"Winners Take All": Businesspeople Only Want To "Change The World" If It Makes Money

Book cover for "Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World" by Anand Giridharadas.

Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World is a book about how rich and powerful people want to make the world better, but only in ways that don't threaten the systems that made them rich/powerful in the first place.

This is a good book, though it kind of made me feel overwhelmed and pessimistic about the state of the world. But it's important to be aware that this is how the world works.

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Overall message

You always hear ambitious and successful people talking about how they want to make the world a better place. And in particular, nowadays people talk about using tools from the business world for this (whereas in the past, people were more likely to view political activism as the way to do it). The book refers to this culture of people who want to use business strategies to solve the world's problems as "MarketWorld."

Basically, there are people who really genuinely do want to make the world better, but they find that in reality, they need to limit their efforts to only things that rich people will accept. Things that make rich business types feel like they're doing something good, without changing the overall systems that gave those people their success in the first place.

Before I read this book, I was looking at the summary and I thought, "oh... well I've never thought about it that way before, but yes, that must be true. That's... disappointing..." Powerful people want to help others, but only in ways that allow themselves to continue being the powerful people in the world. Not in ways that actually make society truly fair for everyone. When you think about it, you realize it must be true. There's something kind of survival-of-the-fittest about it. Whatever works to give people more money and power, they will continue to do, not because it's "right" or "fair" or "good", but because it gets them more money and power. And even in the realm of charity and changing the world, that still applies.

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Win-win vs win-lose

The book talks about how entrepreneurs trying to solve society's problems have a "win-win" mindset, but what is really needed is "win-lose."

"Win-win", in this case, means you see a problem in the world, and you find an aspect of it that can be a business opportunity for you. (The book talks about finding the part of the "venn diagram" where there's money to be made from helping people.) You start a startup that will address the problem. You make money from your startup, and other people benefit from the work that your startup is doing.

The example from the book that really stuck out to me was the "Even" app. The book describes it as an app created to address the difficulties that workers have if they are paid on irregular schedules. Sometimes they get a large paycheck, but in a different season of the year they might get a much smaller paycheck, and this makes it difficult to manage their money. So, the Even app puts their paychecks into a virtual account, and then transfers a fixed amount of money from that account to their actual bank account at regular intervals. So they get paid the same amount every time.

When I read this, I was like, "WTF, can't you like, just set up 2 bank accounts that literally do that exact thing for you? Instead of paying money for this Even app. This is a scam."

I've googled it and found the website for the Even app, and it turns out it also has some features about keeping track of what bills need to be paid and when, how to take those things into account when figuring out how much extra money you have, etc. It seems like it could be a useful budgeting tool. (I personally wouldn't pay money for it though.)

So I think if you view it as "this app going to solve the world's problems" then it's awful. Clearly, the actual problem here is that people's wages are too low, so they aren't able to save up extra money to deal with the irregularities of their payment schedule, and/or the problem is that companies should be paying people more stable wages instead of having weird payment schedules in the first place- the employees shouldn't have to be the ones directly affected by the fluctuations in seasonal demand for things. The app doesn't have any effect on the companies that are not paying their workers well. It lets them continue to do that, while trying to make things at least a little better for the workers.

But if you view it like "for people who are in that situation, this is a useful tool to have" then it seems good in my opinion.

But anyway, yeah, it seems obvious to me that looking for "win-win" opportunities and thinking that's going to be an effective way of bringing real change is just ridiculous. No, that will never work.

The book says that instead, we need "win-lose." This means, for example, that companies who have gotten rich off of exploiting workers need to STOP EXPLOITING WORKERS. This is a "lose" for the company, so obviously a company will never agree to it. So you can't get there through business practices; the only way to get there is if the government makes laws forcing companies to change.

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Trump supporters, and the idea that companies should be invested in the local town

There's also a section in the book about businesses that have a "globalist" mindset, and therefore believe they have no responsibility toward the people who live near them. In the past, businesses didn't have access to international markets or the ability to outsource labor to other countries, and so they really had to focus on their own local area. If they didn't help make people's lives better in their own local area, it would affect their potential customers and employees, which would end up being bad for the business itself. But nowadays, companies can calculate the costs of producing part of their product in one country and part of it in some other country, and expanding to markets in even more countries, and it's all about what makes more money for the company, rather than having a responsibility toward the people near you/ people affected by you.

When Trump supporters complain about "globalism" and "taking away American jobs", well my first instinct is to roll my eyes at it (please note that I'm an immigrant in China)- but actually, there's something to this. If "globalism" means changing from "you have a responsibility to care about and benefit the city that your business is located in" to "you have a responsibility to no one, just do whatever makes the most money for you" then yeah that is NOT COOL. (Or, perhaps in reality, it would be "do whatever makes the most money, and then sponsor some charity project that makes you look good." Also NOT COOL.)

And the existence of very powerful businesses can undermine local government. It can undermine democracy. This is a problem.

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Hooters and the excuses that we make

The book talks about a woman named Kat Cole, who worked at Hooters. She started out as a waitress when she was in high school, and says she found it "empowering" to be making money. Eventually she moved up to a management role. She believes Hooters supports and benefits its female employees, and she rejects the idea that they "exploit" women. She knows many women who have successful careers in management for Hooters. (Important background info: Hooters is a restaurant that is known for having waitresses with big breasts. Like that's their whole company image. Like men should come and enjoy staring at the waitresses.)

So, the book says this is an example of the "rationalizations" that people make for participating in harmful systems. And... yeah... I don't know what to think about this, because I have also thought along similar lines. Like you recognize that the larger system that you're in is doing harm in the world, so why are you letting yourself be part of it? Because you need a job? Because there's no alternative- all companies have their flaws? Because if it wasn't you doing it, it would be someone else who is less moral than you? Because you are donating some of your income to charity?

How much of that is valid, and how much is not?

The writer, Anand Giridharadas, seems to have a very negative view of these "rationalizations." He seems to be saying that the only moral thing to do is just completely refuse to participate in these systems at all. However, in the "Acknowledgements" section at the end, he talks about his own experiences in this "MarketWorld" culture, and how he also thought along the same lines as many of the ambitious would-be world-changers he mentions in the book. Many of them are his friends or people he knows personally.

So I feel like, I don't necessarily think we can dismiss Cole's views (for example) as just "rationalizations" that are automatically wrong. I think it's a hard question. And I think the author, Giridharadas, has also struggled with this.

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"Power pose" / changing your message so people can accept it

The book talks about Amy Cuddy, a "social psychologist at Harvard Business School who had spent more than a decade publishing papers on the workings of prejudice, discrimination, and systems of power." She was invited to give a talk, and chose to pick 1 small thing related to her research, which she could easily convey to an audience. She talked about the "power pose"- women can stand like Wonder Woman for a few seconds in order to give themselves more confidence before going into a big meeting or something like that.

Well, people loved this "power pose" thing, and she was later invited to give a TED talk about it. Powerful businesspeople loved the idea that individual women could just do 1 little thing differently, rather than challenging the big overall systems of sexism and the real reasons why men don't listen to women in business meetings. I think eventually Cuddy was unhappy with this, because she is a feminist and a researcher and she knows the problems go much deeper than that- but this 1 simple "power pose" trick was what everyone wanted to talk about.

And there were a few other examples in the book of people who knew they had to say things in a certain way to get powerful businesspeople to accept them. Don't talk about how your audience played a role in creating the problems. Don't blame them. There's a certain kind of story they want to hear, and if you tell a different story, and they don't like it, they won't fund your charity project.

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So what's the answer?

The book doesn't really give a solution for this problem. There are a few times that it hints that big government is the solution- it mentions that in the past, people would have viewed political activism as the way to solve problems, it says that the problem with democrats is they view big government as a bad thing, etc. Probably this is right- businesses aren't going to choose to do things that benefit society and make themselves less money- it will only happen if the government forces them to.

At the same time, though, government also has problems. I don't think it's the magic solution. I'm sure government also has a lot of the same survival-of-the-fittest dynamics which incentivize people to do things which give themselves the most power, rather than things that benefit society (though it would play out in different ways than the business world).

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Summary

The book Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World is about how people try to make the world better using the tools of the business world, but this can never really work. I think it's important that we are aware of this dynamic. Even though it's really discouraging. I felt like a lot of it was very relateable- about people who are trying to make a difference, but keep running into the reality of how things really work in the world. How some solutions aren't even going to be tried because rich people don't want to try them.

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Related:

Animals Screw Over Other Animals and Get Away With It

The Parable of the Talents: Risk and Return in Building the Kingdom of Heaven

A small business owner in an office with a bunch of yarn and sewing machines. Image source.

Continuing our series on the book of Matthew, let's look at Matthew 25:14-30, which is typically referred to as "The Parable of the Talents."

Go over and read it.

So, we have here a parable about the kingdom of heaven, which uses a metaphor related to business/ investment/ being an entrepreneur. These servants who received the "bags of gold" or "talents" were instructed to put that money to work to earn more money. (The footnote says "a talent was worth about 20 years of a day laborer’s wage"- we're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars here.)

The thing that strikes me about this story is that when you make an investment, or use capital to start a business, there is always risk. There is always the risk that you will lose the money you invested. There is always the risk that your business will fail. And inevitably you will make mistakes when you're just starting out- maybe you will realize in hindsight that some of the things you spent money on were actually not worth it. And there's an element of luck involved- maybe people you hire turn out to be better or worse than expected, maybe some celebrity tweets about your product and suddenly you have tons of customers but then they all forget about you a week later, maybe new government regulations suddenly mess up your whole business strategy.

There's always risk. There will definitely be things that go wrong.

So the first servant, with his 5 bags of gold (hundreds of thousands of dollars) earned 5 more. And the second servant, with his 2 bags of gold (hundreds of thousands of dollars) earned 2 more. And both are rewarded by the master. Their businesses are successful. They did what the master wanted them to do. However, this isn't the whole story. You only see the result- 5 talents earned 5 more- but you don't see all the steps, all the little decisions, the mistakes, the things that would have worked better if they had been done differently (though perhaps no one could have known that- hindsight is 20/20).

I feel like, for me, thinking about how to make the world better and build the kingdom of heaven, it's easy to get stuck on those details. What if I donate to a charity, but then they don't use the money well? What if I look up their financial records and the percentage they spend on "administrative costs" seems high- does that mean it's an ineffective charity? What if I help organize some event, but then it has problems? What if I try to help people but it actually makes things worse?

On the one hand, those are valid concerns. We should definitely be honest and realistic about how good intentions aren't enough, and sometimes charity projects do more harm than good. We should learn from their mistakes. We should do our research. We should listen to the people we want to help and find out what they actually need, rather than forcing our own ideas on them.

But we shouldn't become paralyzed by this fear of taking risks. Nothing you do will ever be perfect, but don't let that stop you. You can still make the world better and participate in bringing the kingdom of heaven to earth.

The third servant was too afraid to even try. He hid the money in the ground, and simply gave it back to the master when the master returned. This servant took no risks at all, and the master was angry at him for it- calling him "You wicked, lazy servant!" The master said he should have at least put the money in the bank to earn interest.

My interpretation of this bit is, if you have high enough income that you are able to donate to charity, but you feel like you have to analyze everything and pick the number one magical most effective charity, and you worry about it and never actually end up doing anything... no, don't do that. At least pick a charity and set up automatic monthly donations. It feels inadequate to just do that- I mean, yes, it is inadequate- but at least it's better than nothing.

(I realize I've given several examples about "building the kingdom of heaven" in terms of donating to charity, but there are lots of things you can do to build the kingdom of heaven. Anything that helps people who need help, makes the world better, etc. Supporting your friends, taking care of your family. Actually, the next parable we'll look at is the parable of the sheep and the goats, which does indeed give practical instructions for what we should do.)

So overall, my point is, if you want to make the world better, don't be so worried about taking risks and making mistakes that you just take no action at all. Inevitably you will make mistakes and mess things up and be inefficient sometimes. That's just the way it is. The master in the parable has no problem with that, because the first and second servants were very successful when you look at the big picture.

A few more things I want to mention about this parable:

The third servant tells the master he was afraid because "I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed." (The master seems to agree with this description.) Back when I was evangelical, I always got stuck on this verse- Is it saying the master is cheating and stealing? Isn't the master supposed to be God? What on earth is happening here??? I would get stuck because I viewed bible study as, like, I am going to read this and understand the whole thing and get the message that the author "meant" when they wrote it. So if overall the passage made sense to me, and I had an understanding of "what it meant", but there was one weird verse that didn't seem to fit at all, well that would be a huge problem.

That's not how I view the bible now, as an ex-evangelical Christian feminist. I think people can interpret the bible a lot of different ways. I am not here to tell you what it "actually" means or what the author "really meant" by this passage- I am just telling you my opinion on it from a Christian feminist perspective. I totally recognize that my ideas are not "what the author meant"- really, it's not important to me to discover "what the author meant." (I think I need to make this clear here on my blog.) So I find a part that is meaningful to me, and I blog about that, and if there are some other parts of the passage that I kind of ignore, well, it's okay. I don't fool myself into believing that I really understand the whole thing and know what the author meant by every single part. And therefore, it doesn't bother me if some parts are weird and don't make sense to me.

For what it's worth, though, here's my interpretation of the "you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed": Things that happen in the real world don't really follow a simple cause-and-effect like "good person does good thing for good reasons and the result is good, bad person does bad thing for bad reasons and the result is bad." Sometimes you do something, but someone else gets the credit for it. Sometimes something bad happens, but a few people happen to benefit from it (innocently- I don't mean they purposely caused the bad thing to happen). In the real world, all these good and bad intentions and results are woven together, inseparable. And I don't really think that's a good thing- I think it's an example of how the world is flawed- but it just is what it is. And the kingdom of heaven is also like that, because it's built by us in this flawed reality. 

Take the life of Jesus, for example. The genealogy in Matthew 1 points out a few key women who were in Jesus' family line; one of them was "Uriah's wife" (Bathsheba). Yes, remember that whole thing, where David raped Bathsheba, then had her husband killed, then married her, their baby died... and then later they had a baby named Solomon, who is an ancestor of Jesus?

So if David had never raped Bathsheba and murdered Uriah, Jesus would have turned out different. (In some small way.) It was still a really bad thing that David did. (I don't want to hear any "But it was actually a good thing/ had a silver lining because look at these good things that happened later as an indirect result.") But what is supposed to happen- anyone whose ancestors got together because of rape and/or murder shouldn't do anything good with their life, because then someone can say their success is a "result" of that historical rape/murder? Probably all of us have that in our family tree somewhere. It just is what it is. It's not a good thing, but that's just how the real world works.

And one more part in this parable I want to mention: "So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags. For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them." I'm not sure what to make of this. It seems to be stating the general principle of "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer", which is indeed how the power structures of the real world work. But, that shouldn't be true in the kingdom of heaven, right? What about "the last will be first, and the first will be last"?

I know the parable of the talents is using money as a metaphor for building the kingdom of heaven- and the money actually belongs to the master, not the servants- so taking the money from the disobedient servant and giving it to the most successful servant isn't really the same thing as a literal rich person finding new ways to exploit literal poor people. Not sure what it is a metaphor for, though. A possible complicating factor is how, in the parable, the master (God, I guess) is the one who gives the money to the servants in the first place (and later gives the third servant's money to the first servant), but I don't conceptualize the real world as "God blessed you with this money/ resources/ abilities/ *cough* white privilege"- I think it's just luck. And if you start down that road of "God intentionally decided that I should have these things that other people don't have" then it only leads to bad places.

So I don't have a good interpretation to give you about the part where the master takes the gold away from the third servant. (Feel free to leave a comment about it if you have something to share!) But, like I said, it doesn't bother me, because I am not coming at the bible from a perspective of "I am going to understand what the author really meant in this passage."

So, in summary: The parable of the talents uses imagery about being an entrepreneur and making investments, as a metaphor for the way Jesus wants us to build the kingdom of heaven. If you have more money and resources, then you should contribute more. You have the opportunity to do more good- so use it. Also, there is always risk when someone starts a business or invests money- and there is also risk if you set out to take actions that actually make a difference in the world. Inevitably, you will make mistakes. But don't let that fear stop you, like it stopped the third servant. The master rewarded the servants for the big picture of how much good they did, and didn't pay any attention to the mistakes they made along the way.

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Related:

The Parable of the Living Wage 

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This post is part of a series on the gospel of Matthew.

Previous post: I don't believe in a literal "Jesus coming back." But, be ready. (Matthew 25:1-13)

Next post: Sheep and Goats (Matthew 25:31-46)

Click here to go to the beginning of the series.

Blogaround

Image source.

Some things from around teh intarwebz:

1. 17-Year-Old Rape Victim Loses Her First Amendment Rights by Being Raped (posted July 22). This is all kinds of messed-up.

2. This video, which someone sent me after what I said about that whole myth of finding your one perfect soul-mate. This song is hilarious- it's called "If I Didn't Have You."

"If I didn't have you, I think that I would probably have somebody else."

"It's abstruse to deduce I found my soul mate at the age of 17, it's just mathematically unlikely that ... I happened to stumble on the one girl on earth specifically designed for me."

I love this video and can't even tell you how much I agree with it.

3. What I Wish I'd Known Before Watching Porn (posted July 23). Interesting article, specifically relating to women who watch porn.

4. Authorities: 14 Dead After Truck Crashes In Texas (posted July 23). Reading this article kind of showed me that I'm a terrible person... the people who died were illegal immigrants, and somehow my first reaction was to think that makes it less bad. And then I wondered if the article should have been written differently, if it should have emphasized that they're real people, rather than just using the label "illegal immigrant" as if they're just a controversial political topic.

5. For first time, women from every nation ready to rock Olympics (posted July 24). Awesome.

6. No, I'm not in "the gay lifestyle." Neither is anyone else. (posted July 24) I totally recommend this- written by a gay Christian.

Image source.

7. Boston mayor vows to keep Chick-Fil-A out of city (posted July 24). THIS IS NOT OKAY. THIS IS NOT OKAY. The GOVERNMENT is trying to discriminate against Chick-Fil-A because of statements that the owner made. Now, you can agree or disagree with Chick-Fil-A's opposition to gay marriage, and you can choose to eat there or not. That's fine. But for the GOVERNMENT to take action against a business because of its owner exercising his right to free speech and freedom of religion... I don't even.

I hope people on both sides of the gay-marriage debate will recognize how not-okay this is and speak out against it.

8. The Attraction to Legalism (posted July 23). I agree with this guy. And I think in some ways it's easier for Christians to try to keep a list of rules than to actually follow Jesus with everything we have.

9. Miss Zee's Coloring Book and the invisibility of little black girls (posted July 23). It's almost impossible to find a coloring book for kids featuring black characters. (I totally had never thought about that!) This post introduces a woman who is designing a coloring book about a black girl.

10. Mario Proposal: Woman Invites Boyfriend To Engage In Game Of Love (posted July 26). THIS IS ADORABLE!

Any other interesting links? Anything going on on your own blog?

Starbucks, Gay Oreos, and Controversy

Some people want to Dump Starbucks because Starbucks issued a statement (January 2012) saying gay marriage should be legal, and that Starbucks is totally all about the inclusion and respect and "domestic partner benefits", all that stuff. (Here is more info on that story.)

I'm rather baffled about the whole thing.

On a related note, behold, the gay pride oreo:

Image source.

Unfortunately this is just photoshop. It's not a real oreo you can buy. (You'd probably die from that much sugar anyway. Or at least need a large glass of milk from a lesbian cow.)

But some people on the internet got all angry about this. And then other people on the internet got angry about the fact that people got angry. And some people (presumably in real life) are boycotting oreos and some people want to buy a ton, to show their support of oreo's support of gay marriage, and some people are completely confused about how one would even go about eating an oreo that thick.

(Seriously. It doesn't seem like a very structurally-sound design. And you know how the inside gets a little soft and melty when it's humid- especially in double-stufs?)

(Here is a blog post with an incredibly good perspective on this: My right to be offended by your existence trumps your right to exist, basically saying "What are people angry about? They're offended that oreo recognizes that gay people exist?")

And there was also a big deal made about JC Penney's Father's Day ad, featuring 2 dads.

The text says, "First Pals: What makes Dad so cool? He's the swim coach, tent maker, best friend, bike fixer and hug giver- all rolled into one. Or two." Image source.

Now I will ask a bunch of questions in an attempt to understand this.

Some people argue that companies shouldn't take a stand on a political issue. Historically, is that true? Have (seemingly-non-politics-related) companies come out with statements on political issues? Is that weird?

Some people argue that this is NOT a political issue. It's more of a human rights issue. Gay marriage is a human right. And gay people are real people. When an ad features a family with 2 gay dads, why is that a controversial "political statement"? Families like that do exist, and they're real people- they don't go about their one-dimensional lives just plotting to take over the government and destroy every straight person's family. (I mean, I assume they don't- I haven't actually asked any of them.) They just do normal-people things.

And the gay oreo- on the image it just says "Pride." You could interpret this in a lot of ways. Does it mean "gay marriage should be legal"? Does it mean "we're making a cool thing that some of our gay customers will appreciate"?

But no, it's different than a football oreo, and all those other special types of oreos. It IS a statement. They knew it would be controversial when they made that image. They made it because they think it's an important issue that they need to take a stand on.

Or maybe they're just in it for the money. Who wants to guess how many times that oreo image was shared on Facebook? That's free advertising.

And this isn't just abstract thought about "should companies make political statements?" This is about real people who get mocked or judged or excluded. And oreo is telling them "You are not alone. We support you." And maybe that's great to hear, in a culture where you just don't know how people are going to respond when they find out you're gay.

Maybe if the companies were silent on the issue, that wouldn't communicate "being neutral"- it would communicate the idea that gay people don't exist or matter. If JC Penney has ads with straight couples but not gay couples, doesn't that send the message that being straight is normal, and being gay is controversial and appalling and we can't have children seeing that? (You can argue about whether it's true that straight is "normal" and gay is "appalling"- maybe it's true, maybe not- but by not showing any gay couples, the advertisers ARE taking a side. Sometimes being silent is interpreted as agreement.)

Some people are angry that people are boycotting Starbucks. Why are they angry? People have a right to boycott whatever they want. I would assume the thinking is not "hey, you can't band together and boycott something- that's not fair!" but more along the lines of "it's terrible that they hate gay people so much that they would go to such lengths and boycott."

Are we only supposed to buy from companies whose values match perfectly with our values? Dude, it's a company. Since when do they have "values"? Besides maybe "make high-quality stuff and treat the employees/customers right." Their purpose is to sell you overpriced coffee. Their purpose is not to bring justice and human rights to the world.

But, if you were in a position of power in a company, and you thought there was a really really important issue going on in the world, and you had the power to make a statement that a lot of people would hear, shouldn't you use that power?

And the consumers' money/ purchasing decisions hold a lot of power over the company. Should consumers use that power for the greater good, and not just for getting themselves some tasty snacks?

I think part of the argument against companies that support gay rights is "You are sending the message that being gay is good and normal- but it's not. You're a bad influence." So, is there any validity here? If someone believes that gay relationships are sinful, then that statement seems to make sense. We shouldn't be encouraging something that's actually harmful.

And I feel like countering this with "you can't impose your religious beliefs on other people" doesn't work- the belief is that support for gay rights is bad for society as a whole. Therefore, people need to be warned that same-sex attraction is harmful. They could even argue that JC Penney is trying to impose on people a "religious belief" that "gay marriage isn't bad."

Maybe it comes back to the issue of whether being gay is "a choice."

Or maybe there has to be a distinction between who you are (which, in the case of being gay, is not a choice) and what you do.

Or maybe I'm missing the point. Maybe trying to make that distinction isn't helping anything. It still looks like hate to say "yeah I accept you- but you need to either become straight or be forever alone."

Or maybe it's not valid to claim that "support for gay rights is bad for society as a whole" without listening to what gay people have to say.

And at the same time, maybe you shouldn't call people bigots and assume their anger over the rainbow oreo is from intentional hatred.

So, lots of different questions/issues- I'm trying to understand all of the sides. Anyone have insight here? Or perhaps some more questions?

Image source.

edit: Oh snap, let's throw Chick-Fil-A in here too, with their position against gay marriage. How is that similar/different to the pro-gay-rights companies I've mentioned?