Short description
Using fundamental economics and neuroeconomics, this book shows how the price we pay for everything from food, to handbags, to fridges, to entertainment, is systematically distorted.
Long description
Credit has crunched, debt has turned toxic, the gears of the world economy have ground to a halt. It's now clear that the market doesn't only get it wrong about sub-prime mortgages, it gets it wrong about everything. We need to ask again one of the most fundamental questions a society ever addresses, and one to which very few people know or understand the answer: Why do things cost what they do? Radical, original, nimbly argued, The Value of Nothing uses some fundamental but forgotten economics and some cutting-edge neuroeconomics to show how the price we pay for everything from food, to handbags, to fridges, to entertainment, is systematically distorted. After reading this book, the question 'How much?' should never just be about the price on the sticker.
Review
'A deeply thought-provoking book about the dramatic changes we must make to save the planet from financial madness - argued with so much humour 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. Brilliant.' Naomi Klein