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As retirement funds shrink, savings disappear and houses are foreclosed on, now is a good time to ask a question for which every human civilization has had an answer: why do things cost what they do? The Value of Nothing tracks down the reasons through history, philosophy, neuroscience and sociology, showing why prices are always at odds with the true value of the things that matter most to us.
Damien Hirst’s diamond-encrusted skull sold for a record $100 million at auction. But if we account for the possibility that blood diamonds were used (as many suspect), the human cost is even greater. A Big Mac might seem like the best deal in these economic times, but after analyzing the energy to produce each burger, from field to Happy Meal, Patel argues the real price tag is a whopping $200. But it is easiest to see the gap between price and value by looking at things that are so-called free. Examining everything from Google to TV, from love to thoughts, The Value of Nothing reveals the hidden social consequences of our global culture of “freedom.”
About the Author
RAJ PATEL was educated at Oxford, the London School of E conomics and Cornell University. He is currently a fellow at the Institute for Food and Development Policy in Oakland, California, a visiting researcher at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa and a visiting scholar at the Center for African Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. He has worked for the World Bank, interned at the WTO, consulted for the UN and been involved in international campaigns against his former employers. This is his first book.
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Most helpful customer reviews
64 of 68 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
A witty dissection and reexamination of free market society,
By
This review is from: The Value Of Nothing (Hardcover)
Patel has written a lucid, entertaining, and radical book that re-examines our relationship and dependence on free market economics. In the first part of this short book, Patel gives an extremely well written history of free market economics, the philosophy behind it, and its implementation and growth around the world. His explanation of the recent recession and the causes are brilliantly woven into this narrative and made simple to understand by those who may not know much about financial capital and market mechanisms.The main thrust of his book seems to be that in putting all of our trust in the free market to create value in things (environment, human life, labour, food, land, information) we have actually become completely blind to their true value. He puts forth the idea that we need to take a step back from market ideology and look at other ways of valuing things, of understand what is property, what can be owned, what can be bought and sold. The free market misses many costs through corporations externalizing many of their operating costs onto the rest of society. For example, the costs of pollution get pushed onto the environment, the costs of health care for their employees are pushed onto government and thus onto the tax base, and so on. If these costs were truly incorporated, everything would be a lot more expensive. The second half of the book dives deep into a plethora of different global issues, all examined under the rubric of this re-evaluation of value and property and the cobra-like stranglehold the market has on our ideas of these two things. I found the second half to a bit disjointed in its wide scope from witches to shackdwellers to climate change to food security to open-source software. Patel does manage to tie things together, but not as well as he could have. Considering how well he dismantled the idea of free market ideology in the first part of the book, I didn't think he did as well as a job of filling that vacuum with the narratives and information in the second half. Patel's vision of the future has markets of need, not profit, and includes participatory democracy and a take-back of the commons and the idea that certain things are meant to be public and not private. As he says near the end of the book, "what needs to plucked out of us is the belief that markets are the only way to value the world." Those that have read Bill McKibben's Deep Economy or Paul Hawken's The Ecology of Commerce will have much to love in this book.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
3.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews) 1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Stimulates thinking and evaluating,
By Doris E. Reichert "Whatawonderful worldit cou... - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Value Of Nothing (Hardcover)
Some good points in the book but I do not agree with everything he writes.Oh yes I would give the book to my Grandchild and then start to discuss about it. I find the book has too many examples,"verzettelt" therefore a bit confusing, and too one-sided to prove his point. Overall: Too much to the left, yet a good and valuable book to read. 2 of 5 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing Read,
By Graham White "Graham" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Value Of Nothing (Hardcover)
I watched the author speak about this book on a morning Canadian TV show and it sounded interesting, so I bought it. In the interview he mentioned how a Big Mac, after adding in all the hidden costs relating to the energy and pollution costs from cow to table, is actually around $200. This part is covered in a few short pages in the book. He mentions that "Pesticide contamination, nutrient runoff and greenhouse gas emissions are compounding the environmental debt of industrialised agriculture" and I agree. This argument is expanded on somewhat. He tells the interesting story of the Volkswagen share price defying gravity during the recent economic meltdown, causing short sellers to panic and endure great losses. However,in its entirity the book is far too academic and philosophical for the average reader, in my opinion. It does make some interesting points but takes too long to make many of them.
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