Via Buzz:
"This is a deeply thought-provoking book about the dramatic changes we must make to save the planet from financial madness -- argued with so much humor and humanity that the enormous tasks ahead feel both doable and desirable." -- Naomi Klein, "The Shock Doctrine"
Widely Praised as a Transformative Progressive Vision: "The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy" (Paperback)
Raj Patel
BuzzFlash.com's Review (excerpt)
“With great lucidity and confidence in a dazzling array of fields, Patel reveals how we inflate the cost of things we can (and often should) live without, while assigning absolutely no value to the resources we all need to survive. This is a deeply thought-provoking book about the dramatic changes we must make to save the planet from financial madness -- argued with so much humor and humanity that the enormous tasks ahead feel both doable and desirable. This is Raj Patel's great gift: he makes even the most radical ideas seem not only reasonable, but inevitable. A brilliant book.”--Naomi Klein, author The Shock Doctrine
"As we confront the crisis in the worldview of orthodox economics, Raj Patel offers us a whole new way to think about price and value. Bracingly written and full of surprises, The Value of Nothing is itself invaluable, showing us a path out of the darkness of the economic woods."--Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food and The Omnivore's Dilemma
From Publishers Weekly:
Starred 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."
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