Includes index.

The author examines the "gilded age" of the twenty-first century, where the rich and powerful fight for equality and justice any way they can - except ways that threaten the social order and their position atop it. The affluent rebrand themselves as saviors of the poor and lavishly reward "thought leaders" who redefine "change" in winner-friendly ways, seeking to do more good, but never less harm. The author recounts the limousine confessions of a celebrated foundation boss, spotlights an American president who hems and haws about his plutocratic benefactors, and explores a cruise-ship conference where entrepreneurs celebrate their own self-interested magnanimity. The author asks why some of the gravest problems should be solved by an unelected upper crust instead of public institutions. He also offers an answer to this conundrum: rather than relying on scraps from the winners, the people must take on the grueling democratic work of building more robust, egalitarian institutions.--adapted from dust jacket.