[act-ma] 1/11 The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy (Mon)

[Randall Smith]

The Value of Nothing:  How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine
Democracy talk by Raj Patel

with NPR's On Point producer John Wihbey

DATE:  	Monday, January 11th
TIME: 	6:00 PM
LOCATION: 	Brattle Theatre
40 Brattle Street
Cambridge
TICKETS: 	$5 tickets are ON SALE NOW, and are available for
purchase online at harvard.com, at Harvard Book Store, and over the
phone with a credit card (617.661.1515).  

For more info or to buy tickets go to http://bit.ly/5yoHbe

Harvard Book Store is excited to welcome activist RAJ PATEL for a
conversation about his new book, The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape
Market Society and Redefine Democracy, with radio's On Point producer,
JOHN WIHBEY.

In The Value of Nothing, Raj Patel, a long-time visionary in issues of
global development, points to the inadequecy of price as a measure of
value, and urges us to look at the larger environmental, political, and
social cost of the goods we consume. The 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, 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 an
accessible way to think about economics and the choices we will all need
to make in order to create a sustainable economy and society. 

"As we confront the crisis in the worldview of orthodox economics, Raj
Patel offers us a whole new way to think about price and value.
Bracingly written and full of surprises, The Value of Nothing is itself
invaluable, showing us a path out of the darkness of the economic
woods." -Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food and The Omnivore's
Dilemma 

Raj Patel, the author of Stuffed and Starved, is an activist and
academic who has been hailed as "a visionary" for his prescience about
the food crisis.  Raj has worked for the World Bank and the World Trade
Organization and has protested against them on four continents.  He is
currently 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.  In 2009 he
joined the advisory board of Corporate Accountability International's
Value [the] Meal campaign to "hold the fast food industry accountable
for a range of abuses that are making children sick"

John Wihbey produces segments and blogs for On Point, with a focus on
politics, the environment, and foreign policy. He worked as a reporter
for The Star-Ledger in New Jersey, where he covered environmental and
land use issues and dug up off-beat features. He has also written for
USA Today, The Huffington Post, Boston Magazine online, and the Yale
Climate Media Forum.
 
------------------------
 
Randall Smith
Senior Recruitment Organizer
 
Corporate Accountability International
http://www.StopCorporateAbuse.org 
(617) 695-2525