The Value of Everything
Making and Taking in the Global Economy
Published on 26. April 2018
Book
Hardback
384 pages
978-0-241-18881-1 (ISBN)
Description
Who really creates wealth in our world? And how do we decide the value of what they do? At the heart of today's financial and economic crisis is a problem hiding in plain sight.
In modern capitalism, value-extraction is rewarded more highly than value-creation: the productive process that drives a healthy economy and society. From companies driven solely to maximize shareholder value to astronomically high prices of medicines justified through big pharma's 'value pricing', we misidentify taking with making, and have lost sight of what value really means. Once a central plank of economic thought, this concept of value - what it is, why it matters to us - is simply no longer discussed.
Yet, argues Mariana Mazzucato in this penetrating and passionate new book, if we are to reform capitalism - radically to transform an increasingly sick system rather than continue feeding it - we urgently need to rethink where wealth comes from. Which activities create it, which extract it, which destroy it? Answers to these questions are key if we want to replace the current parasitic system with a type of capitalism that is more sustainable, more symbiotic - that works for us all. The Value of Everything will reignite a long-needed debate about the kind of world we really want to live in.
In modern capitalism, value-extraction is rewarded more highly than value-creation: the productive process that drives a healthy economy and society. From companies driven solely to maximize shareholder value to astronomically high prices of medicines justified through big pharma's 'value pricing', we misidentify taking with making, and have lost sight of what value really means. Once a central plank of economic thought, this concept of value - what it is, why it matters to us - is simply no longer discussed.
Yet, argues Mariana Mazzucato in this penetrating and passionate new book, if we are to reform capitalism - radically to transform an increasingly sick system rather than continue feeding it - we urgently need to rethink where wealth comes from. Which activities create it, which extract it, which destroy it? Answers to these questions are key if we want to replace the current parasitic system with a type of capitalism that is more sustainable, more symbiotic - that works for us all. The Value of Everything will reignite a long-needed debate about the kind of world we really want to live in.
Reviews / Votes
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 expose 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 *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Penguin Books Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-241-18881-1 (9780241188811)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
04/2018
1st Edition
Penguin Books Ltd
€9.49
Available for download
Person
Mariana Mazzucato is Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London (UCL), where she is also Founder and Director of the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. Her widely published research focuses on the relationship between public policy, innovation, and economic growth and she advises policymakers around the world on how to steer innovation so that it produces growth that is more inclusive and sustainable. She is author of the highly acclaimed book The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths and co-editor of Rethinking Capitalism: Economics and Policy for Sustainable and Inclusive Growth. She is winner of the 2014 New Statesman SPERI Prize in Political Economy, the 2015 Hans-Matthoefer-Preis and the 2018 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought. She was named as one of the 'three most important thinkers about innovation' in New Republic.