AlterNet: There's No Such Thing as a Free Market -- Just a Matter of Who Pays for It

AlterNet / By Terrence McNally and Raj Patel

There's No Such Thing as a Free Market -- Just a Matter of Who Pays for It
Raj Patel argues that the corporate capture of government and our current financial crisis are the result of our bankrupt political system.

February 19, 2010 |


Raj Patel opens his new book, The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy, with Oscar Wilde’s observation that “nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.” Patel shows how our faith in prices as a way of valuing the world is misplaced. Revealing the hidden ecological and social costs of a hamburger -- as much as $200 -- he asks how we came to have markets in the first place. Both the corporate capture of government and our current financial crisis, Patel argues, are a result of our bankrupt political system. Searching for solutions, Patel goes back to basics in both economics and politics.

Raj Patel has worked for the World Bank and WTO and been tear-gassed on four continents protesting against them. He is a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley’s Center for African Studies, a researcher at the School of Development Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, a fellow at the Institute for Food and Development Policy (Food First) and the author of Stuffed and Starved. Though recently heralded as the Maitreya (or chosen one) by members of Share International, Patel protests he's just an ordinary bloke.

Terry McNally: You have worked for and protested against some of the same organizations. Tell us a bit about your path.

Raj Patel: I’m a child of imperialism, or as it’s more recently called, globalization. My family was scattered to the winds: my father was born in Fiji, my mother in Kenya, and I grew up in Britain. I’ve long been concerned about the links between different places, and how to fight poverty in those places. I was lucky enough, being born in a diaspora community, to be taken to the global south a great deal and to spend time staring poverty in the face. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/economy/145726/there%27s_no_such_thing_as_a_free_market_--_just_a_matter_of_who_pays_for_it

Would have rec'd it if I could.