The Value of Nothing Quotes

“Agricultural sustainability doesn't depend on agritechnology. To believe it does is to put the emphasis on the wrong bit of 'agriculture.' What sustainability depends on isn't agri- so much as culture.”
― Raj Patel, The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy

“If war is gods way of teaching geography to Americans, then recession is his way of teaching little economics to everyone”
― Raj Patel, The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy

“the politics behind witch hunts concerns a new vision of the world, where women who insisted on their rights to value land, to their freedom to common, had no place.14 It was in their defense of commoning that women were killed as witches.”
― Raj Patel, The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy

“and making excuses when they fail spectacularly, is no less a confabulation”
― Raj Patel, The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy

“studies are beginning to show that our ability to appreciate the intrinsic value of generosity, sharing and selflessness is central to maximizing our well-being. MAKING HOMO ECONOMICUS HAPPY When this theory is applied to people, Becker argues that we become Homo economicus in a very specific way: Everyone is a producer of his or her own happiness. We obtain our own utility, to use his language, “through the productive activity of combining purchased market goods and services with some of the house hold’s own time.”
― Raj Patel, The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy

“egoism would lead to the best of all possible worlds, and that any form of restraint would result in disaster.”
― Raj Patel, The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy