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The elite sabotage politics and higher learning

Many are disillusioned by the all powerful financial and political control that elites have. Winners Take All by Anand Giriharadas provides thought provoking ideas on how elites have changed public thought.

Many are disillusioned by the all powerful financial and political control that elites have.

Winners Take All by Anand Giriharadas provides thought provoking ideas on how elites have changed public thought. MarketWorld believes social change should be pursued through free market and voluntary actions without public life, law and reform of systems that people share in common.MarketWorld “thought leader” thinkers promote so called ‘world-changing’ ideas with little risk to themselves.

Their ideas cause us to “zoom in” and think smaller by focusing on vulnerability of poverty, not the wage of inequality. They don’t like “social justice” and “inequality” words, but rather use “poverty” and “fairness” while speaking of “opportunity.” “Public intellectual” thinkers counterbalance this thinking and change the trajectory of MarketWorld “by getting people to care about problems first by ‘zooming in’ on a vivid person and then getting them to care by ‘zooming out’ from persons to systems.”

“Poverty is a material fact of deprivation that does not point fingers, but inequality is more worrying: It speaks of what some have and others lack, leaves many chasing work instead of building livelihoods and highlights wrongdoing and injustice.” MarketWorlders believe poverty can be addressed by writing cheques. “But inequality you can’t, because inequality is not about giving back, but how that money is made in the first place.”

To fight inequality means to change systems as a group of people. With charity the elite work alone. From behind private gates, schools, and jets the elite promote their private world-saving behind the backs of those to be saved through organized philanthropy while getting tax credits and maintaining their wealth.

For all the good they do they are marred by their own “narcissism.” “When help is moved into private spheres, even when efficient, the helping context is a relationship of inequality: giver and taker, donor and recipient.” Consequences include rising anger, nationalism and right-wing populism.

“Thought leaders” have permeated higher learning institutions by purposefully changing the language in which public spheres think and act. Young people are taught to see social problems in a “zoom in” fashion by confining questioning to what socially-minded businesses they can start up like “buy one, give one,” but not inequality. Many right and left political leaders have bought into this ideology. To counteract and provide balance to MarketWorld, “our political institutions – laws, constitutions, regulations, taxes, shared infrastructure: these million little pieces provide a counterbalance to help hold democratic capitalistic civilizations together.”

The one-sided financial hegemony of MarketWorlders has created the present day ‘graft and greed’ college financial scandal, FAA allowing Boeing to “self-inspect” and SNC Lavalin corruption.

One word comes to mind – brainwashing or at the very least gaslighting. The elites have done a very good job of gaslighting the political, financial and higher learning powers that be. Counterbalance of MarketWorlders requires major public action for inequality and social justice change.

Lin Gackle

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