The Value of Everything

'A stimulating analysis of the underlying causes of inequality and growth which forces us to confront long-held beliefs about how economies work and who benefits' Martin Wolf, Financial TimesWho really creates wealth in our world? And how do we decide the value of what they do? In modern capitalism, value-extraction - the siphoning off of profits, from shareholders' dividends to bankers' bonuses - is rewarded more highly than value-creation- the productive process that drives a healthy economy and society. We misidentify takers as makers, and have lost sight of what value really means. Yet, argues Mariana Mazzucato in this penetrating and passionate book, if we are to reform capitalism we urgently need to rethink where wealth comes from. Who is creating it, who is extracting it, and who is destroying it? The Value of Everything will reignite a long-needed debate about the kind of world we really want to live in.

“A stimulating analysis of the underlying causes of inequality and growth which forces us to confront long-held beliefs about how economies work and who benefits. ... The book itself adds value by forcing us to confront these points.”

-- Martin Wolf Financial Times
Someone should make a musical out of this book. That is quite unlikely, I grant you, but not as unlikely as it sounds. In 1893 the Savoy theatre staged Gilbert and Sullivan's penultimate operetta, Utopia, Limited ... It is time to rework the idea and Mariana Mazzucato is a candidate to write the libretto. -- Philip Collins The Times
As Mariana Mazzucuto's new book, published today, explains, our economy has been financialised and no longer rewards real value creation. -- Chi Onwurah New Statesman
Mariana Mazzucato ... argues that we urgently need to rethink where wealth comes from to heal a sick system. -- Richard Kilgarriff Management Today
Mariana Mazzucato offers an exposé of how value extractors and rent-seekers have been masquerading as value creators in the global economy. And, furthermore, how the conventional wisdom has indulged them in this. -- Fran Boait Prospect
In The Value of Everything, published last week, Mazzucato sharpens her focus, not only lauding the role of 'mission-oriented' public investment, but honing her critique of the private sector too. -- Liam Halligan The Spectator
Some economists merely interpret the world in various ways; others seek to change it. Mariana Mazzucato is an exemplar of the latter kind. The Italian-American is a restless thinker drawn to transformative, disruptive projects. ... Mazzucato's mission is to overturn the now dominant neoclassical theory of value. In the mid-19th century, she explained, an intellectual revolution occurred: rather than value determining price, price began to determine value. -- George Eaton New Statesman
The Value of Everything is receiving accolades on Twitter from finance ministers and student idealists alike, and is clearly set to be essential summer reading for civil servants. -- Delphine Strauss Financial Times
Praise for The Entrepreneurial State: Conventional economics offers abstract models; conventional wisdom insists that the answer lies with private entrepreneurship. In this brilliant book, Mariana Mazzucato...argues that the former is useless and the latter incomplete. -- Martin Wolf Financial Times
One of the most incisive economic books in years. -- Jeffery Madrick New York Review of Books

Mariana Mazzucato is Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London, where she is Founding Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose. Her previous posts include the RM Phillips Professorial Chair at the Science Policy Research Unit at Sussex University.She is the winner of international prizes including the Grande Ufficiale Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana in 2021, Italy's highest civilian honour, the 2020 John von Neumann Award, the 2019 All European Academies Madame de Stael Prize for Cultural Values, and the 2018 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought. Most recently, Pope Francis appointed her to the Pontifical Academy for Life for bringing 'more humanity' to the world.As well as The Entrepreneurial State, she is the author of The Value of Everything- Making and Taking in the Global Economy (2018), Mission Economy- A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism (2021), and The Big Con- How the Consulting Industry Weakens our Businesses, Infantilizes our Governments and Warps our Economies (2023).She advises policy makers around the world on innovation-led, inclusive and sustainable growth. Her current roles have included for example Chair of the World Health Organization's Council on the Economics of Health for All, Co-Chair of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, Co-Chair of the Council on Urban Initiatives, and member of the South African President's Economic Advisory Council. Previously, through her role as Special Advisor for the EC Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation (2017-2019), she authored the high-impact report on Mission-Oriented Research and Innovation in the European Union, turning 'missions' into a crucial new instrument in the European Commission's Horizon innovation programme, and more recently, authored a report with the UN's Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) on Transformational Change in Latin America and the Caribbean- A mission-oriented approach.

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