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Summary
Summary
"A deeply though-provoking book about the dramatic changes we must make to save the planet from financial madness."--Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine
Opening with Oscar Wilde's observation that "nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing," Patel shows how our faith in prices as a way of valuing the world is misplaced. He reveals the hidden ecological and social costs of a hamburger (as much as $200), and asks how we came to have markets in the first place. Both the corporate capture of government and our current financial crisis, Patel argues, are a result of our democratically bankrupt political system.
If part one asks how we can rebalance society and limit markets, part two answers by showing how social organizations, in America and around the globe, are finding new ways to describe the world's worth. If we don't want the market to price every aspect of our lives, we need to learn how such organizations have discovered democratic ways in which people, and not simply governments, can play a crucial role in deciding how we might share our world and its resources in common.
This short, timely and inspiring book reveals that our current crisis is not simply the result of too much of the wrong kind of economics. While we need to rethink our economic model, Patel argues that the larger failure beneath the food, climate and economic crises is a political one. If economics is about choices, Patel writes, it isn't often said who gets to make them. The Value of Nothing offers a fresh and accessible way to think about economics and the choices we will all need to make in order to create a sustainable economy and society.
Author Notes
Raj Patel , the author of Stuffed and Starved , is an activist and academic who has been hailed as "a visionary" for his prescience about the food crisis. Raj has worked for the World Bank and the World Trade Organization and has protested against them on four continents. He is currently a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley's Center for African Studies, an Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Development Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and a fellow at the Institute for Food and Development Policy, also known as Food First.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Expanding on his analysis and recommendations in Stuffed and Starved, which located the horrifying imbalance in the world's food system in its profit-driven framework, activist and academic Patel critiques "free market culture" at a moment of universal crisis, both economic and environmental. Beginning with a historically grounded account of market society's operative assumptions, "the way capitalism sets the terms of value," Patel takes aim at the notion of "Homo economicus": a vision of human beings as self-interested utility-maximizers integral to market society's dollar-valuation of everything. Through a shrewd and absorbing discussion, Patel exposes the flaws in the "model of the world in which people are... prepared to override their own better judgment in service of their selfish natures" and the nominal separation of the economy and the state, describing the relationship as compromised but also more "plastic" then we are often led to believe. With due attention to the developing world as well as Europe and North America, the author offers examples of the "countermovement" underway and urges us to build on a vision of ourselves far more extensive, generous and hopeful than that confined to market society's Homo economicus. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
A social scientist and activist makes a case for setting limits on our free-market society. Patel (Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System, 2008) aims to shake readers out of complacent acceptance of the free-market economy, which has recently gone awry, with devastating consequences. Rather than hoping for a business-as-usual recovery, he writes, we must find new ways of valuing the world other than pricing it and letting the free market sort it out. Patel begins by tracing the roots of the market economy to the works of writers ranging from 19th-century political economist John Stuart Mill to 1992 Nobel laureate in economics Gary Becker, who argues that allowing the market to reign will ensure society's well-being. Patel derides Becker's work as encouraging policies that favor the powerful, notably corporations, which seek only to maximize profits and wind up creating significant social costs (degraded ecosystems, etc.) that society must bear. Noting that recent research indicates that humans have built-in desires for altruism and fairness as well as selfishness, the author describes innovative efforts to create a more compassionate society by such groups as La Via Campesina, an international peasant movement that supports family-farmbased sustainable agriculture. "From food rebellions to free software," he writes, "social movements are at the cutting edge of practical politics and economics, trying to create new ways to control the world without owning it." A tireless advocate for the developing world, Patel urges readers to consider a new vision of society based on an ethic of stewardship that subordinates property and markets to democratic concerns of equity and sustainability. Much of Patel's thinking is informed by a Buddhist world view that places the real value of something not on its ability to meet a desire or craving, but to meet the need for well-being. A pleasing invitation to act on our most benign impulses to create a sustainable future. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Choice Review
The Value of Nothing is a study of the social, cultural, and economic deficiencies created by overreliance on markets, together with a call for more cooperative forms of organization. Obviously, such a book describes inequities, such as people's lack of access to sufficient food or clean water, but it also includes a very positive message. Patel, an academic, an activist, a blogger , and the author of Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System (2008), is able to draw upon his broad international experience to weave together stories and examples of how people have been able to come together to improve their conditions. The result is not just readable but also entertaining. This book deserves the highest recommendation for library acquisition. Few people will be unable to benefit from it. The book is easily accessible to undergraduates, who will no doubt be impressed by its breadth. Even advanced scholars will find some new material here, although the book is designed for a broad audience. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels. M. Perelman California State University, Chico
Library Journal Review
Patel (visiting scholar, Ctr. for African Studies, Univ. of California, Berkeley; Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System) lays bare the social, political, and environmental damage caused by free markets and the commoditization of every facet of any market society. Such commoditization allows corporations to despoil the earth for short-term profit and has encouraged at least one economist to argue that antibigamy laws restrain the economic rights of ugly people by eliminating them as second spouses in the marriage marketplace. Markets, Patel declares, are a human construct and can be overthrown by humans; social rights to political participation, democratization, and popular control over the "commons"-air, soil, and water-offer the only viable alternative to the rape-and-pillage mentality of the market. VERDICT Patel debunks the myth that markets are the perfect form of social organization, effectively arguing that the tyranny they exert can and must be replaced by strategies benefiting all humanity and ensuring our very survival. This work is written calmly and sensibly enough that it could change some readers' minds, although it will leave free-market apologists spluttering. Highly recommended.-Duncan Stewart, Univ. of Iowa Libs., Iowa City (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.