Family Life: The Value of Nothing

It only matters if it has a price. It only matters if it makes money…

I was listening to KRCL’s Radioactive yesterday on my way to pick up a friend and the conversation really hit home with me. Author, Raj Patel, was on discussing his book, The Value of Nothing. Intelligent, articulate and passionate. He was riveting.

The subtitle of his book is “How to reshape market society and redefine democracy”. Now, I love a good save the world book but have started to tune out all of the voices that implore us to change now or fear for the future. Not that their points aren’t valid, but our family is also in survival mode and it’s hard to think on a grand scale when meeting the basics dominates my landscape.

But this man had my attention. He gave a brief history on the science of economics and how our capitalist system relies heavily on subsidization from taxpayers, the land and here was the real kicker, women’s work. My favorite example involved some research out of India where they calculated the real cost of a hamburger. Including environmental pollution and the effects on the health of the eater and the burden on the health care system the average hamburger should cost something like $200 up front. But instead we buy it cheaply, subsidized by these other systems and pass the bill off to someone else.

Homo-Economicus was his prototype. This model of 19th century capitalism, which is what our current system still operates under, is the quintessential Corporation. Mr. C, we’ll call him, operates solely on greed and self interest and the desire to accumulate more. According to psychologists if Mr. C were an actual person (who the Supreme Court just decided he was by granting corporations the same rights as people) he would by a psychopath. Unable to consider other people’s needs, cheating when he could, disloyal in all relationships, he is pretty much the opposite of who we really are.

People are by nature and necessity cooperative. We need each other to be productive and happy. It’s an easy concept. We are all connected. Family life in particular thrives or withers on these ideas.

Ok, ok, I know this is a lot and if you’ve read this far, WooHoo! I guess my point is that all of this talk about the economy and restructuring and raising the GDP and making America “productive” again is just lame. I’m afraid that nothing will change from this economic meltdown. Politics will continue on as usual. Families will continue to get short end of the stick.

What does this have to do with photography?  Haha.  Well, everyone constantly asks us “How is business?”  I’m guessing they’re really asking, “How much money are you making?”  It’s Hard, because I want to tell people that we really believe in what we do beyond simply paying the mortgage.  First off, we get to be creative and express ourselves.  Photographing families and the important rituals in people’s lives means a lot to us because we really believe in the value of family.  In documenting those relationships through an artistic vision and creating something that will hang on the wall of the home, we further elevate the importance of those connections, of Family.  Wedding photography is more than documenting an event.  Junior’s 4-year old birthday portrait reinforces the important place he holds in the family.  It’s a cool thing.

Raj Patel has my attention and I wonder if any of his ideas will deliver on his big promise to create a more sustainable society.  What do you think?

This entry was posted on Friday, January 29th, 2010 at 11:50 am and is filed under A Day In the Life and tagged with family life, Raj Patel, The Value of Nothing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.