Abstract

This work reviews and relates relevant information from the book. A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet. In this book the authors trace how seven essential ‘things” were made cheap by capitalism, pushing the closer to environmental catastrophe. The seven ‘things’ investigated by Patel and Moore are nature, money, work, care, food, energy and lives. The authors examine the history of each ‘cheap’ thing and way capitalism has rendered it a commodity and then cheap. The authors employ the term ‘cheap not in a colloquial sense, by cheap they argue each of the seven items have been devalued and debased by capitalism in order to be exploited.