-Welcome to The Daily Show. -Thank you.
Congratulations on a book that has made you the enemy
-of billionaires all over the world. -Right.
-You are a foolish man. -Right.
Why would you write a book
that basically accuses billionaires
of being, like, fake good people as philanthropists?
What does that even mean?
There was no good reason to do it,
except that it was true.
You know, we live in this time.
Um, and I was thinking about it
when you were talking about the president,
because he's kind of an example of this.
He had a fake foundation.
Um, they're not all fake.
But we live in this time in which rich people...
You can't walk down the street in Manhattan--
or other parts of the country--
without bumping into a rich person
who's trying to change the world, right?
Mark Zuckerberg's trying to change the world.
Elon Musk is gonna try to change the world.
Jeff Bezos changing the world.
They're all changing the world.
More money being given away
than has ever been given away in the history of the world.
-Right. -Young people. All...
You know, elite graduates, elite campuses.
We want to go to Africa, start a social enterprise...
-Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. -...turning recycled poop into coffee.
-Right. -(laughter) -Um, with tote bags.
-Bono is involved. -Yes.
-The red iPhone case you get for free. -Right.
And the question is, why is it
that this era of extraordinary elite generosity,
which is real, happens to coincide
with an age of extraordinary elite hoarding?
The very same class of billionaires
and plutocrats who do so much to give
and constantly talk about how much they give
have a monopoly on the future in this country.
The one percent in this country takes 49% of new income.
-Yeah? -Half the new income.
Imagine if all the new income in this studio audience
went to one person. Right? Half of it.
Imagine if-- another true statistic--
the point one percent,
point one percent owns more wealth
-than the bottom 80% of people in this country. -Right.
The bottom half of people in this country, on average,
have not gotten a raise, as many of you may know,
-in... 40 years. -Right.
And so the question then becomes:
What's the relationship between all this nice stuff elites do
and this elite predation?
And the relationship that I discovered
when I reported this book
-But-but... -was that it's this nice...
it's these nice deeds, this sprinkling of nice deeds,
that help us uphold a system
in which rich people can monopolize the future,
horde progress and kill the American dream.
And not satisfied with that,
they're trying to kill the planet now, too.
Okay, but let's-let's go back on this.
So, you're saying that people horde the money, all right?
But now, everyone here tries to keep the money that they make.
I mean, I think that is, like,
a logical thing that human beings do.
You get the money; you keep the money.
No one gets the money from, like, work and then is like,
"Eh..." You get what I'm saying?
So when you're saying that they're hording the money,
people would go like, "Yes, but, Anand,
"that's the American dream-- you work hard,
and then you make your money."
Why-why is that a problem?
Why do you think that that is a paradox
with the public giving that they're doing?
I think another simpler way to say what you're saying,
which I agree with, is that "Plutes gonna plute."
-I even have the shirt. -Okay. -(laughter)
-Plutes gonna plute. -Yes, which means...?
-They're gonna fight for their interests. -Okay.
The plutocrats are gonna do what's good for plutocrats.
You're right. The thing is, this is not feudal England,
so we actually have systems that are designed
to keep them in check.
Because you're right, people are gonna fight
-for their own interests. -Right.
And when you have people who have such vast fortunes
that they have the power, as monopolies,
to decide which way our elections go--
which is a power Mark Zuckerberg, frankly, has.
When you have someone who has the power to dictate
whether workers have to pee in a bottle to be able to,
you know, survive and make productivity at their company,
when you have people with so much power over consumers,
uh, you can't just say the hording impulse
is gonna be the hording impulse.
You have to tax people properly.
Taxes, taxes, taxes.
-Uh, you have to regulate people properly. -(cheering, applause)
You have to have a minimum wage that actually allows people
who have no leverage against these billionaires
to have the shared leverage that we all have,
which is through a government negotiating for us.
People don't understand. People denigrate the government.
Over the last 40 years, we've lived in this country
under an ideology that says government is bad,
wealth creation is good. You know what the government is?
The government is like a lawyer who represents all of us. Right?
And-And... And rich people are not all good or all bad,
they way you or me or anybody else is all good or all bad.
But when rich people start to under--
make money by underpaying people, systemically,
make money by, frankly, avoiding taxation
in any way they can, hiding money,
make money by employing people insecurely--
-You're a contractor, you work at Uber, -Mm-hmm.
-but you don't really work at Uber-- -I get it. Right.
You do all of that, it's time for the advocate for all of us,
the government, to actually fight on our behalf.
But now, here's the thing.
There are many billionaires, right?
You say The Elite Charade of Changing the World,
but there are many billionaires who have come out publicly
and said, "Hey, we should be paying more tax
as billionaires. We want to be taxed higher."
You know, like Warren Buffet has come out many times saying,
"Guys, you know, my personal assistant pays
a higher tax rate than I do, which is not fair."
So if the billionaires are saying
we should be paying more tax,
then why would you say that it's a charade?
Or why do you say that, like, they're part of the problem?
Those billionaires are saying the right thing.
Now, what is interesting,
some of the people you mentioned,
if you double click on some
of what they actually do in their life,
what they do is, they say,
"We should pay higher income tax."
You know, they call their accountant immediately
when they're off the CNBC air,
and they say, "Hey, Bob. Just make sure
I have only wealth accumulation this year,
capital gains, no income increase.
'Cause you can do that when you're rich.
You can just shuffle things around.
So, you know, if you look at Warren Buffet and others,
they say higher income taxes,
but they don't have a lot of income,
'cause they, you know, put it over there
-in the investment pile. -Right. Your shares
give you the money and then it's taxed at a lower rate.
And I think what we don't realized in this country,
now we're heading into the election season,
and we're starting to have a bunch of candidates who,
in various ways, would at least gesture
to what I'm talking about, right?
Inequality's bad, we got to rebuild the middle class,
But part of why I wrote the book,
and part of why I hope it's relevant
as we head into the election is
a lot of the people who sound similar,
when they're talking about fixing this problem,
are actually quite different.
And I think of the book as a set of infrared lenses,
to actually understand who's peddling real change,
and who's peddling fake change.
Because you look at people who say,
"Gosh, we've got to rebuild the middle class."
But who also say, as Joe Biden did,
"You know, nothing's gonna fundamentally change
for the billionaires in this country."
I just have to say, that is an incoherent--
and I don't just mean rambling incoherent,
as is the Biden way--
but is an incoherent, intellectually incoherent theory
because in this moment-- I'm not saying all moments--
but in this moment, the people up above
are up above because they are stepping on people down below.
And the people down below are down below
-because they are being stepped on. -(cheering and applause)
And you cannot say
that I want to help the people down below
in a way that will change nothing
for the people standing on their necks
the same way you couldn't address feudal England,
you couldn't address the Downton Abbey world
without dealing with why the Granthams
are the only people who own that damn castle. So big.
Right? You couldn't deal with slavery
without making things worse for the white plantation owners.
You... There's no... You can't...
Frankly, look at the #MeToo world.
You can't make things better for women in this world
without, frankly, reducing the power of men
to-to have impunity in so many of the spaces
-you and I and everybody else operate in. -Right.
-(cheering and applause) -Real change
involves the loss of power.
And at the heart of this book is the idea
that there has been an ideology for the last 40 years
that is the ideology of win-win.
We can empower the least among us,
we can help people in Africa,
we can help people in Appalachia
and no one has to suffer.
The rich people don't have to pay any more taxes.
They don't have to be regulated anymore.
And it is a lie. It is a lie.
The only change worth doing
in a moment like this with such inequity is change
that will necessarily make the plutocrats less powerful.
The answer to a winners take all world
is, almost logically, a world in which the winners take less.
And, as you said,
they're not gonna sign up for that.
It's us acting together,
joining things, getting involved,
getting involved in democracy
that is gonna take change back from the charade.
(cheering and applause)
-A powerful statement. -Did I convince you yet?
That is a powerful, powerful statement,
and I think you're right,
but I will keep my billionaire friends.
-Thank you so much for being on the show. -Thanks for having me.
Winners Take All. Truly a fascinating book
that exposes the world we live in today.
It's available now. Anand Giridharadas, everybody.