Opening with Oscar Wilde’s scrutiny that “nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing,” Patel shows how our trust in prices as a way of valuing the world is gone astray. He reveals the unseen ecological and social expenses of a hamburger (as much as $200), and asks how we came to have markets in the first place. Both the company capture of government and our current financial crisis, Patel argues, are a result of our democratically insolvent political system. 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, Raj 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. win a copy of it to know the real value of things for which you are spending for.