-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.
