If part one asks how we can rebalance society and limit markets, part two answers by showing how social organizations, in America and around the globe, are finding new ways to describe the world’s worth. If we don’t want the market to price every aspect of our lives, we need to learn how such organizations have discovered democratic ways in which people, and not simply governments, can play a crucial role in deciding how we might share our world and its resources in common.

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, 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.

Available where good books are sold. Find The Value of Nothing online at: Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Noble, Borders, & IndieBound.

Praise for Raj Patel, The Value of Nothing

“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 The Omnivore’s Dilemma

“With The Value of Nothing, Raj Patel has done something of great value: in language utterly clear, concise, literate, and engaging, he takes readers through the murk and mess of the economy’s collapse. He shows the hows and whys, how we seem bent on a repeat (no real substantive changes to the practices that got us where we are, at the policy level), but also how we, in our communities, if not larger concerted efforts, have some power to right the course. What Raj Patel did so brilliantly with food in Stuffed and Starved, he now does so with money and the economy.”

- Rick Simonson, Elliott Bay Book Company

“In this riveting eye-opener of a book, Patel dismantles with great fluidity and precision the reigning theory of the free market and its applications: how it creates in our global society deep inequalities of power, based solely on the diktat that our fundamental needs (water, decent food, housing, health care) are worthless because not profitable, and thus leading to economic chaos and a loss of community empowerment. But there is also hope in the emergence of social groups around the world who are insisting and reclaiming ‘the right to have rights’ through their democratic engagement. Patel brilliantly shows us how both a fairer society and a sustainable economy are possible as long as we are willing to seize back our freedom to choose from colluding governments and corporations. The Value of Nothing should be required reading for any self-respecting citizen of the world.”

- Marie du Vaure, Vroman’s Bookstore

“With great lucidity and confidence in a dazzling array of fields, Patel reveals how we inflate the cost of things we can (and often should) live without, while assigning absolutely no value to the resources we all need to survive. This is a deeply thought-provoking book about the dramatic changes we must make to save the planet from financial madness — argued with so much humor 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. A brilliant book.”

- Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine

“It’s only January 2010, and we already have a candidate for the most important book of the year. Raj Patel’s The Value of Nothing takes aim at the conservative orthodoxy that has dominated American politics and economics for the last several decades, and he scores a direct hit.”

- Bill Petrocelli, Book Passage

From seed to store to plate, Stuffed and Starved explains the steps to regain control of the global food economy, stop the exploitation of farmers and consumers, and rebalance global sustenance.

Available where good books are sold. Find Stuffed & Starved online at: Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Noble, Borders, and IndieBound.

International Covers

Praise for Raj Patel, Stuffed and Starved

“One of the most dazzling books I have read in a very long time. The product of a brilliant mind and a gift to a world hungering for justice.”

- Naomi Klein, author of No Logo and The Shock Doctrine

Agrarian reform is back at the center of the national and rural development debate, a debate of vital importance to the future of the Global South and genuine economic democracy. The World Bank as well as a number of national governments and local land owning elites have weighed in with a series of controversial policy changes. In response, peasants landless, and indigenous peoples’ organizations around the world have intensified their struggle to redistribute land from the underutilized holdings of a wealthy few to the productive hands of the many.

The essays in this volume, edited by scholars from the Land Research Action Network (LRAN), critically analyze a wide range of competing visions of land reform. PROMISED LAND is an essential resource for academics, students, policy makers, activists, and peasant organizations.

Order your copy today!

Praise for Raj Patel, Promise Land

“A pathbreaking volume that provides a compelling critique of the current market-led reforms promoted by the likes of the World Bank…. This is a state-of-the-art analysis coupled with a rich and sophisticated account of on-the-ground experiences and struggles. A tour de force.”

- Michael Watts, Class of ‘63 Professor, and director of African Studies,
University of California, Berkeley

“Written from the perspective of civil society actors themselves, [Promised Land] is a powerful argument for the need to develop food sovereignty, strengthen local communities, and build transnational connections in the fight against inequality, poverty, and rural violence.”

- Wendy Wolford, coauthor of To Inherit the Earth:
The Landless Movement and the Struggle for a New Brazil.

“This book should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand and contribute to the contemporary struggle for agrarian reform around the world.”

- Rafael Alegria, coordinator,
Global Campaign for Agrarian Reform, La Via Campesina

From FoodFirst.org:

The World’s farmers can feed the world, but only if they can gain control of their lands and food systems. Forty years ago, the global South had yearly agricultural trade surpluses of $1 billion. After three decades of so called development, they are now importing $11 billion a year in food.

International trade agreements opened up the dumping of cheap, subsidized grain from the North, putting local farmers out of business, devastating local crop diversity, and consolidating control of the world’s food system in the hands of multinational corporations. Official plans to solve the world food crisis call for more subsidies for industrialized nations, more food aid, and more green (read gene) revolutions. These solutions will only increase the number of hungry people.

Solutions to truly address rising hunger include re-regulate the market, reduce the power of the agri-foods industrial complex, and build ecologically resilient family agriculture.

To view lead author, Eric Holt-Giménez reading from the book go here

Press release

Praise for Raj Patel, Food Rebellions

“In this very timely book, two of the world’s most prominent critics of the global food system, Eric Holt-Giménez and Raj Patel, dissect the causes of hunger and the food price crisis, locating them in a political economy of capitalist industrial production dominated by corporations and driven by the search for profits for the few instead of the welfare of the many. The picture that emerges is a political economy of global production that is failing badly in terms of feeding the world and is itself contributing to the spread of inequalities that promote hunger.”

- Walden Bello, senior analyst at Focus on the Global South, Bangkok

“The 20th century was the century of technological revolutions. This century is that of the knowledge revolution, and Eric Holt-Giménez and Raj Patel are in its vanguard. At long last, a book which confronts the real issues: how do we reform our food systems to avoid environmental disaster, how do we recapture the production and distribution of food from the tyranny of unchecked markets. This book is vital reading for all concerned with the right to food. ”

- Olivier de Shutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food

“The high and mighty proponents of free trade speak for the interests of multinational corporations when they try to stifle the economic policies that empower peasants, family farmers, and farm workers to grow healthy supplies of food while protecting Mother Earth. Rather than continue down the path that led to today’s economic, environmental, and social catastrophe, Food Rebellions! calls on us to raise our voices in rebellion, join together, and place sustainable production and rural economic opportunity at the base of our recovery efforts.”

- George Naylor, former president of the National Family Farm Coalition—USA

“Food Rebellions! is a tour de force! Not only does it describe the corporate assault on the human right to food in all of its political, economic, cultural and environmental dimensions, it also documents the many ways rural and urban people are actively building alternative food systems to defend their land, water, seeds and livelihoods. These social movements and this inspiring book could not have come at a better time. In the face of multiple global crises, the growing local and international trends toward food sovereignty provide us with the hope we need to build a just and sustainable future.”

- Paul Nicholson, Ehne (Basque Farmers’ Union) and Via Campesina

“Small-scale farming systems spread widely across Africa are a social and ecological asset. As Food Rebellions! demonstrates, planting indigenous trees and using traditional farming methods enhances environmental conservation and preserves local biodiversity. At a time of economic crisis, sustainable agriculture and the economic empowerment it can generate will be key to the survival of the many African families headed by women.”

- Professor Wangari Maathai, Nobel Prize winner and author of The Challenge For Africa, published by Heinemann

“Hunger is a global scandal. I would call it a global structure of sin! Claiming to solve world hunger with the industrial age’s solutions the corporations of the world really only structure the world for more hunger, poverty and misery. This book, Food Rebellion! provides an analysis that is clear, documented and searing in its challenge to the powers that be. It provides solutions appropriate to our ecological age and to a new era of food democracy and food sovereignty. It reflects the vision of those most affected by the food crisis. I strongly endorse this book and I hope that it gets a wide readership. More importantly, I hope that it gets the support of the nations of the world suffering from hunger and poverty. It provides insight that comes from the people directly suffering from hunger and poverty. They have a right to be heard.”

- Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, President, 63rd General Assembly of the United Nations

“Food Rebellions! demonstrates the imperative to protect and enhance the multifaceted knowledge, practices, and lands of sustainable farmers. Contrary to some views, sustainable food systems are most helpful to the poor, especially the rural poor, who suffer the most from the dire social and ecological effects of industrial agriculture. Absent perverse subsidies to agrifood industries, what is good for farmers is also good for eaters and citizens. Holt-Giménez and Patel contribute to an urgent awakening, supported by practical experiments and expert reports, to the necessity and possibility for transforming food systems. “Like cracks in the asphalt,” solutions to global food crisis can restore resilient food systems across the world.”

- Harriet Friedman, PhD, University of Toronto

“Food Rebellions! situates with accuracy and precision the true meaning, causes and dynamics of what is commonly referred to as the “global food crisis.” It shows how skewed and dysfunctional the global food system is, and how the concentration of market power by a handful of transnational corporations translates to power over land, water, food and indeed, over life itself. In Part One, the authors trace with startling clarity the history of hunger and poverty to north-south politics of domination, and gender and class inequalities. They compel us to confront the questions: who is hungry, and why? But all is not gloom and doom. In Part Two, the authors inspire us with examples of creative and constructive resistance by food producers and workers against the capitalist driven food system and propose strategies for transforming the food system —strategies that are practical and well within the reach of anyone concerned with social and political justice. If Food Rebellions does not make food rights activist of its readers, I don’t know what will. This is a truly remarkable book.”

- Shalmali Guttal, Senior Associate, Focus on the Global South

If you do not live in the U.S. or Canada, you can order this book from our publishing partner, Fahamu Books at http://fahamubooks.org

From World Bank Publications

A multi-country research initiative to understand poverty from the eyes of the poor, the Voices of the Poor project was undertaken to inform the World Bank’s activities and the upcoming World Development Report 2000/01.

Voices of the Poor provides a unique and detailed picture of the life of the poor and explains the constraints poor people face to escape from poverty in a way that more traditional survey techniques do not capture well. Each of the three volumes demonstrates the importance of voice and power in poor people’s definition of poverty. Voices of the Poor concludes that we need to expand our conventional views of poverty which focus on income expenditure, education, and health to include measures of voice and empowerment.

Can Anyone Hear Us? gathers the voices of over 40,000 poor women and men in 50 countries from the World Bank’s participatory poverty assessments (Deepa Narayan, Raj Patel, Kai Schafft, Anne Rademacher, and Sarah Koch-Schulte, authors).

A copublication of the World Bank and Oxford University Press.