. 'I feel like they're the first generation of Americans in my lifetime to not be brainwashed by the story of the billionaire hero.'
Write to Billy Perrigo at billy.perrigo@time.com.
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