On this Lit Show, Raj Patel discusses his book The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy. Patel is a journalist, activist, and academic who takes on big-picture problems like food crises, financial industry corruption, and the global degradation of ecosystems. His first book, Stuffed and Starved, unfolded a haunting portrait of the world food system’s failures, and offered a canny set of solutions that ranged from policy suggestions to changes in personal eating habits. He learned about global economies through his work with both the World Trade Organization and the World Bank, though he has since protested both organizations all over the world. Currently, he is 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. The Utne Reader has named him one of “50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World.”
Patel’s latest book confronts the issues that are hot-button in America’s homes today: health care, bailouts, climate change, Goldman Sachs. In its large-scale criticism of market-based thinking, the book traces the genesis of grave financial, humanitarian, and ecological crises, shows how we arrived where we are, and offers insight on how we might move towards better future. Naomi Klein has called The Value of Nothing a “deeply thought provoking book about the dramatic changes we must make to save the planet from financial madness—argued with such humor and humanity that the enormous tasks ahead feel both doable and desirable.”
Complete Interview and Reading:
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