Economics - Innovation - Inclusive Growth - Public Purpose

UK edition - Out now

The Value of Everything

Modern economies reward activities that extract value rather than create it. This must change to insure a capitalism that works for us all.

In this scathing indictment of our current global financial system, The Value of Everything rigorously scrutinizes the way in which economic value has been determined and reveals how the difference between value creation and value extraction has become increasingly blurry. Mariana Mazzucato argues that this blurriness allowed certain actors in the economy to portray themselves as value creators, while in reality they were just moving existing value around or, even worse, destroying it.

The book uses case studies–from Silicon Valley to the financial sector to big pharma–to show how the foggy notions of value create confusion between rents and profits, a difference that distorts the measurements of growth and GDP.

The lesson here is urgent and sobering: to rescue our economy from the next, inevitable crisis and to foster longterm economic growth, we will need to rethink capitalism, rethink the role of public policy and the importance of the public sector, and redefine how we measure value in our society.

US edition - Out Now

US Launch Events

Winner of the 2018 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought


Shortlisted for the FT and McKinsey Business Book of the Year 2018

"‘A compelling call to reinvent value as a key concept to help us achieve the world we all want’"


Robert Costanza, Nature

"Passionate, infectious, timely … An exposé of how value extractors and rent-seekers have been masquerading as value creators in the global economy."


Fran Boait, Prospect

"In this thought-provoking book, Mariana Mazzucato argues that it is far too easy for those operating in the market economy to get rich by extracting value from those who actually create it, not by adding it themselves. We need to return to the question: what creates value?”


Martin Wolf, Financial Times

"One of the world’s leading public intellectuals … her analysis rings true … a positive vision of growth.”


Liam Halligan, Spectator

"She is the sort of critical friend capitalism needs”


Philip Collins, The Times

"Offers a fundamental re-think of what constitutes real value in the economy.”


Steve Denning, Forbes

"A restless thinker … Mazzucato’s mission is to overturn the now dominant neoclassical theory of value ... Mazzucato is seeking to recreate the dynamic public-private interaction – and the spirit of adventure – that led to triumphs such as the moon landings.”


George Eaton, New Statesman

"The normally iron-clad security of shareholder value is challenged as a material motivator, a theme further explored by Mariana Mazzucato in The Value of Everything, who argues that we urgently need to rethink where wealth comes from to heal a sick system.”


Richard Kilgarriff, Management Today

"Essential reading.”


Delphine Strauss, FT Magazine

"Mazzucato calls for nothing less than a complete reconsideration of our system of economic values.”


Adam Tooze, New Statesman

"Her target is the conventional wisdom that so-called wealth creators deserve to accumulate massive riches. Mazzucato sides with the actual makers, those who struggle in an economy tilted in favour of the ultrawealthy … She is especially eloquent when commenting on arrogant tech-giant billionaires.”


Kirkus Reviews

"She excoriates the global financial industry. We need to rethink our ideas on value, and how financialisation has turned us away from value creation to value extraction.”


Hans Pienaar, Business Live

"Mazzucato notes that the rise of entrepreneurship, along with the past deregulation of financial industries, is fueling the fire of economic inequality and an economy without value.”


Jennifer Adams, Booklist

"The way in which financialisation proved to be an anti-industrial strategy is admirably set out in leading economist Mariana Mazzucato’s new book The Value of Everything. In it she describes the “two faces of financialisation.”


Chi Onwurah, Independent

"Mariana Mazzucato is sure the economic forces that affect our lives can serve the public interest again.”


Angela Nagle, Irish Times

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Table of Contents

Quick Links

FOREIGN EDITIONS

VOE IN THE MEDIA

VOE ON VIDEO

RADIO AND PODCASTS

AWARDS AND NOMINATIONS

EXCERPTS

REVIEWS

BOOK TALKS

Foreign Editions

VALUE OF EVERYTHING ON VIDEO

Bloomberg

Understanding the Changing Calculation of Value

5×15 Talk

Mazzucato’s presentation talk at the 5×15 event

RSA

Keynote: Redefining Economic Value

CHANNEL 4 NEWS

A ‘parasitic’ system in need of change

Bloomberg

Rethinking Capitalism to Create Global Value

Value of Everything Awards and Nominations

Best Business Books 2018: Economics

Best Business Books 2018: Economics

“An inquiry into the nature of value in an economy might not seem an obvious place to begin. Yet The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy, by Mariana Mazzucato, helps establish the intellectual roots of the odd history of the past decade.” Ryan Avent

Business Book of the Year 2018 — the longlist

Business Book of the Year 2018 — the longlist

“Mariana Mazzucato’s thought-provoking The Value of Everything, which argues for a more sustainable form of capitalism, “pushes us to get away from the simplistic creed that markets are always good and governments always bad”, according to the FT review.” Andrew Hill

Value of Everything Reviews

How to retool our concept of value

How to retool our concept of value

“Mazzucato’s trenchant analysis is a compelling call to reinvent value as a key concept to help us achieve the world we all want.” Robert Costanza

The Value of Everything by Mariana Mazzucato – how to save capitalism

The Value of Everything by Mariana Mazzucato – how to save capitalism

“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   pdf version

KIRKUS REVIEW

KIRKUS REVIEW

“A British economics professor is debunking again; this time, her target is the conventional wisdom that so-called wealth creators deserve to accumulate massive riches.”

Booklist review

Booklist review

“Since the economic crisis in 2008, Mazzucato notes that the rise of entrepreneurship, along with the past deregulation of financial industries, is fueling the fire of economic inequality and an economy without value. ” Jennifer Adams

Summer books of 2018: Economics

Summer books of 2018: Economics

“In this thought-provoking book, Mariana Mazzucato, professor at University College London, argues that it is far too easy for those operating in the contemporary market economy to get rich by extracting value from those who actually create it, not by adding it themselves. To understand this, we need to return to the question with which economics began: what creates value? When we answer this properly, we will realise that an important part of the answer is: government rather than much of contemporary finance.” Martin Wolf

Value of Everything in the Media

Value of Everything Radio/Podcasts

The Causes of the 2008 Financial Crisis and the Signs of a Crisis to Come

The Causes of the 2008 Financial Crisis and the Signs of a Crisis to Come

“Economist Mariana Mazzucato, author of the new book “The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy” digs into the nuts and bolts of what cause the 2008 financial crisis. She also explains how there are troubling signs of another crisis to come sooner than we’d hope.”

Who Creates Value in an Economy?

Who Creates Value in an Economy?

“Economist Mariana Mazzucato, argues that the reason is that economic policy continues to be informed by neoliberal ideology and its academic cousin, “public choice” theory, rather than by historical experience.” Listen

Surveillance: Rogoff & Mazzucato On The Next Crisis

Surveillance: Rogoff & Mazzucato On The Next Crisis

“We start off on a segment from our TV show with Ken Rogoff, Harvard Professor & Former IMF Chief Economist, and Mariana Mazzucato, University College London Professor & Author of “The Value of Everything.” “

BBC Radio 4 – Start the Week: Dark Satanic Mills

BBC Radio 4 – Start the Week: Dark Satanic Mills

“The economist Mariana Mazzucato is calling for a reform of capitalism, to replace taking with making. She argues that the global economy has become a parasitic system in which value-extraction is more highly rewarded than value-creation.”

Value of Everything Excerpts

12 Great Lines That Will Change Your Outlook To Life, Religion And Politics

12 Great Lines That Will Change Your Outlook To Life, Religion And Politics

“Some heterodox economists today argue that growth will fall if finance becomes too big relative to the rest of the economy (industry) because real profits come from the production of new goods and services rather than from simple transfers of money earned from those goods and services.40 To ‘rebalance’ the economy, the argument runs, we must allow genuine profits from production to win over rents–which, as we can see here, is exactly the argument Ricardo made 200 years ago, and John Maynard Keynes was to make 100 years later.41” Academia Magazine

It’s a magic number

It’s a magic number

“By losing our ability to recognize the difference between value creation and value extraction, we have made it easier for some to call themselves value creators and in the process extract value.”   pdf version

Book Talks for Value of Everything

Rethinking Value

Rethinking Value

San Francisco, United States – Mazzucato to deliver a seminar on rethinking value at the Long Now Foundation

Aspen Ideas Festival 2019

Aspen Ideas Festival 2019

Aspen, United States – Mauzzucato is one of the key speakers for the Aspen Ideas Festival 2019

2018 Knoop Annual Lecture

2018 Knoop Annual Lecture

Sheffield, United Kingdom – University of Sheffield, lecture title: “The Value of Everything”

 

What’s Now San Francisco – Could Tech Rethink the Value of Data and Who Profits from It?

What’s Now San Francisco – Could Tech Rethink the Value of Data and Who Profits from It?

Capgemini’s Applied Innovation Exchange, 425 Brannan St., San Francisco, CA 94107

Please RSVP here

One way to understand the plight of the tech world right now is to pull back and understand the field of economics in the last 400 years. For much of that time the field has debated where value in the economy actually comes from – such as land, labor, capital. And crucially, what the difference is between value creation and value extraction. According to economist Mariana Mazzucato, our featured guest at September’s What’s Now: San Francisco, it is necessary first to publicly debate what types of activities really add value to our economy—and how to limit value extraction that masquerades as wealth creation—so that we can create a new form of capitalism that works for us all, including in the tech industry.

Bloomberg BETA

Bloomberg BETA

Pier 3, The Embarcadero, San Francisco, CA 94109

Please RSVP here

Discussion with Tim O’ Reilly followed by audience Q&A and book signing.

Open Society Foundation – The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy

Open Society Foundation – The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy

Open Society Foundations, 224 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019

Please RSVP here

Moderated by Jeff Madrick – author, director of the Bernard L. Schwartz Rediscovering Government Initiative, and senior fellow at The Century Foundation.
The 2008 global financial crisis revealed that modern economies reward activities that extract economic value rather than create it.  Join us for a discussion with Mazzucato as she demonstrates how companies from Silicon Valley to the financial sector to big pharma have used foggy notions of value to create confusion between rents and profits—thereby allowing themselves to be portrayed as value creators, while in reality they are merely moving existing value around or, even worse, destroying it. Only by debating and ultimately reclaiming the true meaning of value will it be possible to generate a fairer economy that benefits all of society. A reception, with light refreshments, will be held from 5:30–6:00 p.m.

World Bank EFI Chief Economist Learning Seminar

World Bank EFI Chief Economist Learning Seminar

1818 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20433

Please RSVP to Brooke.Parsons@hbgusa.com with the following information: name as it appears on ID, email address, affiliate organization.

Today, the financial sector and the ‘financialized’ world breeds a mentality that distorts economic growth and increases wealth disparity. Top executives choose to spend a greater proportion of profits on share buy-backs rather than on investing in the long-term future of the business. They call it value creation but the reality is often the opposite: value extraction. So who decided that they are creating value? What definition of value is used to distinguish value creation from value extraction, or even from value destruction?

RSA

RSA

London, United Kingdom – Presentation of the book The Value of Everything with RSA Chief Executive Matthew Taylor.

Resolution Foundation

Resolution Foundation

London, United Kingdom – In conversation with Lord Willetts, Executive Chair of the Resolution Foundation, on the new book The Value of Everything. “Wealth creation in the 21st century: who is and isn’t a doing it?”

LSE Public Lecture

LSE Public Lecture

London, United Kingdom – ‘The Value of Everything: making and taking in the global economy’ Podcast

Professor Mazzucato with the first copy of her book The Value of Everything at the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose.