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

by Mariana Mazzucato

There may be a strong case for retaining a significant public share in industries that have a natural tendency towards monopoly–essential utilities such as water, gas and electricity–in order to benefit from economies of scale in provision, and also to avoid speculative rent-seeking on basic goods needed.

Government has often been at its best when mission-oriented–precisely because, as President Kennedy said, it is hard.

If the state is seen as irrelevant, it will over time also become less confident and more easily corrupted by the so-called ‘wealth creators’–who can then convince policymakers to hand out favours which increase their wealth and power.

Collective value creation entails a risk-taking public sector–and yet the usual relationship between risks and rewards, as taught in economics classes, does not seem to apply.

too often governments see themselves only as ‘facilitators’ of a market system, as opposed to co-creators of wealth and markets.