The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy

by Mariana Mazzucato

To offer real change we must go beyond fixing isolated problems, and develop a framework that allows us to shape a new type of economy: one that will work for the common good. The change has to be profound. It is not enough to redefine GDP to encompass quality-of-life indicators, including measures of happiness,2 the imputed value of unpaid ‘caring’ labour and free information, education and communication via the Internet.3 It is also not enough to tax wealth. While such measures are important in themselves, they do not address the greatest challenge: defining and measuring the collective contribution to wealth creation, so that value extraction is less able to pass for value creation. As we have seen, the idea that price determines value and that markets are best at determining prices has all sorts of nefarious consequences. To sum up, four stand out.