Raj Patel urges NUPGE delegates to organize

“We can rebalance society and limit markets. Organizations around the world are finding new and exciting ways to describe the world’s worth.”

Vancouver (Jun 19 2010) – International best-selling author Raj Patel spoke to the delegates at the 2010 Triennial Convention of the National Union of Public and General Employees on his latest book, the Value of Nothing, and on the need for organizing.

He started with discussing the admission by former head of the US Federal Treasury that he had “found a flaw in the system.”

Patel said that unfortunately the media tried to portray the comment as almost a human interest story “poor Allan Greenspan got it wrong – oh well.”

But Patel argues that the comment is far more revealing.

“In it one of the chief architects of the past couple decades of economic policy admits that his model of how an economy should work was wrong.”

Patel then went on to explain that “our faith in prices as a way of valuing the world is misplaced. The hidden ecological and social costs of something like a hamburger are much greater than most people are aware.”

“Much of those hidden costs are unpaid women’s work. The entire system is based on the exploitation of people and the environment.”

When it comes to the recent economic crisis he placed much of the blame for it on the breakdown in democratic institutions.

“Many try to point to this or that failure as the cause. They say things like ‘If only the US had regulated… well regulated pretty much anything.”

“But that ignores what I think is the real problem. The corporate capture of government and our current financial crisis are the result of our democratically bankrupt political system.”

Patel doesn’t see a bleak future though if people like the National Union delegates start organizing.

“The right wing is organizing in an unprecedented way. We can rebalance society and limit markets. Organizations around the world are finding new and exciting 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.”

NUPGE

The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) is one of Canada's largest labour organizations with over 340,000 members. Our mission is to improve the lives of working families and to build a stronger Canada by ensuring our common wealth is used for the common good. NUPGE