http://rajpatel.org/2009/10/27/the-value-of-nothing/

1 The flaw

Not just blackswan

Volkswagon short-squeeze that brought its market cap above the buyer.

Goldman, AIG, 

Polanyi's myth of the self-regulating market, Capitalism relies on social institutions

Anton's blindness- our faith in the markets betray us

2. Homo-economicus

mill's monster

Behavioral economics: human have tendency to be collaborative, altruism, and fairness. Gratitude.

Pursuit of wealth leads not to happiness.

Luxury positional goods creates inequality.  Rich vs poor gap widens.

GDP vs Happiness index.

Psychological well-being is a source of both generosity and happiness.

3. Corporation

Corporation is the perfect cold-hearted monster.

Big Mac and social subsidy. Real cost of a burger.

pesticide contamination. 

Ecological debt: China's water contamination.

Free phone, free TV: getting people hooked like drugs.  Real social cost hidden.

Cost of free: Windows free giveaways to display Linux distro in Africa. Baby formula to replace African mothers via aggressive ad campaign of lies.

When there is sufficient resource for everyone, the market makes money by creating shortages and force some people not to be able to pay for it.

4. On diamond and water

Adam Smith warns the hedonic treadmill, and explains the value in use (functional) and value in exchange.

Labor: low productivity doesn't mean higher prices.

Keynes paradox of thrift. Stock market as picking what you think others think what others think ... will be picked.  Gov't to kick start a stucked economy.

5. Anti-economic man

Malaria: enough for everyone. But market will rather have higher prices and fewer saved lives. For education, even free isn't enough. Need nudge to encourage people to take the benefit.

Merging of govt and private interst is bad. (Blackwater). South Sea Bubble.

Hamilton's millionaires' clubs running the country.

Counter-movement: people in govt are also part of the economics.  Minorities risk persecution.

Moral philosophers solution:

Hobbes Leviathan: a strong government

Rousseau's artificial people, a spirit that eats away people and insatiable: multinational corporations.

6. Commons

Hardin's tragedy of the commons.

Actually people learns to cooperate in the fisheries. It is the corporations that settles for the tragedy, ruining the future livelihood of the local people.

Magna Carta, Locke's life, liberty and estate, Property as social: Marks, Napoleonic code. Europeans taking over American Indians. European nations dividing up Africa.  

Witchhunts used by govt as diversions from the real issue.

Part 2. 

7. Under capitalism, money is the Right to have rights.

Political will:

passivity of the majority is what allows the powerful to rule.

society reclaims power from the market through demand.

La Via Campesina: When a woman cannot sell her food in teh market because teh subsidized alternative from teh European Union is cheaper, that is  a kind of violence.

Private companies don't care if they are shamed publicly. Yet continue to ask for bailout.

CIW win victory for tomato workers by boycotting Taco Bell.

8. The city

women marched and demanded prices to be lower. gain right to vote.

shackdwellers activists win back dignity.

Opportunity cost: illustration with ticket to Dylan vs Clapton.

Larry Summer's argument: the rich are willing to pay more than the poor for environment, so toxic waste is best dump in poor nations.

Poor mothers value their children no less.

Yet market principle: more money you have, the more you can get.

Only way to break free: people stop being consumers in teh market and become the authors of their lives, political subjects who both preside over resources and develop democratic ways of sharing them.

Participatory budgeting for communities.

Freedom: open source, wikipedia

9. Food sovereinty

Owning air:  carbon tax/credit is not sufficient to trim pollution.

Big polluters will have a strong revenue stream of selling their credits.  Trading caps will move the tax collection from govt to private hedge fund managers.

Solving the food problem can lead to solution to the environment: local food leads to less pollution.

India sanghams for female farmers: community to store and develop biodiversity seeds for borrowing.

Answer is not a democracy run by experts, but the democratization fo expertise and resources.

10. 

Atlas Shrugged has been a false fantasy.

Handing the pollution problem to capitalism is asking iceberg to fix the Titanic.

Monetary transactions can be a social toxin: leaving money for a lover in payment for sex is the day the relationship ends.

Our task is not just to remove the taint of money, but remove corporatism from govt, and consumerism from our politics.

Examples everywhere.

Buddist Marxists.

Athenians is an overused example of democracy.

Mexican Zaptistas and Junta community: wholistic envirnomental and communal.

Need to talk about our issues.  Nothing is perfect. Continue to develop it.

Need markets driven by need, not profit.  

Resources and power into the hands of a few will destroy democracy.

Need a more plastic idea of property, subordinate to democratic concerns of equity and sustainability. (ex. Open Source movement, credit unions.)

Our happiness cannot come from its solitary pursuit, but from the liberty of living togeher and engaging in the democratic politics that will help us value our common future.