What do you think?
Rate this book
The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths
This book debunks the myth of the State as a large bureaucratic organization that can at best facilitate the creative innovation which happens in the dynamic private sector. Analysing various case studies of innovation-led growth, it describes the opposite situation, whereby the private sector only becomes bold enough to invest after the courageous State has made the high-risk investments.
The volume argues that in the history of modern capitalism, the State has generated economic activity that would not otherwise have happened, and has actively opened up new technologies and markets that private investors can later move into. Far from the often heard criticisms of the State potentially 'crowding out' private investments, the State makes them happen, shaping and creating markets, not only 'fixing' them. Ignoring this reality only serves ideological ends, and hurts effective policymaking.
This book examines case studies ranging from the advent of the Internet to the emergence of the biotechnology and nanotechnology industries. In particular, the volume debunks the myth that Silicon Valley was created by entrepreneurial venture capital. A key chapter focuses on the State investments behind Apple's success, and reveals that every major technology behind the iPhone owes its source to public funds. Thus, while entrepreneurial individuals like Steve Jobs are needed, their success is nearly impossible without their ability to ride the wave of State investments. And if Europe wants its own Googles, it needs more State action, not less.
Two forward-looking chapters focus on the emergence of the next big thing after the internet: the 'green revolution'. Both solar and wind technology are currently being led by State spending, whether through the US ARPA-E programme or the Chinese and Brazilian State investment banks. The discussion refreshingly moves beyond the usual division between proponents of austerity vs. the proponents of fiscal stimulus. It argues that State investments not only help kick-start growth during periods of recession, but that they also, even in boom periods, lead to productive investments in radical new technologies which later foster decades of growth.
The book ends with a fundamental question: if the State is so important to investments in high-risk innovation, why does it capture so little direct return?
The volume argues that in the history of modern capitalism, the State has generated economic activity that would not otherwise have happened, and has actively opened up new technologies and markets that private investors can later move into. Far from the often heard criticisms of the State potentially 'crowding out' private investments, the State makes them happen, shaping and creating markets, not only 'fixing' them. Ignoring this reality only serves ideological ends, and hurts effective policymaking.
This book examines case studies ranging from the advent of the Internet to the emergence of the biotechnology and nanotechnology industries. In particular, the volume debunks the myth that Silicon Valley was created by entrepreneurial venture capital. A key chapter focuses on the State investments behind Apple's success, and reveals that every major technology behind the iPhone owes its source to public funds. Thus, while entrepreneurial individuals like Steve Jobs are needed, their success is nearly impossible without their ability to ride the wave of State investments. And if Europe wants its own Googles, it needs more State action, not less.
Two forward-looking chapters focus on the emergence of the next big thing after the internet: the 'green revolution'. Both solar and wind technology are currently being led by State spending, whether through the US ARPA-E programme or the Chinese and Brazilian State investment banks. The discussion refreshingly moves beyond the usual division between proponents of austerity vs. the proponents of fiscal stimulus. It argues that State investments not only help kick-start growth during periods of recession, but that they also, even in boom periods, lead to productive investments in radical new technologies which later foster decades of growth.
The book ends with a fundamental question: if the State is so important to investments in high-risk innovation, why does it capture so little direct return?
266 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2011
About the author
Mariana Mazzucato
20 books880 followersMariana Mazzucato (PhD) is Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London, where she directs the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. Her best selling books include The Entrepreneurial State, The Value of Everything and Mission Economy. Her many prizes include the 2020 John von Neumann Award and the 2018 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought. She is Chair of the World Health Organization’s Council on the Economics of Health for All and a member of the UN High Level Advisory Board for Economic and Social Affairs.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 334 reviews
September 21, 2023
Check out the one-star reviews for this work and you'll quickly get an idea of why it is so very, very good. (G)libertarians and free-marketeers are hyperventilating as Mazzucato Mariana surgically dissects their treasured myths about the desirability of a small and feeble State and the power and dynamism of unfettered capitalism, stretches their entrails out across the landscape, and leaves their corpses on public display.
The core myth that Mazzucato methodically skewers, punctures, deflates, shreds (pick your preferred metaphor here) is that business is innovative and dynamic, the driver of economic progress, while the State is passive, inert, or even a hindrance. Far from it. Although innovation is not the State's main role, Mazzucato demonstrates in well-researched and -argued chapters that a courageous and entrepreneurial State has often played the leading role in technological innovation and creating the foundations for major economic transitions and breakthroughs.
Most tellingly, she highlights that every single technology that make Apple's iPhone "smart" were government-funded or developed directly by organs of the State or consortiums convened through State brokerage – the internet, GPS, touch-screens display, wi-fi, and voice-activation.
She pushes beyond the role of the State in providing the basics or fixing "market failures" and demonstrates that there is an active and visionary role for the state in directing economic development in particular sectors, recruiting expertise, mapping the landscape, coordinating public and private actors (including businesses, academics, research bodies, and others) – to make things happen that otherwise would not have.
In contrast, she demonstrates how entrepreneurs are generally developing or finding business applications for technologies which are already available, and that venture capital – far from funding dynamic, early-stage, innovation – generally hangs back until public funding has created enough certainty to attract their investment. The biotech and renewable energy revolutions are cases in point.
Along the way, she murders the notion that businesses do best when there is low tax or weak regulatory environments. She argues firmly that – given their risk leading role – States need to become more assertive against rent-seeking businesses. "In so many cases," she writes, "public investments have become business giveaways, making individuals and their companies rich but providing little (direct or indirect) return to the economy or to the State."
Rigorous and refreshing. And one to share (and argue over) with your favourite right-wing friends.
The core myth that Mazzucato methodically skewers, punctures, deflates, shreds (pick your preferred metaphor here) is that business is innovative and dynamic, the driver of economic progress, while the State is passive, inert, or even a hindrance. Far from it. Although innovation is not the State's main role, Mazzucato demonstrates in well-researched and -argued chapters that a courageous and entrepreneurial State has often played the leading role in technological innovation and creating the foundations for major economic transitions and breakthroughs.
Most tellingly, she highlights that every single technology that make Apple's iPhone "smart" were government-funded or developed directly by organs of the State or consortiums convened through State brokerage – the internet, GPS, touch-screens display, wi-fi, and voice-activation.
Such radical investments – which embedded extreme uncertainty – did not come about due to the presence of venture capitalists, nor of 'garage tinkerers'. It was the visible hand of the State which made these innovations happen. Innovation that would not have come about had we waited for the 'market' and business to do it alone – or government to simply stand aside and provide the basics.
She pushes beyond the role of the State in providing the basics or fixing "market failures" and demonstrates that there is an active and visionary role for the state in directing economic development in particular sectors, recruiting expertise, mapping the landscape, coordinating public and private actors (including businesses, academics, research bodies, and others) – to make things happen that otherwise would not have.
In contrast, she demonstrates how entrepreneurs are generally developing or finding business applications for technologies which are already available, and that venture capital – far from funding dynamic, early-stage, innovation – generally hangs back until public funding has created enough certainty to attract their investment. The biotech and renewable energy revolutions are cases in point.
Along the way, she murders the notion that businesses do best when there is low tax or weak regulatory environments. She argues firmly that – given their risk leading role – States need to become more assertive against rent-seeking businesses. "In so many cases," she writes, "public investments have become business giveaways, making individuals and their companies rich but providing little (direct or indirect) return to the economy or to the State."
Rigorous and refreshing. And one to share (and argue over) with your favourite right-wing friends.
February 19, 2020
This is a long review so stick with me. But I need to point out why you should not read this book or anything else this author writes pertaining to economics (maybe she knows something about art, who knows).
The author claims "there is a danger when
a general desire to reduce the size of the state translates into weak and non-ambitious economic policy." As though reducing the size of the state somehow makes the economy non-ambitious. Or the reverse, that increasing the size of the state would make the economy more ambitious (try telling this to those that had to live in the Soviet Union) But this shows a very poor understanding of economics on the part of the author because, as should be obvious to anyone, the state doesn't exist without siphoning funds away from the private industry in the first place.
She says that "over the last three decades in the development of the computer industry, the internet, the pharma biotech industry,and many more including today's nanotech industry. None of these technological revolutions would have occurred
without the leading role of the state." But the government did not invent the internet, the computer industry or any of these. She somehow thinks that if the government steals money from these industries then gives a little of the money back to politically connected businesses, that it is then responsible for the success of any of those businesses (but not for the failures).
She repeatedly claims the government (DARPA) invented the internet. But the internet was not invented by any one person or group. It started with hackers then with other groups along the way, and at some point DARPA had internet technology that it did nothing with for over 20 years other than make TELNET. She makes these same claims for the computer industry! How incredible that if the government gives google or apple a $5000 grant but venture capital and private investment gives them millions that the government is somehow responsible for the entire computer industry. She also claims the government created google's search algorithm. This is such a stretch of the truth. Google used a simple algorithm developed by government researchers that it combined with many other developments from others and their own to create what they have today! This is like saying the government came up with the theory of relativity because they taught Einstein arithmetic when he was a kid. That is absurd.
But she repeatedly points out DARPA, and holds it up as a shining example of government achievement. What is not mentioned, is how much money DARPA has wasted to achieve so very little. The other important point is that the few useful things DARPA has managed to create that the private sector can use are then given to politically connected businesses that didn't share in the cost of the technology they're now using.
She points out what Keynes and Polyani say about the free market not being stable, but fails to see that the economy was far more stable before implementing their centralized plan of government and monetary policy. The great depression happened after centralization of the banking sector!
Her claim is that the government is the only one willing to take the risk of long term investments. But reality flies in the face of this. The Wright Brothers created the airplane with less than $1,000 of their own money, meanwhile the government gave Samuel Pierpont Langley $50,000 to build an airplane and he couldn't do it! The Wright Brothers then offered to sell their plane to the war department who refused and told them they were just crazy kooks. Does the government sound like someone you want "investing" your money in R & D?
What the author fails to understand is the basic principle of cost effectiveness. Meaning that when people invest their own money in research they analyze the cost benefits of such an investment. The government on the other hand has no incentive to do so because they don't care how much money they lose. Why should they? It's not their money anyway. The government instead, takes money from the private sector then gives it out to "research" in companies that have political connections such as Solyndra. Yet the author points out these "investments" by the government as successes, even though the majority have either filed bankruptcy or can't make a profit and are still lining up for more taxpayer dollars.
Alongside DARPA she points out the NIH and their research. It's true that "two thirds of new molecular drugs in the past ten years were discovered with government spending" but 1. that money came from the private sector to start with. 2. the large politically connected pharmaceutical companies get to decide how that money is spent. and 3. the patents filed as a result of that research are handed over FOR FREE to those same politically connected large companies. On top of this the NIH conducts research fraud in many cases to discredit competitors of the large pharmaceutical companies as they did with Dr. Burzynski. Smaller companies continually get the shaft because they don't have the political connections to get the NIH to fund their research and hand them patents. Taxpayers are funding the research of these large companies, only to see the NIH hand a patent over to the large companies that then gouge the medical patients for all they can. If the government is so benevolent and cares for our well being then why isn't it dissolving the patent and allowing generic drug producers to provide the taxpayers that funded the original research with affordable drugs??!!
She points out the huge costs of developing drugs that pharma companies have to deal with. This is her rationale for government picking who wins and loses. But why are the costs so high in the first place? Look no further than the government itself! The FDA has mountains of rules and regulations. They even have a pay to play policy that favors the largest corporations that can afford to effectively bribe FDA officials. They also do all they can to ban competition from unpatentable drugs and natural alternatives further driving up our healthcare costs. How can the author ignore this? How can she complain of the high costs of drug development (a government created problem) and then say the solution is more government!
What these examples of the NIH, DARPA, and so many others indicate is a fascist policy of corrupt interbreeding between government and large politically connected companies.
The author realizes that if these government agencies fund research then they should get some of the reward when profits are made, but what she doesn't understand is that's not how government works. Oddly enough, that is exactly how private investors work!
The bottom line here is do not read this book! The author does not understand basic economics. She stretches the truth on purpose in many cases and sometimes flat out lies (saying the government invented the internet). Her misunderstanding of basic financial concepts such as cost effectiveness is astounding. I hope any reader that believes what this author wrote will eventually take the time to learn economics and finance so they can understand the folly of this author's writing.
The author claims "there is a danger when
a general desire to reduce the size of the state translates into weak and non-ambitious economic policy." As though reducing the size of the state somehow makes the economy non-ambitious. Or the reverse, that increasing the size of the state would make the economy more ambitious (try telling this to those that had to live in the Soviet Union) But this shows a very poor understanding of economics on the part of the author because, as should be obvious to anyone, the state doesn't exist without siphoning funds away from the private industry in the first place.
She says that "over the last three decades in the development of the computer industry, the internet, the pharma biotech industry,and many more including today's nanotech industry. None of these technological revolutions would have occurred
without the leading role of the state." But the government did not invent the internet, the computer industry or any of these. She somehow thinks that if the government steals money from these industries then gives a little of the money back to politically connected businesses, that it is then responsible for the success of any of those businesses (but not for the failures).
She repeatedly claims the government (DARPA) invented the internet. But the internet was not invented by any one person or group. It started with hackers then with other groups along the way, and at some point DARPA had internet technology that it did nothing with for over 20 years other than make TELNET. She makes these same claims for the computer industry! How incredible that if the government gives google or apple a $5000 grant but venture capital and private investment gives them millions that the government is somehow responsible for the entire computer industry. She also claims the government created google's search algorithm. This is such a stretch of the truth. Google used a simple algorithm developed by government researchers that it combined with many other developments from others and their own to create what they have today! This is like saying the government came up with the theory of relativity because they taught Einstein arithmetic when he was a kid. That is absurd.
But she repeatedly points out DARPA, and holds it up as a shining example of government achievement. What is not mentioned, is how much money DARPA has wasted to achieve so very little. The other important point is that the few useful things DARPA has managed to create that the private sector can use are then given to politically connected businesses that didn't share in the cost of the technology they're now using.
She points out what Keynes and Polyani say about the free market not being stable, but fails to see that the economy was far more stable before implementing their centralized plan of government and monetary policy. The great depression happened after centralization of the banking sector!
Her claim is that the government is the only one willing to take the risk of long term investments. But reality flies in the face of this. The Wright Brothers created the airplane with less than $1,000 of their own money, meanwhile the government gave Samuel Pierpont Langley $50,000 to build an airplane and he couldn't do it! The Wright Brothers then offered to sell their plane to the war department who refused and told them they were just crazy kooks. Does the government sound like someone you want "investing" your money in R & D?
What the author fails to understand is the basic principle of cost effectiveness. Meaning that when people invest their own money in research they analyze the cost benefits of such an investment. The government on the other hand has no incentive to do so because they don't care how much money they lose. Why should they? It's not their money anyway. The government instead, takes money from the private sector then gives it out to "research" in companies that have political connections such as Solyndra. Yet the author points out these "investments" by the government as successes, even though the majority have either filed bankruptcy or can't make a profit and are still lining up for more taxpayer dollars.
Alongside DARPA she points out the NIH and their research. It's true that "two thirds of new molecular drugs in the past ten years were discovered with government spending" but 1. that money came from the private sector to start with. 2. the large politically connected pharmaceutical companies get to decide how that money is spent. and 3. the patents filed as a result of that research are handed over FOR FREE to those same politically connected large companies. On top of this the NIH conducts research fraud in many cases to discredit competitors of the large pharmaceutical companies as they did with Dr. Burzynski. Smaller companies continually get the shaft because they don't have the political connections to get the NIH to fund their research and hand them patents. Taxpayers are funding the research of these large companies, only to see the NIH hand a patent over to the large companies that then gouge the medical patients for all they can. If the government is so benevolent and cares for our well being then why isn't it dissolving the patent and allowing generic drug producers to provide the taxpayers that funded the original research with affordable drugs??!!
She points out the huge costs of developing drugs that pharma companies have to deal with. This is her rationale for government picking who wins and loses. But why are the costs so high in the first place? Look no further than the government itself! The FDA has mountains of rules and regulations. They even have a pay to play policy that favors the largest corporations that can afford to effectively bribe FDA officials. They also do all they can to ban competition from unpatentable drugs and natural alternatives further driving up our healthcare costs. How can the author ignore this? How can she complain of the high costs of drug development (a government created problem) and then say the solution is more government!
What these examples of the NIH, DARPA, and so many others indicate is a fascist policy of corrupt interbreeding between government and large politically connected companies.
The author realizes that if these government agencies fund research then they should get some of the reward when profits are made, but what she doesn't understand is that's not how government works. Oddly enough, that is exactly how private investors work!
The bottom line here is do not read this book! The author does not understand basic economics. She stretches the truth on purpose in many cases and sometimes flat out lies (saying the government invented the internet). Her misunderstanding of basic financial concepts such as cost effectiveness is astounding. I hope any reader that believes what this author wrote will eventually take the time to learn economics and finance so they can understand the folly of this author's writing.
October 19, 2013
I have been very much impressed by the Entrepreneurial State but I also have some major doubts and even some disagreements. Maybe I have been brain-washed in the last 20 years of my life but my experience in Silicon Valley and venture capital and also my less than satisfying experience with planned innovation by the State convince me that entrepreneurship is crucial and maybe more important than the State role in the innovation part (not the research or even the R&D).
Now I fully agree that seed funding by the State of innovation through research and the taxes to be paid by companies are essential. I also agree that VC is less and less risk taking and that corporate R&D is just a D and the R has disappeared both in IT and pharma.
A great book about why innovation is in crisis and how the State might contribute to solving what the private sector stopped doing.
Now I fully agree that seed funding by the State of innovation through research and the taxes to be paid by companies are essential. I also agree that VC is less and less risk taking and that corporate R&D is just a D and the R has disappeared both in IT and pharma.
A great book about why innovation is in crisis and how the State might contribute to solving what the private sector stopped doing.
October 22, 2021
This is a book whose contents should change people's views of the state as a bureaucratic apparatus at odds with a dynamic private sector. State funding has allowed key research that provided the basis for the Internet, Microsoft Windows, Stealth Fighters, GPS, and the screens found on almost smartphones including those made by Apple.
And yet how do the private companies who benefit from this innovation reward the State for the risk they took in providing the funds for the research? By keeping the profits for themselves, socialising any losses they make, and evading the taxes they should pay. This doesn't seem fair and isn't fair, especially when Pharmaceutical companies benefit from state funding and then produce a drug, based on the state-funded research, which most taxpayers can't afford.
One day, I hope a country implements the suggestins made in this book? Perhaps Finland or New Zealand already has as they seem ahead of most countries.
And yet how do the private companies who benefit from this innovation reward the State for the risk they took in providing the funds for the research? By keeping the profits for themselves, socialising any losses they make, and evading the taxes they should pay. This doesn't seem fair and isn't fair, especially when Pharmaceutical companies benefit from state funding and then produce a drug, based on the state-funded research, which most taxpayers can't afford.
One day, I hope a country implements the suggestins made in this book? Perhaps Finland or New Zealand already has as they seem ahead of most countries.
August 23, 2013
A really interesting essay about innovation, the role of the State and the myths surrounding the risk-taking in the private sector, venture-capital (VC) or SMEs. Studying how Apple built its innovative products using State-financed innovation, or how Big Pharma is only expanding the existing public-based research, Mariana Mazzucato convincingly demonstrates how public policies should be focused on investments and innovation in the long run, creating a stable regulatory environment and sometimes creating markets which the private sector will not launch on its own (renewable energies for instance). Finally, she also underlines the importance of inclusive growth, and in that context, of better rewarding public risk-taking, establishing symbiotic innovation ecosystems to replace the current parasitic ones.
A very good read, written in a simple and engaging style. Highly recommended!
A very good read, written in a simple and engaging style. Highly recommended!
November 11, 2016
Could not be reading this book at a more appropriate time. Last week Merck announced they are firing some 7.500 scientists. This week it's Alcatel firing another 5,000. That's not any company, Alcatel, it's owned by Lucent, previously known as Bell Labs.
One of the main theses of the book is that business these days concentrates its efforts in bidding up the share price through buybacks, that it puts more emphasis on returning money to its shareholders rather than fostering the research that benefits all stakeholders and society in general. Government, on the other hand, can be and has been a patient long term investor.
My problem with the book is that it moves freely from facts to theories, from theories to conjectures, from conjectures to opinions, from opinions to pure ideology and from ideology back to facts. There are no clear demarcations here.
Example of a very powerful fact from the book: The NIH spends USD 30 billion per annum on research. To which my reaction is "wow, shame on me, I had no idea, that's massive"
Example of a well-accepted theory from the book: There are times when the government is best placed to step in. Market failures (example: lighthouse, air traffic control), national interest (the military springs to mind), externalities (example: curbing pollution, getting everybody to learn how to read and write). Few people dispute this.
Example of a conjecture in the book: The state is capable of kickstarting a green economy through 1. fostering the right collaborative environment for researchers in universities and the private sector and 2. through backing early initiatives with patient capital. (You'd have to agree, is my view, the question is what else that money could have gotten for you, of course.)
Example of an opinion from the book: Companies should not pursue profit maximization first and foremost. (For the record, I find the alternatives appealing, but ultimately romantic dead ends. There! How's that for an opinion?)
Example of (implicit) ideology from the book: Bottom of page 187 the author starts a sentence as follows: "While the classical economists (such as David Ricardo or Karl Marx) studied innovation and distribution together..." and it's a good thing she tucks that in so deep in the book rather than at the beginning, or I would have put the thing down. I genuinely don't think "classical economist" is the first description of Karl Marx that springs to anybody's mind.
Don't mean to subvert here, just to point out that the book definitely has an angle and plays around with facts, theories, conjectures, opinions and ideology.
I am a former entrepreneur, have suffered in the hands of the VCs the author has so little time for (the accusation is they find the ready work of government and jump in at time epsilon before there's any money to be made) and I'm extremely sympathetic to many of the arguments she makes. I really really wanted this book to be awesome.
It falls short.
The weakest part of the book is the case against Apple. I really could not care less that the government invented/fostered/supported technologies such as 1. The DRAM cache, 2. Lithium-ion batteries, 3. Signal compression 4. Liquid Crystal Display 5. Micro Hard Drives, 6. Microprocessors, 7. Click-wheel, 8. Multi-touch screen, 8. GPS, 9. The Internet, 10. Cellular technology, 11. SIRI.
I credit my wife with being an excellent cook. She goes to the same supermarket that's available to me. She can make a dinner to truly entertain ten people; I am merely qualified to poison them. It took a mad (and mad he was) genius to take all these technologies and put them in the palm of my hand. Perhaps I know this (and the author does not) because I'm a former entrepreneur:
Mariana, my friend, IT'S IN THE DOING. Steve Jobs did it. Thousands failed. So did he, at first. Ever played with an Apple Newton?
It gets better. Apple made millions, but others are now catching up. Pretty soon, unless it innovates again, Apple will be making "normal profits" on the devices it pioneered. Rich fellows like me paid 700 dollars for an iPhone, but in ten years' time everybody will be able to buy an iPhone equivalent for ten bucks, if the phone company is not already giving one away with the contract.
The other thing I found a bit disingenuous is the following: The ten inventions mentioned above were all fostered by the Department of Defence. Forgive me, but as far as I'm concerned, there is no worse den of inefficiency on the face of the planet. I know, this is ex-post. If we had the red flag flying here my feelings would be very different. We'll never know, because we don't have the "what-if" world to compare with.
But I've read the book and I'll be damned if the author disagrees with me that the DoD wastes tons and tons of money. They HAD BETTER be getting some type of dividend from their work. I don't think this can all be presented as some sort of triumph.
Moreover, if we spend on energy what we've spent on defence, I bloody hope we solve the energy problem forever. Funnily enough, the amounts the government has spent on defence since the end of the war are similar order of magnitude to the amounts the US has spent on energy.
China is presented as some kind of poster-boy for fostering green energy, except the very company the author decides to make an example of has gone bankrupt.
Don't get me wrong. Ultimately, I share the author's view that there's something fundamentally wrong with capitalism in 2013 versus capitalism in 1960. I also share the author's view that there is a clear role for government in innovation. The paper lists today who works for government because we're in the middle of the 2013 US government shutdown as I'm reading this. Away from the military, it looks bloody lean to me (and stop pelting me with rotten tomatos before you look at the numbers for yourselves!!!!)
There's one more thing here that's of interest. The author is an expert in mathematical models of growth and innovation. She refers briefly to the various "endogenous models" for innovation, but merely to mention they exist. Why not dedicate a chapter in the book to how these models work? Give us some credit, maybe we could read them and stay with you. I don't bear Stephen Hawking any grudge for that book I bought once, and he lost me pretty early on!
In summary, this is not a book that has served me a great deal of ammunition to fuel my prejudices. Which is a shame.
One of the main theses of the book is that business these days concentrates its efforts in bidding up the share price through buybacks, that it puts more emphasis on returning money to its shareholders rather than fostering the research that benefits all stakeholders and society in general. Government, on the other hand, can be and has been a patient long term investor.
My problem with the book is that it moves freely from facts to theories, from theories to conjectures, from conjectures to opinions, from opinions to pure ideology and from ideology back to facts. There are no clear demarcations here.
Example of a very powerful fact from the book: The NIH spends USD 30 billion per annum on research. To which my reaction is "wow, shame on me, I had no idea, that's massive"
Example of a well-accepted theory from the book: There are times when the government is best placed to step in. Market failures (example: lighthouse, air traffic control), national interest (the military springs to mind), externalities (example: curbing pollution, getting everybody to learn how to read and write). Few people dispute this.
Example of a conjecture in the book: The state is capable of kickstarting a green economy through 1. fostering the right collaborative environment for researchers in universities and the private sector and 2. through backing early initiatives with patient capital. (You'd have to agree, is my view, the question is what else that money could have gotten for you, of course.)
Example of an opinion from the book: Companies should not pursue profit maximization first and foremost. (For the record, I find the alternatives appealing, but ultimately romantic dead ends. There! How's that for an opinion?)
Example of (implicit) ideology from the book: Bottom of page 187 the author starts a sentence as follows: "While the classical economists (such as David Ricardo or Karl Marx) studied innovation and distribution together..." and it's a good thing she tucks that in so deep in the book rather than at the beginning, or I would have put the thing down. I genuinely don't think "classical economist" is the first description of Karl Marx that springs to anybody's mind.
Don't mean to subvert here, just to point out that the book definitely has an angle and plays around with facts, theories, conjectures, opinions and ideology.
I am a former entrepreneur, have suffered in the hands of the VCs the author has so little time for (the accusation is they find the ready work of government and jump in at time epsilon before there's any money to be made) and I'm extremely sympathetic to many of the arguments she makes. I really really wanted this book to be awesome.
It falls short.
The weakest part of the book is the case against Apple. I really could not care less that the government invented/fostered/supported technologies such as 1. The DRAM cache, 2. Lithium-ion batteries, 3. Signal compression 4. Liquid Crystal Display 5. Micro Hard Drives, 6. Microprocessors, 7. Click-wheel, 8. Multi-touch screen, 8. GPS, 9. The Internet, 10. Cellular technology, 11. SIRI.
I credit my wife with being an excellent cook. She goes to the same supermarket that's available to me. She can make a dinner to truly entertain ten people; I am merely qualified to poison them. It took a mad (and mad he was) genius to take all these technologies and put them in the palm of my hand. Perhaps I know this (and the author does not) because I'm a former entrepreneur:
Mariana, my friend, IT'S IN THE DOING. Steve Jobs did it. Thousands failed. So did he, at first. Ever played with an Apple Newton?
It gets better. Apple made millions, but others are now catching up. Pretty soon, unless it innovates again, Apple will be making "normal profits" on the devices it pioneered. Rich fellows like me paid 700 dollars for an iPhone, but in ten years' time everybody will be able to buy an iPhone equivalent for ten bucks, if the phone company is not already giving one away with the contract.
The other thing I found a bit disingenuous is the following: The ten inventions mentioned above were all fostered by the Department of Defence. Forgive me, but as far as I'm concerned, there is no worse den of inefficiency on the face of the planet. I know, this is ex-post. If we had the red flag flying here my feelings would be very different. We'll never know, because we don't have the "what-if" world to compare with.
But I've read the book and I'll be damned if the author disagrees with me that the DoD wastes tons and tons of money. They HAD BETTER be getting some type of dividend from their work. I don't think this can all be presented as some sort of triumph.
Moreover, if we spend on energy what we've spent on defence, I bloody hope we solve the energy problem forever. Funnily enough, the amounts the government has spent on defence since the end of the war are similar order of magnitude to the amounts the US has spent on energy.
China is presented as some kind of poster-boy for fostering green energy, except the very company the author decides to make an example of has gone bankrupt.
Don't get me wrong. Ultimately, I share the author's view that there's something fundamentally wrong with capitalism in 2013 versus capitalism in 1960. I also share the author's view that there is a clear role for government in innovation. The paper lists today who works for government because we're in the middle of the 2013 US government shutdown as I'm reading this. Away from the military, it looks bloody lean to me (and stop pelting me with rotten tomatos before you look at the numbers for yourselves!!!!)
There's one more thing here that's of interest. The author is an expert in mathematical models of growth and innovation. She refers briefly to the various "endogenous models" for innovation, but merely to mention they exist. Why not dedicate a chapter in the book to how these models work? Give us some credit, maybe we could read them and stay with you. I don't bear Stephen Hawking any grudge for that book I bought once, and he lost me pretty early on!
In summary, this is not a book that has served me a great deal of ammunition to fuel my prejudices. Which is a shame.
March 7, 2016
What a ripper. This is a magnificent book. Based on a DEMOS report and now expanded, this book should be read by every politician and policy maker who describes the private sector as exciting, innovative, profit-leading and dynamic and the state as boring, risk-averse and damaging to entrepreneurship.
Mazzucato makes a case and a powerful argument that for the big risks - the seriously innovative research that can enable leaps in business, technology, agriculture and industrialization - 'the market' is risk averse. Businesses want easy profits. The real innovations take time, persistence and doggedness to accomplish. Shareholders are too impatient for such innovations.
It is important to remember - and a key chapter in this book - that the innovations that emerged from Apple via the iPod to the iPad were based on state-based and funded research. In other words, Apple made a profit and reaped the rewards of being 'innovative' yet these innovations were developed in state-based and funded organizations.
The ideology post the GFC, that the state is the problem and only has a role in mopping up the mess when markets 'go to far,' is destroyed in this book. It is impossible to read Mazzucato's book and not be transformed. Any time anyone mentions the innovations in private business and the importance of keeping the state out of economics and business, send them a link to this book. Make sure they read it.
Mazzucato makes a case and a powerful argument that for the big risks - the seriously innovative research that can enable leaps in business, technology, agriculture and industrialization - 'the market' is risk averse. Businesses want easy profits. The real innovations take time, persistence and doggedness to accomplish. Shareholders are too impatient for such innovations.
It is important to remember - and a key chapter in this book - that the innovations that emerged from Apple via the iPod to the iPad were based on state-based and funded research. In other words, Apple made a profit and reaped the rewards of being 'innovative' yet these innovations were developed in state-based and funded organizations.
The ideology post the GFC, that the state is the problem and only has a role in mopping up the mess when markets 'go to far,' is destroyed in this book. It is impossible to read Mazzucato's book and not be transformed. Any time anyone mentions the innovations in private business and the importance of keeping the state out of economics and business, send them a link to this book. Make sure they read it.
November 20, 2020
I probably would've loved this book a lot if I read it a couple of years ago i guess. It makes a strong case against the 'free markets fosters innovation' argument but that is honestly where it ends. Reading now, I could not stop thinking about how it says almost nothing military-industry complex or how it lacks a theory of state while emphasizing on 'state led innovation', or about how it views technology and 'innovation' itself (especially the chapters on green techonology can be argued). Ofcourse, I wouldn't expect the author to give a final settling answer but she could have atleast hinted at the framework in which her arguments lie in, instead of shifting it as per convenience. Given the repetitiveness of the books and some irrelevant stuff, it could have been expanded much more to include these elements.
August 31, 2019
Really enjoyed it. Mariana Mazzucato argues very convincingly that the state has a pivotal role to play in terms of directing innovation-led growth that creates high quality jobs and raises productivity. She painstakingly deconstructs the myths of the free-wheeling Silicon Valley VC-backed entrepreneur, and points out that all the key technology innovations of the 20th century had some level of state backing. Taking a close look at the iPhone, she points out that all its important component technologies - the internet, touch-screens, microprocessors, compact hard drives and so on - emerged either from government/military agencies or from state-funded university research. On this basis, she believes that economic policy should enable an enhanced role for the state in not just funding but _directing_ innovation, and receiving a fair return from that investment. Mazzucato notes that the prominent tech firms have all too readily taken up state investment and leveraged state-funded research, but have been highly reluctant when it comes to sharing the profits (or even paying their taxes).
The author notes that China's state-owned enterprises and development banks have had an unprecedented impact in terms of driving innovation and high-quality growth that benefits employees, the state and the wider public.
As we face potential climate breakdown, it's urgent these lessons are learned and that the understanding is turned into policy so that the next few decades become the era of green development.
Mazzucato's framework is limited in the sense that she assumes capitalism to be the only economic system worth talking about. Once you broaden the discussion to include socialist models of development, things get more interesting. Nonetheless, 'The Entrepreneurial State' is a valuable contribution.
The author notes that China's state-owned enterprises and development banks have had an unprecedented impact in terms of driving innovation and high-quality growth that benefits employees, the state and the wider public.
As we face potential climate breakdown, it's urgent these lessons are learned and that the understanding is turned into policy so that the next few decades become the era of green development.
Mazzucato's framework is limited in the sense that she assumes capitalism to be the only economic system worth talking about. Once you broaden the discussion to include socialist models of development, things get more interesting. Nonetheless, 'The Entrepreneurial State' is a valuable contribution.
April 24, 2015
The book made some good arguments in regard to the state having an important role in fundamental research. I approached the "Green" chapters with much trepidation which was proven do be justified. The author had indeed drunk the Green Koolaide by quickly dissing any research into nuclear power and quoted the installed capacity of renewable energy sources rather than their actual output. The criticism of the role of the state in picking winners has often been illustrated by such things as Concorde. The authors explaining away of this is not helped when she accepts bio fuels as being a positive rather than realizing that they are an environmental and economic disaster promoted by green and agricultural interests. What could have been a good book was eventually rather under whelming.
September 3, 2013
This is an important book that shows how the state plays a crucial role for innovation at different stages of their development and implementation. It also debunks several myths about companies and VC propensity to take risks and their ability to carry out research leading to innovation.
August 31, 2022
This was a tour de force by Mazzucato. The Entrepreneurial State has completely changed my perception of government and the innovation ecosystem. Being born and raised in Silicon Valley I was a disciple of the zeitgeist that saw venture capital and private enterprise as the sole originators of innovation and worshipped the tech visionaries such as Jobs, Musk, Gates, Dorsey, and Hoffman who “singlehandedly” brought innovative products to the world. I feel as though a veil has been lifted and I am re-evaluating ideas of free-market capitalism, income inequality, climate change, and short-term thinking.
The main idea that runs through Mazzucato’s book is that the state is the true origin of innovation. People think the state is slow, bureaucratic, and the antithesis of innovation. People think the state often “picks losers”, a moniker for funding firms that fail, and should leave innovative activities to private business and venture capital, whose returns prove that they know all about successful innovation.
Mazzucato busts this myth over and over to highlight the essential role in innovation the state plays, especially in the riskiest and earliest phases where private enterprise won’t go. It is the state that takes the biggest risks by investing in basic science, research, and early ventures that are too risky for VC’s. She shows that the state not only invests in innovation, but chooses the next innovation direction through a concerted effort in aligning its funding, tax, rebate, and subsidy strategy. How consistent the state's message and incentives decide how successful a given direction will be.
The biggest problem with this myth is that it feeds a hyper-capitalist ideology. Proponents say we should make the government smaller and leave innovation to private enterprise. Clearly, competition and a free market are needed to produce groundbreaking innovation. This ideology feeds legislation that gets turned into law and skews the relationship between risk and reward. One example is in the 1970s the National Venture Capital Association succeeded in lobbying for a 50% fall (40% to 20%) in capital gains tax over 5 years.
In the US we are firm believers in capitalism. It is an economic system that has led us and many other countries to be successful in building wealth, adjusting dynamically to new times and innovations, and allocating capital in an optimal manner. The problem with capitalism is that in an unrestricted nature it leads to inequality. People and firms exploit areas that I will call “arbitrage” where they get an outsized return for the risk they take. Examples of these areas of arbitrage are venture capital returns, underwriting safe insurance premiums on large public work projects (Robert Moses would give these to favored banks), executive compensation based on short-term metrics that can be gamed through finance tricks such as stock buybacks, monopolistic pricing such as the duopoly of visa and MasterCard who make ~50% margins based on their duopoly and ability to fleece sellers, platforms becoming sellers on their own platform (amazon basics, Kirkland brand, Whole Foods 360).
The nature of regulation is to plug gaps as they appear. Therefore, regulation is always behind the curve barely able to keep up. Regulation is hindered further because it is a part of this system and influenced by people with power and money who want to protect themselves. The people who are being exploited have little representation. They have no power. They have no money. In this way, capitalism ends up benefiting a subset of people who are able to exploit others by risking less and still taking the majority of the return. These people tell stories of how they are deserving of such outsized returns because of the risks they took and how much good they do for society in the way of jobs, productivity, and products. They use their money and power to lobby and propagandize to keep things from changing and entrench their position in the world.
Income inequality has reached staggering proportions in recent years. This is a problem.
Inequality is necessary. We need to reward people who innovate. We need to give higher returns to those who take more risks. But, it is unfair the outsized reward people at the top command. We have to shrink these gaps. To push the wealth levels closer together. In the end, a more equal society will be healthier and happier.
There must be equality between the amount of risk taken and the reward received. Studies show when this relationship is equal, innovation decreases inequality. When this relationship is unequal, innovation increases inequality.
What happens is that risk is socialized, and profit is privatized. This means the state, which is subsidized by taxpayers, takes on the role of de-risking by investing in the earliest stages of innovation. Once an innovation has been de-risked by the state, venture capital and private enterprise jump in, much closer to commercialization where financial gains are realized, and reap an outsized portion of the rewards.
The main vehicle to return investment back to the state is through taxes. Unfortunately, the main actors who reap outsized financial rewards from state-funded innovation, can use their money and lobbying powers to avoid taxes and retain a majority of their return (arbitrage). It is important that the state capture a share of the returns of de-risking innovative technologies more in line with the risk it took. With these returns, the state can directly fund investments in future innovation and create a virtuous cycle.
The green revolution is the most important innovation revolution in front of us.
It is time-sensitive and requires immediate action now. Otherwise, many people will suffer and the economic consequences will be huge, hurting growth and hindering our ability to develop solutions.
I do not believe climate change will be solved through individual action. As individuals, we can make decisions to use less water, less electricity, and less co2 emitting machines. However, this requires a conscious commitment that hurts an individual's quality of life with no apparent result to the overall system. Also, one person's restriction has no impact on the major polluters which are large corporations and wealthy individuals who will not willingly curtail their emissions.
Outside forces can make changes to the system. COVID-19 wildly reduced CO2 emissions as travel was forcibly curtailed by governments. In Europe, energy solidarity enforced by governments helps countries wean themselves off of Russian gas. It is at the government level where change must occur.
For governments to be successful they must have a comprehensive strategy that includes direct investment, tax incentives, subsidies, and most importantly commitment that does not change or waver from year to year. It is the long-term commitment that will allow a system to thrive with the knowledge that they have the full support of its government. Private enterprises can make investments now that will become profitable 10 years from now, knowing that the subsidies and support will be there.
I see tension between the short term and the long term as fundamental in this discussion.
We as humans are short-time horizon thinkers. Our current society has been set up to focus on the short term. This is easier. It is very difficult to forecast what the future will look like and how our actions now will affect the future. But, we have to try. We know if we don’t take steps now, climate change will cause trillions of economic damage and kill many people.
It is always a balance.
The right balance between long-term and short-term.
The right balance of inequality.
The right balance of free market capitalism and regulation.
The pendulum is too far on the side of the short term, of free market of capitalism, of inequality.
As a society how do we go about dragging the pendulum from its current resting place to one that provides for a fairer and happier society? Can we create an economic system that keeps the benefits of capitalism but helps us more effectively tackle big problems like income inequality and climate change?
One idea is to shift our time horizon back. We can try to see the long term and incorporate this into our thinking and decision-making. A concrete idea put forth by Kim Stanley Robinson is to create a Ministry for the Future that fights for the rights of those not born yet. If these people could get legal standing, then litigation could be brought against corporations that are not respecting their rights. This would force our current system to actually think about how decisions now will affect future generations.
Another idea is to reward time more than money invested. Time is a finite resource that everyone has the same amount of. It is not subject to the Pareto rule like money and power are. This would mean that companies should reward workers more than shareholders. Workers in firms funded by venture capital should capture a larger percentage of the return than the 10%-15% that is normally allocated to the employee pool.
A last idea is that the state could take a 1% stake in every US company that is created, public or private. That way it is equally invested in the long-term success of every company and is incentivized to provide an environment that makes these companies successful. The state can’t be cheated out of its return on investment like corporations currently do with taxes. While the state would have a huge amount of assets, these would be very un-liquid. This idea requires a bit more thought and fleshing out.
In conclusion, this book has made me rethink my relationship with government and how I view capitalism. A career as a public servant looks more appealing than it once did.
The main idea that runs through Mazzucato’s book is that the state is the true origin of innovation. People think the state is slow, bureaucratic, and the antithesis of innovation. People think the state often “picks losers”, a moniker for funding firms that fail, and should leave innovative activities to private business and venture capital, whose returns prove that they know all about successful innovation.
Mazzucato busts this myth over and over to highlight the essential role in innovation the state plays, especially in the riskiest and earliest phases where private enterprise won’t go. It is the state that takes the biggest risks by investing in basic science, research, and early ventures that are too risky for VC’s. She shows that the state not only invests in innovation, but chooses the next innovation direction through a concerted effort in aligning its funding, tax, rebate, and subsidy strategy. How consistent the state's message and incentives decide how successful a given direction will be.
The biggest problem with this myth is that it feeds a hyper-capitalist ideology. Proponents say we should make the government smaller and leave innovation to private enterprise. Clearly, competition and a free market are needed to produce groundbreaking innovation. This ideology feeds legislation that gets turned into law and skews the relationship between risk and reward. One example is in the 1970s the National Venture Capital Association succeeded in lobbying for a 50% fall (40% to 20%) in capital gains tax over 5 years.
In the US we are firm believers in capitalism. It is an economic system that has led us and many other countries to be successful in building wealth, adjusting dynamically to new times and innovations, and allocating capital in an optimal manner. The problem with capitalism is that in an unrestricted nature it leads to inequality. People and firms exploit areas that I will call “arbitrage” where they get an outsized return for the risk they take. Examples of these areas of arbitrage are venture capital returns, underwriting safe insurance premiums on large public work projects (Robert Moses would give these to favored banks), executive compensation based on short-term metrics that can be gamed through finance tricks such as stock buybacks, monopolistic pricing such as the duopoly of visa and MasterCard who make ~50% margins based on their duopoly and ability to fleece sellers, platforms becoming sellers on their own platform (amazon basics, Kirkland brand, Whole Foods 360).
The nature of regulation is to plug gaps as they appear. Therefore, regulation is always behind the curve barely able to keep up. Regulation is hindered further because it is a part of this system and influenced by people with power and money who want to protect themselves. The people who are being exploited have little representation. They have no power. They have no money. In this way, capitalism ends up benefiting a subset of people who are able to exploit others by risking less and still taking the majority of the return. These people tell stories of how they are deserving of such outsized returns because of the risks they took and how much good they do for society in the way of jobs, productivity, and products. They use their money and power to lobby and propagandize to keep things from changing and entrench their position in the world.
Income inequality has reached staggering proportions in recent years. This is a problem.
Inequality is necessary. We need to reward people who innovate. We need to give higher returns to those who take more risks. But, it is unfair the outsized reward people at the top command. We have to shrink these gaps. To push the wealth levels closer together. In the end, a more equal society will be healthier and happier.
There must be equality between the amount of risk taken and the reward received. Studies show when this relationship is equal, innovation decreases inequality. When this relationship is unequal, innovation increases inequality.
What happens is that risk is socialized, and profit is privatized. This means the state, which is subsidized by taxpayers, takes on the role of de-risking by investing in the earliest stages of innovation. Once an innovation has been de-risked by the state, venture capital and private enterprise jump in, much closer to commercialization where financial gains are realized, and reap an outsized portion of the rewards.
The main vehicle to return investment back to the state is through taxes. Unfortunately, the main actors who reap outsized financial rewards from state-funded innovation, can use their money and lobbying powers to avoid taxes and retain a majority of their return (arbitrage). It is important that the state capture a share of the returns of de-risking innovative technologies more in line with the risk it took. With these returns, the state can directly fund investments in future innovation and create a virtuous cycle.
The green revolution is the most important innovation revolution in front of us.
It is time-sensitive and requires immediate action now. Otherwise, many people will suffer and the economic consequences will be huge, hurting growth and hindering our ability to develop solutions.
I do not believe climate change will be solved through individual action. As individuals, we can make decisions to use less water, less electricity, and less co2 emitting machines. However, this requires a conscious commitment that hurts an individual's quality of life with no apparent result to the overall system. Also, one person's restriction has no impact on the major polluters which are large corporations and wealthy individuals who will not willingly curtail their emissions.
Outside forces can make changes to the system. COVID-19 wildly reduced CO2 emissions as travel was forcibly curtailed by governments. In Europe, energy solidarity enforced by governments helps countries wean themselves off of Russian gas. It is at the government level where change must occur.
For governments to be successful they must have a comprehensive strategy that includes direct investment, tax incentives, subsidies, and most importantly commitment that does not change or waver from year to year. It is the long-term commitment that will allow a system to thrive with the knowledge that they have the full support of its government. Private enterprises can make investments now that will become profitable 10 years from now, knowing that the subsidies and support will be there.
I see tension between the short term and the long term as fundamental in this discussion.
We as humans are short-time horizon thinkers. Our current society has been set up to focus on the short term. This is easier. It is very difficult to forecast what the future will look like and how our actions now will affect the future. But, we have to try. We know if we don’t take steps now, climate change will cause trillions of economic damage and kill many people.
It is always a balance.
The right balance between long-term and short-term.
The right balance of inequality.
The right balance of free market capitalism and regulation.
The pendulum is too far on the side of the short term, of free market of capitalism, of inequality.
As a society how do we go about dragging the pendulum from its current resting place to one that provides for a fairer and happier society? Can we create an economic system that keeps the benefits of capitalism but helps us more effectively tackle big problems like income inequality and climate change?
One idea is to shift our time horizon back. We can try to see the long term and incorporate this into our thinking and decision-making. A concrete idea put forth by Kim Stanley Robinson is to create a Ministry for the Future that fights for the rights of those not born yet. If these people could get legal standing, then litigation could be brought against corporations that are not respecting their rights. This would force our current system to actually think about how decisions now will affect future generations.
Another idea is to reward time more than money invested. Time is a finite resource that everyone has the same amount of. It is not subject to the Pareto rule like money and power are. This would mean that companies should reward workers more than shareholders. Workers in firms funded by venture capital should capture a larger percentage of the return than the 10%-15% that is normally allocated to the employee pool.
A last idea is that the state could take a 1% stake in every US company that is created, public or private. That way it is equally invested in the long-term success of every company and is incentivized to provide an environment that makes these companies successful. The state can’t be cheated out of its return on investment like corporations currently do with taxes. While the state would have a huge amount of assets, these would be very un-liquid. This idea requires a bit more thought and fleshing out.
In conclusion, this book has made me rethink my relationship with government and how I view capitalism. A career as a public servant looks more appealing than it once did.
March 13, 2018
OK, so you have these books that claim they will change the way you view the world. And then you have these TED talks where the charismatic author of the book indeed tells you amazing and unknown facts that are discussed in the book and that make you want to find out more. But then, you're fifty, and you've read your share of books that were widely acclaimed and turned out to be mainly waffle, and you have a sneaking suspicion that most of the book's contents have been discussed in the TED talks, but then you have a colleague who is willing to lend you the book, and you're still curious, and then you read it.
OK, so what's the verdict of the jury?
Well, I have to admit that the book does contain some interesting and challenging points. Mazzucato offers some detailed case studies of products that were huge commercial successes but who were to a large extent combinations of the outputs of fundamental research that was undertaken with taxpayers' money. In itself, this is hardly a secret. Everyone who knows something about the subject understands the importance of fundamental state-sponsored research in fields such as computer science and pharmaceuticals. What is rather surprising, is the scale of the public contribution in certain cases.
But Mazzucato goes much further than that. She claims that government sponsored research plays a key role in society, and that the private sector (including the hallowed venture capitalists) only steps in once the major risks have been taken away. According to her, extraordinary profits in the private sector have been realized because the government does not appropriate the financial returns to its own investments. Moreover, thanks to international tax optimization, the returns do not even flow back to the public purse under the form of taxes. Mazzucato provides an activist agenda for government involvement in research, and for mechanisms to ensure that the real risk takers (the government, this is) will indeed enjoy the returns when things go well (instead of just taking the blame when things go wrong).
The problem is that Mazzucato seems to be a real believer for whom the book's main objective is proselytism. This does not feel as the major opus of a scholar who, after a life of pondering the pros and the cons of an argument, is communicating her tentative conclusions. This feels as a book of someone who has seen that conventional wisdom is wrong, and has assembled all the facts that she can use as evidence for her case.
The problem is the quality of the evidence is very mixed. In certain cases, her arguments are based on peer reviewed scientific literature (these are the more convincing sections in the books). But a lot of arguments are based on findings that have not been peer reviewed. And sometimes, the argument is just an endless repetition of passionately stated opinions. That's probably what you need when giving a TED talk, but it is a shaky foundation for policy advice/
It would all be so much more convincing if one didn't have the impression that Mazzucato has cherry picked the evidence. What about other industries than computer science and pharmaceuticals, for instance? Has she tried to identify the conditions under which R&D can successfully be undertaken by the private sector? Has she analyzed examples of government failures and tried to understand the reasons for these failures? She spends a lot of time arguing that innovation should be analyzed as an ecosystem (well, I don't disagree with that) but she doesn't really explain how we should analyze the key success factors for setting up such an ecosystem.
This book would have been so much more interesting if Mazzucato had tried to be more balanced (well, maybe it would have drawn less attention). Because, you see, there really are interesting points in the book - for instance, her debunking of the arguments in favour of supporting small enterprises just for the sake of their size is really interesting, relevant and concrete. It's just that the book would have been more credible if it had been less far-reaching in its ambitions. If you don't have a friend who has bought the book, maybe watch the TED lectures first. She really is quite charismatic, you know.
Addition 1 on 13 March: I only read other reviews after having finished, in order to avoid being influenced by other people's opinions. I observe that opinions on this book are very divided. I should add that I think that some of the most negative reviews use straw man arguments. For instance, Mazzucato does never claim that Apple has made no major contributions of its own. She repeatedly acknowledges Steve Jobs' genius in combining technologies to deliver a commercially successful product. Her point is about the distribution of the financial returns. But she never claims that Apple has no contribution of its own. Someone who pretends she has, has not carefully read the book.
Addition 2 on 13 March: And, oh yes, Marx was a classical economist. At least according to the "history of economic thought" courses that I took.
OK, so what's the verdict of the jury?
Well, I have to admit that the book does contain some interesting and challenging points. Mazzucato offers some detailed case studies of products that were huge commercial successes but who were to a large extent combinations of the outputs of fundamental research that was undertaken with taxpayers' money. In itself, this is hardly a secret. Everyone who knows something about the subject understands the importance of fundamental state-sponsored research in fields such as computer science and pharmaceuticals. What is rather surprising, is the scale of the public contribution in certain cases.
But Mazzucato goes much further than that. She claims that government sponsored research plays a key role in society, and that the private sector (including the hallowed venture capitalists) only steps in once the major risks have been taken away. According to her, extraordinary profits in the private sector have been realized because the government does not appropriate the financial returns to its own investments. Moreover, thanks to international tax optimization, the returns do not even flow back to the public purse under the form of taxes. Mazzucato provides an activist agenda for government involvement in research, and for mechanisms to ensure that the real risk takers (the government, this is) will indeed enjoy the returns when things go well (instead of just taking the blame when things go wrong).
The problem is that Mazzucato seems to be a real believer for whom the book's main objective is proselytism. This does not feel as the major opus of a scholar who, after a life of pondering the pros and the cons of an argument, is communicating her tentative conclusions. This feels as a book of someone who has seen that conventional wisdom is wrong, and has assembled all the facts that she can use as evidence for her case.
The problem is the quality of the evidence is very mixed. In certain cases, her arguments are based on peer reviewed scientific literature (these are the more convincing sections in the books). But a lot of arguments are based on findings that have not been peer reviewed. And sometimes, the argument is just an endless repetition of passionately stated opinions. That's probably what you need when giving a TED talk, but it is a shaky foundation for policy advice/
It would all be so much more convincing if one didn't have the impression that Mazzucato has cherry picked the evidence. What about other industries than computer science and pharmaceuticals, for instance? Has she tried to identify the conditions under which R&D can successfully be undertaken by the private sector? Has she analyzed examples of government failures and tried to understand the reasons for these failures? She spends a lot of time arguing that innovation should be analyzed as an ecosystem (well, I don't disagree with that) but she doesn't really explain how we should analyze the key success factors for setting up such an ecosystem.
This book would have been so much more interesting if Mazzucato had tried to be more balanced (well, maybe it would have drawn less attention). Because, you see, there really are interesting points in the book - for instance, her debunking of the arguments in favour of supporting small enterprises just for the sake of their size is really interesting, relevant and concrete. It's just that the book would have been more credible if it had been less far-reaching in its ambitions. If you don't have a friend who has bought the book, maybe watch the TED lectures first. She really is quite charismatic, you know.
Addition 1 on 13 March: I only read other reviews after having finished, in order to avoid being influenced by other people's opinions. I observe that opinions on this book are very divided. I should add that I think that some of the most negative reviews use straw man arguments. For instance, Mazzucato does never claim that Apple has made no major contributions of its own. She repeatedly acknowledges Steve Jobs' genius in combining technologies to deliver a commercially successful product. Her point is about the distribution of the financial returns. But she never claims that Apple has no contribution of its own. Someone who pretends she has, has not carefully read the book.
Addition 2 on 13 March: And, oh yes, Marx was a classical economist. At least according to the "history of economic thought" courses that I took.
September 5, 2016
V Menej štátu a podobných kruhoch sa často používa schopnosť súkromného sektoru prinášať inovácie za zmanenie jeho nadradenosti, v porovnaní so skosnatelým verejným. Táto kniha túto tézu celkom elegantne rozložila. Hen v toľko ospevovanom IPhone je vlastne väčšina technológii výsledkom štátom financovaného výskumu. (Firma to pospájala do pekného obalu a user experience, všetka česť) Na veľké vedecké prielomy je potrebná stabilita a širšie horizoty, ochota podporiť základný výskum, ktoré so sebou prinášajú verejné peniaze a schopnosť štátu reguláciou ovplyvňovať ekonomiku. (Predstavme si: obnoviteľnú energiu, lieky, či kedysi IT, internet či vesmír). Súkomný sektor prichádza, až keď sú horizonty výnosnosti ako tak jasné.
Nevolá po komunistickej revolúcii, ale po triezvejšom postoji voči verejnému kapitálu a inštitúciam a ich vzťahu so súkormným. Vzťah z ktorého často berie zisk ten druhý menovaný a riziko ten prvý. Štavnatú samostatnú kapitolu si už v roku 2013 vyslúžil Apple so svojim veselým využívaním štátnej podpory, vedy, regulačnej náklonnosti a podpore vládou v expanzuií spojenej s vyhýbaním sa daniam. (Viď napr. staršiu investigatívu NYTimes - http://goo.gl/8qq6p)
Čo je však z nášho pohľadu najblbšie zistenie je iný argument knihy. Nejde o peniaze, ktoré naleješ do výskumu a vedy (vzťah medzi inováciami a peniazmi je nejasný), ale o systém ktorý podporuje vzdelanie, rozvoj ľudí, firiem, inštitúcie. Máme čo robiť a povedať nechať všetko na trh asi nestačí, aj keď to intuitívne znie lákavo a pohodlne. Škoda, že namiesto tohto riešime horalky, koncesie a čakáme, kedy nám migranti unesú krajinu.
Nevolá po komunistickej revolúcii, ale po triezvejšom postoji voči verejnému kapitálu a inštitúciam a ich vzťahu so súkormným. Vzťah z ktorého často berie zisk ten druhý menovaný a riziko ten prvý. Štavnatú samostatnú kapitolu si už v roku 2013 vyslúžil Apple so svojim veselým využívaním štátnej podpory, vedy, regulačnej náklonnosti a podpore vládou v expanzuií spojenej s vyhýbaním sa daniam. (Viď napr. staršiu investigatívu NYTimes - http://goo.gl/8qq6p)
Čo je však z nášho pohľadu najblbšie zistenie je iný argument knihy. Nejde o peniaze, ktoré naleješ do výskumu a vedy (vzťah medzi inováciami a peniazmi je nejasný), ale o systém ktorý podporuje vzdelanie, rozvoj ľudí, firiem, inštitúcie. Máme čo robiť a povedať nechať všetko na trh asi nestačí, aj keď to intuitívne znie lákavo a pohodlne. Škoda, že namiesto tohto riešime horalky, koncesie a čakáme, kedy nám migranti unesú krajinu.
March 17, 2021
In The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths, Mariana Mazzucato points out that governments produce a lot of growth but their role is almost never realized. This erasure and this casting of government investment as wasteful rather than vital is now stifling growth. Here's the big story example: Tesla is genius and Solyndra is criminal but both companies got their start from the same public program. Given that the market mostly rewards people who already have deep pockets and given that these corporations bend over backwards to avoid paying taxes, Mazzucato further argues that the public would do well to claim some of these profits by maintaining shares in these companies. Readers might do well to check out Michael Lewis's The Fifth Risk, which suggests similar conclusions but which is more readable.
In 2021, I see some Western governments willing to spend more, so perhaps there is a segment of the liberal democracies that has heard Mazzucato's message--or that has been forced to hear it by the pandemic. Having said that, I saw an article in my newsfeed just this morning on wasteful government investment. It's possible that we still don't have a great framework in the discourse for thinking about public investment.
My only complaint is I'd already read Mazzucato's later book The Value of Everything, which makes similar points, so I didn't feel I was getting much value from reading The Entrepreneurial State.
In 2021, I see some Western governments willing to spend more, so perhaps there is a segment of the liberal democracies that has heard Mazzucato's message--or that has been forced to hear it by the pandemic. Having said that, I saw an article in my newsfeed just this morning on wasteful government investment. It's possible that we still don't have a great framework in the discourse for thinking about public investment.
My only complaint is I'd already read Mazzucato's later book The Value of Everything, which makes similar points, so I didn't feel I was getting much value from reading The Entrepreneurial State.
April 11, 2016
A stellar debunking of the idea that most major scientific breakthroughs in the last 100 years have come from private business. The reality is that the state funded most of the foundational work which was then successfully and rapidly exploited by private corporations often with little return to the state. This is vital for understanding economic growth and re-balancing strategies for better economic performance. It also suggests the US stimulus of 2009 would have been better spent on science. Well written, data supported and interesting.
March 12, 2024
Bij vlagen heel goed, maar te veel geschreven met wat lijkt op een libertarische Amerikaanse lezer als doelpubliek en daardoor vaak saai.
December 22, 2018
Billing itself as a political pamphlet, rather than a book-length policy memo or academic publication, Mazzucato's explicit call to action (repeated throughout the book) is for the reader to recognize the important role of the state in technological innovation. I became aware of this book from this tweet (https://bit.ly/2QKvEVn) which got retweeted around Bernie campaign alumni twitter and from hearing Mazzucato's name being cited in discussion around a Green New Deal. While this book certainly made the intellectual underpinnings of a Green New Deal clearer, I was only partially convinced by Mazzucato's call to action and left wanting for more clarity on many points. Nevertheless, it warrants five stars because it served as an excellent introduction to the progressive literature on innovation, pushing me to take the rare step of following citations to other sources, and expanded my conception of economic thought and policy.
Arguments that I found convincing:
-VC funding is too short-term (~5 years) and large companies have slashed R&D budgets (partially made possible by 'surfing' off of government R&D) necessitating an increase in government R&D funding
-Financialization of private sector is a big problem
-We must change our narrative about the role of the state in innovation from that of a passive market-failure fixer to an active courageous risk-taker and pioneer in new fields both to be in accordance with historical fact and to foment political support for the state's role in innovation (most strikingly, 75% of New Molecular Entities (NMEs) come from publicly funded labs like NIH, rather than biotech/pharma firms - partially due to an important act I hadn't heard of: the Orphan Drug Act)
-The state's power as a buyer (procurement) has been immensely important in furthering innovation (microprocessors and LCDs made it through crucial de-risking stages with Apollo mission and DARPA respectively as their main/only customers)
-The public sector should get a greater share of the rewards from the risks it takes. A state development bank, as suggested in Green New Deal (see first link at the end), might help with this
Arguments that didn't convince me/I need to read more about:
-The implicit assumption that the riskiest and worthiest work in innovation is to create new technologies (rather than to scale existing technologies up, integrate multiple new technologies, market new technologies, etc.)
-Protectionary policy, like high tariffs, for new industries is the best way to develop new industries (this worked with Denmark allowing Vestas to re-structure post-bankruptcy, maybe worked with China allowing Suntech to avoid dissolution, and probably didn't work with First Solar/Solyndra). I need to read more on this
-State has done a good job at 'picking winners'/shaping the direction of innovation (I'm particularly unconvinced by Mazzucato using university research funding as an example because it doesn't seem that the state is really doing much active choosing of who gets money with stuff like NSF grants)
-That the DARPA/put a man on the moon model can work for other industries like climate change where you don't have a cost-insensitive and guaranteed government consumer
For more, I'd recommend the following two articles.
-Some coverage on what a Green New Deal might include which seems to directly take from Mazzucato's playbook: https://www.eenews.net/stories/106010...
-The Cato Institute's rebuttal (which I think misses the point on the consumer as a crucial actor (perhaps understandably so because of Mazzucato's manifesto-like style), but importantly points out that the public sector also makes decisions involving tradeoffs): https://bit.ly/2zaVk4O
Arguments that I found convincing:
-VC funding is too short-term (~5 years) and large companies have slashed R&D budgets (partially made possible by 'surfing' off of government R&D) necessitating an increase in government R&D funding
-Financialization of private sector is a big problem
-We must change our narrative about the role of the state in innovation from that of a passive market-failure fixer to an active courageous risk-taker and pioneer in new fields both to be in accordance with historical fact and to foment political support for the state's role in innovation (most strikingly, 75% of New Molecular Entities (NMEs) come from publicly funded labs like NIH, rather than biotech/pharma firms - partially due to an important act I hadn't heard of: the Orphan Drug Act)
-The state's power as a buyer (procurement) has been immensely important in furthering innovation (microprocessors and LCDs made it through crucial de-risking stages with Apollo mission and DARPA respectively as their main/only customers)
-The public sector should get a greater share of the rewards from the risks it takes. A state development bank, as suggested in Green New Deal (see first link at the end), might help with this
Arguments that didn't convince me/I need to read more about:
-The implicit assumption that the riskiest and worthiest work in innovation is to create new technologies (rather than to scale existing technologies up, integrate multiple new technologies, market new technologies, etc.)
-Protectionary policy, like high tariffs, for new industries is the best way to develop new industries (this worked with Denmark allowing Vestas to re-structure post-bankruptcy, maybe worked with China allowing Suntech to avoid dissolution, and probably didn't work with First Solar/Solyndra). I need to read more on this
-State has done a good job at 'picking winners'/shaping the direction of innovation (I'm particularly unconvinced by Mazzucato using university research funding as an example because it doesn't seem that the state is really doing much active choosing of who gets money with stuff like NSF grants)
-That the DARPA/put a man on the moon model can work for other industries like climate change where you don't have a cost-insensitive and guaranteed government consumer
For more, I'd recommend the following two articles.
-Some coverage on what a Green New Deal might include which seems to directly take from Mazzucato's playbook: https://www.eenews.net/stories/106010...
-The Cato Institute's rebuttal (which I think misses the point on the consumer as a crucial actor (perhaps understandably so because of Mazzucato's manifesto-like style), but importantly points out that the public sector also makes decisions involving tradeoffs): https://bit.ly/2zaVk4O
August 13, 2014
A glimpse of how the imperial state operates
[Through my ratings, reviews and edits I'm providing intellectual property and labor to Amazon.com Inc., listed on Nasdaq, which fully owns Goodreads.com and in 2013 posted revenues for $74 billion and $274 million profits. Intellectual property and labor require compensation. Amazon.com Inc. is also requested to provide assurance that its employees and contractors' work conditions meet the highest health and safety standards at all the company's sites].
The books concentrates on state investments in innovation/R&D, revealing the hidden 'visible' hand of the state behind many 'cutting edge' corporations and industries (Apple, Google, pharma at large). While the narrative is impressive in setting the investment record straight, the flimsy, almost naive post-keynesian stance of the author makes her case for a fairer reward of the state innovation efforts totally unconvincing.
The 'State' here is taken as a sort of theological entity, whose unity and benevolent agency remains unquestioned. What do we talk about when we talk about the state? Governmental agencies with huge budgets ($30.6 bn spent on pharmaceutical research in the US in 2012) and no accountability to any elected body? The alleged scandal of the public protection of national industries can be hardly understood as such if not in light of the neoliberal double standard. And the role of the state in promoting the international hegemony of the national economy is not advertised not for fear of a right-wing backlash, as the author holds, but because - being right-wing driven - it would reveal the hypocrisy of the Jeffersonian (as opposed to Hamiltonian)/neoliberal official position that the state should not interfere with the markets.
The neoliberal apparent contradiction is solved when the state unity is broken down into its potential functions, complementary or alternative based on the institutional framework (the constitution, usually). Neoliberalism attacks the state in its redistributive role as provider of public goods to its citizen, funded via progressive taxation, but appropriates it in its 'imperial' function of defender of the national industrial and financial interests, using military power when convenient.
Confusing the imperial state - mainly concerned with global hegemony - with the redistributive keynesian state, primarily interested in the defense of internal social peace, is a major logical shortcoming of the book's argument flow.
From a fact finding perspective, the theological unity assumption prevents the author from investigating the decisional processes, the fine agency and the institutional mechanism that allow - in the face of rhetorical 'austerity' - to keep the levels of imperial spending so high.
The case of the missing public investments in the reneweable energy sector is particularly interesting, as it confirms that in the current ancien régime "leave it to the markets" is the new "let them eat cake". When elites want something to happen, they use the state to achieve it. When they have no interest - as in the case of the fabled transition to a low carbon economy - the answer is 'the market'.
[Through my ratings, reviews and edits I'm providing intellectual property and labor to Amazon.com Inc., listed on Nasdaq, which fully owns Goodreads.com and in 2013 posted revenues for $74 billion and $274 million profits. Intellectual property and labor require compensation. Amazon.com Inc. is also requested to provide assurance that its employees and contractors' work conditions meet the highest health and safety standards at all the company's sites].
The books concentrates on state investments in innovation/R&D, revealing the hidden 'visible' hand of the state behind many 'cutting edge' corporations and industries (Apple, Google, pharma at large). While the narrative is impressive in setting the investment record straight, the flimsy, almost naive post-keynesian stance of the author makes her case for a fairer reward of the state innovation efforts totally unconvincing.
The 'State' here is taken as a sort of theological entity, whose unity and benevolent agency remains unquestioned. What do we talk about when we talk about the state? Governmental agencies with huge budgets ($30.6 bn spent on pharmaceutical research in the US in 2012) and no accountability to any elected body? The alleged scandal of the public protection of national industries can be hardly understood as such if not in light of the neoliberal double standard. And the role of the state in promoting the international hegemony of the national economy is not advertised not for fear of a right-wing backlash, as the author holds, but because - being right-wing driven - it would reveal the hypocrisy of the Jeffersonian (as opposed to Hamiltonian)/neoliberal official position that the state should not interfere with the markets.
The neoliberal apparent contradiction is solved when the state unity is broken down into its potential functions, complementary or alternative based on the institutional framework (the constitution, usually). Neoliberalism attacks the state in its redistributive role as provider of public goods to its citizen, funded via progressive taxation, but appropriates it in its 'imperial' function of defender of the national industrial and financial interests, using military power when convenient.
Confusing the imperial state - mainly concerned with global hegemony - with the redistributive keynesian state, primarily interested in the defense of internal social peace, is a major logical shortcoming of the book's argument flow.
From a fact finding perspective, the theological unity assumption prevents the author from investigating the decisional processes, the fine agency and the institutional mechanism that allow - in the face of rhetorical 'austerity' - to keep the levels of imperial spending so high.
The case of the missing public investments in the reneweable energy sector is particularly interesting, as it confirms that in the current ancien régime "leave it to the markets" is the new "let them eat cake". When elites want something to happen, they use the state to achieve it. When they have no interest - as in the case of the fabled transition to a low carbon economy - the answer is 'the market'.
November 2, 2020
For those that think that government is the enemy, or has never done anything right... this book is for you. Guaranteed to make you think and view the world with a different perspective.
Edit: Reviewing the comments and reviews you'll see a wide gulf between people's philosophies - from "libertarian" anti-govt. intervention of any sort to pro-interventionists. While it is obvious people's personal philosophies will color their opinion of the book, it's important to note the distinction between reviewing the book vs. reviewing the philosophy it promotes. The book does an excellent fact-based job of tracing how govt-funded innovations make it into the private sector, the importance of those innovations as well as a comparative study of the different structures and mechanisms used for such funding across the world.
I would reference the reader to my reply in the comments to two opposing reviewers - "Herve" and "Keith".
Edit: Reviewing the comments and reviews you'll see a wide gulf between people's philosophies - from "libertarian" anti-govt. intervention of any sort to pro-interventionists. While it is obvious people's personal philosophies will color their opinion of the book, it's important to note the distinction between reviewing the book vs. reviewing the philosophy it promotes. The book does an excellent fact-based job of tracing how govt-funded innovations make it into the private sector, the importance of those innovations as well as a comparative study of the different structures and mechanisms used for such funding across the world.
I would reference the reader to my reply in the comments to two opposing reviewers - "Herve" and "Keith".
July 23, 2021
Γενικώς είναι ένα πολύ ενδιαφέρον βιβλίο το οποίο αποτελεί ουσιαστικά το σοσιαλ-δημοκρατικό μανιφέστο του μετακεϋνσιανού ρεύματος, και το οποίο για αυτόν ακριβώς τον λόγο αναδείχθηκε σε best-seller.
H απήχησή του έπαιξε καθοριστικό ρόλο, και συνδυάστηκε με την άνοδο κατά την δεύτερη δεκαετία του 21ου αιώνα των λογικών της Πράσινης Νέας Συμφωνίας (Green New Deal).
Ουσιαστικά αυτό το βιβλίο είναι ένα δριμύ (?) κατηγορώ στην κυρίαρχη οικονομική σκέψη το οποίο μας καλεί να επανεκτιμήσουμε τον ρόλο που αποδίδουμε στο Κράτος.
Ουσιαστικά όπως υπερασπίζεται η Mazzucato το Κράτος παίζει καθοριστικό ρόλο στο να συγκροτεί και να σπρώχνει τα ιδιωτικά κεφάλαια σε νέες αγορές (μέσα από παράλληλους μηχανισμούς δημιουργίας ζήτησης και προσφοράς). Το Κράτος πρέπει και αναλαμβάνει σημαντικό ρόλο στην έρευνα και την καινοτομία νέων τεχνολογιών, εκεί όπου τα ιδιωτικά κεφάλαια λόγω φόβου της αβεβαιότητας δεν παρεμβαίνουν. Οι μεγάλες τεχνολογικές ανακαλύψεις του τελευταίου αιώνα και τα προϊόντα που τα συνοδεύουν όπως εξηγεί η συγγραφέας προήλθαν από το Κράτος. Και η σύγχρονη πολιτική (και οικονομική σκέψη) δε το αναγνωρίζει, αλλά αντίθετα αντιπαλεύει το Κράτος.
Παράλληλα αποτελεί ένα ελαφρύ κατηγορώ στις ιδιωτικές εταιρίες που απολαμβάνουν τα αποτελέσματα που παράγει το κράτος χωρίς να το επιστρέφουν τίποτα. Και καλεί σε μια αναμόρφωση της οικονομίας όπου το Κράτος θα παίζει έναν ενεργό ρόλο στο να ανοίγει δρόμους, ενώ θα αναγνωρίζεται πολιτικά και οικονομικά η συνεισφορά του.
Αξίζει όμως μια πιο κριτική ματιά:
Από την άλλη όμως, είναι ένα βιβλίο το οποίο αν αφήνοντας κατά μέρος την πολύ ενδιαφέρουσα Σουμπετεριανή προσέγγιση που κάνει για τις καινοτομίες (που είναι η βασική σκέψη του όλου βιβλίου προφανώς), κατά τα άλλα είναι ένα βιβλίο το οποίο βρίσκεται στα όρια μεταξύ οικονομικής ορθοδοξίας και ετεροδοξίας. Η συνεχείς και όχι ιδιαίτερα κριτική αξιοποίηση κυρίαρχων εργαλείων ανάλυσης ξενίζει σε ένα βαθμό τον πιο έμπειρο αναγνώστη, ειδικά στο τέλος όπου αναγνωρίζει (σε ένα βαθμό) την σχέση μεταξύ ρίσκου και κέρδους ανοίγει μια συζήτηση αλλά με αρκετά προβληματικό τρόπο.
Σε κάθε περίπτωση είναι, κυρίως ένα πολιτικό και λιγότερο ακαδημαϊκό-επιστημονικό κείμενο, οπότε ίσως τα παραπάνω διολισθήματα να μπορούν να γίνουν αποδεκτά προς όφελος της επιδίωξης ενός μέγιστου αποτελέσματος στους κύκλους που μετράνε (πολιτικά και οικονομικά).
Όμως, ακόμα σε όλο το βιβλίο παραμένει ένα σημαντικό αναπάντητο ερώτημα. Το οποιο προκύπτει ξανά και ξανά και ειδικά στον επίλογο λάμπει δια της σχεδόν ρητής απουσίας του.
Αν το κράτος είναι ο παράγοντας που είναι καθοριστικός για την ανάπτυξη της καινοτομίας, αν τα ιδιωτικά κεφάλαια λειτουργούν ως τροχοπέδη κατά την ανάπτυξη και την δημιουργία νέων επιχειρήσεων, όπως υπερασπίζεται σε όλο το βιβλίο η συγγραφέας. Τότε ποιος ρόλος μένει για το Κεφάλαιο;
Διότι στο δημόσιο λόγο (και στα οικονομικά σε έναν σημαντικό βαθμό) είναι η ιδιωτική πρωτοβουλία που εξυμνείται για αυτή ακριβώς την συνεισφορά. Αν ζούμε σε έναν κόσμο ευημερίας (και αυτό είναι ένα μεγάλο αν) αυτό το οφείλουμε στο Κεφάλαιο, αν αφαιρέσουμε αυτή την οφειλή και την αποδομήσουμε όπως κάνει η Mazzucato ��ότε τι μένει;
Και σε αυτό η Mazzucato μας μπερδεύει αρκετά, γιατί όχι απλά δε μας λέει κάτι, αλλά ενώ από τη μια πλέκει το εγκώμιο του St. Jobs (Apple) από την άλλη κριτικάρει συνολικά τον ��άθε απρόσωπο κεφαλαιοκράτη. Ποιο λοιπόν το νόημα της ύπαρξης αυτού του οικονομικού ρόλου; H Μazzucato δεν θέτει καν το ερώτημα.
H απήχησή του έπαιξε καθοριστικό ρόλο, και συνδυάστηκε με την άνοδο κατά την δεύτερη δεκαετία του 21ου αιώνα των λογικών της Πράσινης Νέας Συμφωνίας (Green New Deal).
Ουσιαστικά αυτό το βιβλίο είναι ένα δριμύ (?) κατηγορώ στην κυρίαρχη οικονομική σκέψη το οποίο μας καλεί να επανεκτιμήσουμε τον ρόλο που αποδίδουμε στο Κράτος.
Ουσιαστικά όπως υπερασπίζεται η Mazzucato το Κράτος παίζει καθοριστικό ρόλο στο να συγκροτεί και να σπρώχνει τα ιδιωτικά κεφάλαια σε νέες αγορές (μέσα από παράλληλους μηχανισμούς δημιουργίας ζήτησης και προσφοράς). Το Κράτος πρέπει και αναλαμβάνει σημαντικό ρόλο στην έρευνα και την καινοτομία νέων τεχνολογιών, εκεί όπου τα ιδιωτικά κεφάλαια λόγω φόβου της αβεβαιότητας δεν παρεμβαίνουν. Οι μεγάλες τεχνολογικές ανακαλύψεις του τελευταίου αιώνα και τα προϊόντα που τα συνοδεύουν όπως εξηγεί η συγγραφέας προήλθαν από το Κράτος. Και η σύγχρονη πολιτική (και οικονομική σκέψη) δε το αναγνωρίζει, αλλά αντίθετα αντιπαλεύει το Κράτος.
Παράλληλα αποτελεί ένα ελαφρύ κατηγορώ στις ιδιωτικές εταιρίες που απολαμβάνουν τα αποτελέσματα που παράγει το κράτος χωρίς να το επιστρέφουν τίποτα. Και καλεί σε μια αναμόρφωση της οικονομίας όπου το Κράτος θα παίζει έναν ενεργό ρόλο στο να ανοίγει δρόμους, ενώ θα αναγνωρίζεται πολιτικά και οικονομικά η συνεισφορά του.
Αξίζει όμως μια πιο κριτική ματιά:
Από την άλλη όμως, είναι ένα βιβλίο το οποίο αν αφήνοντας κατά μέρος την πολύ ενδιαφέρουσα Σουμπετεριανή προσέγγιση που κάνει για τις καινοτομίες (που είναι η βασική σκέψη του όλου βιβλίου προφανώς), κατά τα άλλα είναι ένα βιβλίο το οποίο βρίσκεται στα όρια μεταξύ οικονομικής ορθοδοξίας και ετεροδοξίας. Η συνεχείς και όχι ιδιαίτερα κριτική αξιοποίηση κυρίαρχων εργαλείων ανάλυσης ξενίζει σε ένα βαθμό τον πιο έμπειρο αναγνώστη, ειδικά στο τέλος όπου αναγνωρίζει (σε ένα βαθμό) την σχέση μεταξύ ρίσκου και κέρδους ανοίγει μια συζήτηση αλλά με αρκετά προβληματικό τρόπο.
Σε κάθε περίπτωση είναι, κυρίως ένα πολιτικό και λιγότερο ακαδημαϊκό-επιστημονικό κείμενο, οπότε ίσως τα παραπάνω διολισθήματα να μπορούν να γίνουν αποδεκτά προς όφελος της επιδίωξης ενός μέγιστου αποτελέσματος στους κύκλους που μετράνε (πολιτικά και οικονομικά).
Όμως, ακόμα σε όλο το βιβλίο παραμένει ένα σημαντικό αναπάντητο ερώτημα. Το οποιο προκύπτει ξανά και ξανά και ειδικά στον επίλογο λάμπει δια της σχεδόν ρητής απουσίας του.
Αν το κράτος είναι ο παράγοντας που είναι καθοριστικός για την ανάπτυξη της καινοτομίας, αν τα ιδιωτικά κεφάλαια λειτουργούν ως τροχοπέδη κατά την ανάπτυξη και την δημιουργία νέων επιχειρήσεων, όπως υπερασπίζεται σε όλο το βιβλίο η συγγραφέας. Τότε ποιος ρόλος μένει για το Κεφάλαιο;
Διότι στο δημόσιο λόγο (και στα οικονομικά σε έναν σημαντικό βαθμό) είναι η ιδιωτική πρωτοβουλία που εξυμνείται για αυτή ακριβώς την συνεισφορά. Αν ζούμε σε έναν κόσμο ευημερίας (και αυτό είναι ένα μεγάλο αν) αυτό το οφείλουμε στο Κεφάλαιο, αν αφαιρέσουμε αυτή την οφειλή και την αποδομήσουμε όπως κάνει η Mazzucato ��ότε τι μένει;
Και σε αυτό η Mazzucato μας μπερδεύει αρκετά, γιατί όχι απλά δε μας λέει κάτι, αλλά ενώ από τη μια πλέκει το εγκώμιο του St. Jobs (Apple) από την άλλη κριτικάρει συνολικά τον ��άθε απρόσωπο κεφαλαιοκράτη. Ποιο λοιπόν το νόημα της ύπαρξης αυτού του οικονομικού ρόλου; H Μazzucato δεν θέτει καν το ερώτημα.
February 20, 2024
¿Alguna vez te has preguntado quién está realmente detrás de las innovaciones en un país? Mariana Mazzucato, en su libro "El Estado Emprendedor", nos hace cuestionar la idea de que solo las empresas privadas son las impulsoras de la innovación. Con ejemplos de las innovaciones en Estados Unidos como el iPhone o la creación de Internet, Mazzucato nos muestra cómo el Estado, en ese país, ha desempeñado un papel fundamental en esas revoluciones tecnológicas. Por eso esta lectura nos hace replantear nuestra percepción sobre el gobierno y el poder que tienen, para incentivar las innovaciones o lo que es mejor, crear las industrias disruptivas futuras.
May 22, 2021
Her argument makes sense: socialized risk makes sense for government to take on and that there should also be socialized (potential) gains from that risk-taking...just the book wasn’t very engaging
April 2, 2024
I know I was supposed to read this for the alternate perspective so I shouldn’t have expected it to be great but wow. the main message I got from this is “we should stop being mean to the government because then they also realize they suck, feel sad about it, and become even more ineffective… so instead we should celebrate the very rare wins it has and forget about all the many times it’s failed.” Anyways this was a waste of my Tuesday.
January 28, 2019
Mazzucato's book flips the narrative about the dynamic and innovative private sector on its head. It argues that the entrepreneurial state has been, and should continue to be, a vital player "not only in fixing markets, but in creating them."
The book applies the neo-Schumpeterian insights of evolutionary economics and innovation research to argue for a state-centric viewpoint on how innovation breaks new ground. Mazzucato correctly points out that radical innovation is subject to uncertain risks and rewards, and the initial risky investment for it is often hard to come buy in the private sector.
For Mazzucato, the short-sighted and risk-averse preferences of private venture capitalists prevent them from acting as the guardians of systemic long-term innovation. This allegedly means that the only reliable source of funding for technoindustrial revolutions comes from the deep and risk-loving pockets of governments.
There is much to admire in and agree with Mazzucato's thesis. The government clearly can play an important role in fostering innovation. In particular, the book's history lesson is an important reality check. It highlights the contributions of various government-backed research institutions in the United States, such as Bell Labs, DARPA, NIH, and NASA, to the growth and development of new technologies (and subsequently new markets). It also raises the important question of who should reap (privatise) the benefits of such distributed innovation - Silicon Valley or the public?
That said, the book reads too one-sided. It does not properly explain the dangers of relying on heavy-handed and tax-funded government investment, nor the potential benefits of developing non-coercive and bottom-up alternatives to them. Many such arguments come from the very same evolutionary economics and innovation research literature that Mazzucato uses to cherry-pick the conclusions that support her argument. Her conclusions are therefore inadequate and undersupported by the available data.
Secondly, it fallaciously argues from the historical fact that the big government has played an important role in innovation research to the normative conclusion that a big government is therefore an indispensable part of all future innovation research. It could be that innovation research tends to take place in universities and research labs, whether or not these are tax-funded or privately funded. She 1) fails to consider how government has crowded out non-governmental alternatives; 2) conflates any government involvement with the government deserving credit for everything done with its help; 3) and
completely ignores the possibility of charitable or otherwise privately funded institutes that are NOT driven by the profit motive but modelled on not-for-profit principles, such as the old Oxbridge model of research excellence based on the disinterested pursuit of knowledge.
Overall, Mazzucato's broader case falters on selective scholarship and rhetorical hyperbole. The weaker thesis about the historical and continued importance of government finance in fostering innovation remains valid, however. When combined with a more nuanced recognition of the pitfalls of government involvement in its myriad forms, and a better recognition of the need for the private sector as a system of innovation, the innovation systems perspective can play an important role in guiding public policy discussions going forward.
The book applies the neo-Schumpeterian insights of evolutionary economics and innovation research to argue for a state-centric viewpoint on how innovation breaks new ground. Mazzucato correctly points out that radical innovation is subject to uncertain risks and rewards, and the initial risky investment for it is often hard to come buy in the private sector.
For Mazzucato, the short-sighted and risk-averse preferences of private venture capitalists prevent them from acting as the guardians of systemic long-term innovation. This allegedly means that the only reliable source of funding for technoindustrial revolutions comes from the deep and risk-loving pockets of governments.
There is much to admire in and agree with Mazzucato's thesis. The government clearly can play an important role in fostering innovation. In particular, the book's history lesson is an important reality check. It highlights the contributions of various government-backed research institutions in the United States, such as Bell Labs, DARPA, NIH, and NASA, to the growth and development of new technologies (and subsequently new markets). It also raises the important question of who should reap (privatise) the benefits of such distributed innovation - Silicon Valley or the public?
That said, the book reads too one-sided. It does not properly explain the dangers of relying on heavy-handed and tax-funded government investment, nor the potential benefits of developing non-coercive and bottom-up alternatives to them. Many such arguments come from the very same evolutionary economics and innovation research literature that Mazzucato uses to cherry-pick the conclusions that support her argument. Her conclusions are therefore inadequate and undersupported by the available data.
Secondly, it fallaciously argues from the historical fact that the big government has played an important role in innovation research to the normative conclusion that a big government is therefore an indispensable part of all future innovation research. It could be that innovation research tends to take place in universities and research labs, whether or not these are tax-funded or privately funded. She 1) fails to consider how government has crowded out non-governmental alternatives; 2) conflates any government involvement with the government deserving credit for everything done with its help; 3) and
completely ignores the possibility of charitable or otherwise privately funded institutes that are NOT driven by the profit motive but modelled on not-for-profit principles, such as the old Oxbridge model of research excellence based on the disinterested pursuit of knowledge.
Overall, Mazzucato's broader case falters on selective scholarship and rhetorical hyperbole. The weaker thesis about the historical and continued importance of government finance in fostering innovation remains valid, however. When combined with a more nuanced recognition of the pitfalls of government involvement in its myriad forms, and a better recognition of the need for the private sector as a system of innovation, the innovation systems perspective can play an important role in guiding public policy discussions going forward.
October 13, 2021
1) What MM "debunks" in this book is really nothing but a straw man, since close to nobody rejects the notion of a State funding basic research. That's just a normal position to take, that the vast majority of economists and people already agree on (the ones who don't agree with it are in fact the politicians, who prefer to use that money to buy votes - which, ironically, is what the politicians speaking highly of this book and consulting with its author want to actually do).
2) MM cherry picks some success stories rather than looking at averages, and uses the useless benchmark of extraordinary times driven by crazy military spending (WWII and Cold War's space race).
MM also talks about Silicon Valley and its history in an extremely partial way, downplaying the role of Xerox Palo Alto Research Center and AT&T Labs as mere obvious effects of the technology already in place.
This looks like a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy in reading history, especially pernicious when applied purposefully to cherry picked examples.
3) Taken from Jeffrey Funk: "Roughly 50% of the high-impact Nobel Prizes over last 70 years were received by corporate researchers. Our basic scientific understanding of Li-ion batteries, CCDs, LEDs, optical fiber, integrated circuits, double-heterostructure lasers was done at corporate labs, in addition to university laboratories (Graphene is an exception). This means corporate research contributes more to basic research than ordinarily thought."
4) MM states companies are more interested in buybacks than R&D. A simple look at US private sector's R&D funding over time shows this is incorrect. https://www.aei.org/economics/us-fede...
5) There has been an overall decline in science and research productivity since at least the 1990s. PhDs, publications, funding have skyrocketed, while the output hasn't: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/a...
Is the productivity crisis of academia due to a systematic change in incentives?
The decline in productivity of R&D, and the fact it's a trend observed in both the private and the public sector, seems to be the core issue here - and it's ignored by MM.
6) A decline in public R&D funding is a problem, we can all agree on this. So which public expenses are you proposing to cut and reallocate to it? Considering the Western world has a brutal demographic problem, with a rapidly aging population due to birth rates plummeting.
See also:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NB...
https://www.econlib.org/mazzucato-mis...
https://www.econlib.org/mazzucato-mis...
2) MM cherry picks some success stories rather than looking at averages, and uses the useless benchmark of extraordinary times driven by crazy military spending (WWII and Cold War's space race).
MM also talks about Silicon Valley and its history in an extremely partial way, downplaying the role of Xerox Palo Alto Research Center and AT&T Labs as mere obvious effects of the technology already in place.
This looks like a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy in reading history, especially pernicious when applied purposefully to cherry picked examples.
3) Taken from Jeffrey Funk: "Roughly 50% of the high-impact Nobel Prizes over last 70 years were received by corporate researchers. Our basic scientific understanding of Li-ion batteries, CCDs, LEDs, optical fiber, integrated circuits, double-heterostructure lasers was done at corporate labs, in addition to university laboratories (Graphene is an exception). This means corporate research contributes more to basic research than ordinarily thought."
4) MM states companies are more interested in buybacks than R&D. A simple look at US private sector's R&D funding over time shows this is incorrect. https://www.aei.org/economics/us-fede...
5) There has been an overall decline in science and research productivity since at least the 1990s. PhDs, publications, funding have skyrocketed, while the output hasn't: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/a...
Is the productivity crisis of academia due to a systematic change in incentives?
The decline in productivity of R&D, and the fact it's a trend observed in both the private and the public sector, seems to be the core issue here - and it's ignored by MM.
6) A decline in public R&D funding is a problem, we can all agree on this. So which public expenses are you proposing to cut and reallocate to it? Considering the Western world has a brutal demographic problem, with a rapidly aging population due to birth rates plummeting.
See also:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NB...
https://www.econlib.org/mazzucato-mis...
https://www.econlib.org/mazzucato-mis...
September 5, 2020
Interesante libro que evidencia la importancia que el Estado puede tener en la generación de conocimientos y de tecnologías claves para el desarrollo económico. El libro se centra en el papel del Estado en el área de la innovación en Estados Unidos fundamentalmente, pero también se señalan otros ejemplos. Sin duda, no cualquier intervención o emprendimiento estatal tiene un final feliz, pero lo mismo se puede decir que sucede en la esfera de las iniciativas privadas. El libro presenta con detalle una serie de proyectos exitosos donde el Estado generó grandes inversiones, lideró visionarios proyectos y coordinó eficazmente la investigación y el desarrollo, involucrando instituciones públicas y empresas privadas. Una de las propuestas de la autora es superar la visión negativa que la ideología ultraliberal ha impuesto sobre el papel del Estado. Su estudio deja claramente establecido que la inversión, la iniciativa y la capacidad innovadora del Estado han sido claves para una serie de proyectos que las empresas privadas suelen capitalizar a su favor en las fases finales y menos costosas del proceso, como es el caso de Apple (capítulo 5). Se explica cómo generalmente el riesgo se socializa y los beneficios se privatizan. Sin duda, el carácter emprendedor del Estado no se da espontáneamente, sino que se construye y por eso es necesario debatir cuál es el papel que puede y que es capaz de ejercer en una sociedad determinada.
La mayoría abrumadora de los países desarrollados de la actualidad alcanzó el éxito económico con acertadas intervenciones de sus respectivos estados. La evidencia histórica es concluyente. Como señala la autora: "Si el resto del mundo quiere emular el modelo de Estados Unidos deberían practicar lo que este país realmente hizo, y no lo que dice que hizo: más Estado y no menos".
La mayoría abrumadora de los países desarrollados de la actualidad alcanzó el éxito económico con acertadas intervenciones de sus respectivos estados. La evidencia histórica es concluyente. Como señala la autora: "Si el resto del mundo quiere emular el modelo de Estados Unidos deberían practicar lo que este país realmente hizo, y no lo que dice que hizo: más Estado y no menos".
September 18, 2015
De centrale stelling van dit boek, dat de staat verantwoordelijk is voor veel technologische innovatie zonder daar de credits en beloning voor te krijgen, wordt goed uitgewerkt, al mis ik weerwoord. Interessant zijn de case studies van onder andere de farmaceutische industrie en apple, waarbij ook vermeld moet worden dat de auteur 1 richting op redeneert en geen voorbeelden laat ziet waarbij de innovatie niet vanuit de overheid is gekomen. Ja de overheid subsidieert de ontwikkeling van medicijnen die niet perse winstgevend zijn, en krijgt daar dan geen tot weinig beloning voor terug. Hetzelfde geldt voor alle onderdelen in de ipod/phone die door de overheid ontwikkeld zijn en door apple gemarket. Of het algoritme van google dat onder overheidssubsidie tot stand is gekomen. Belangrijkste rol van dit boek is voedsel te geven in de grote discussie over de rol van de overheid. In Nederland minder een issue dan in Amerika.
Het boek zelf is een zeer dun uitgesmeerd verhaal, wat makkelijk in 1/3 van de pagina's vermeld had mogen worden: Zelden een boek gelezen waarin zoveel nietszeggende, zichzelf herhalende alinea's gepropt zijn.
Het boek zelf is een zeer dun uitgesmeerd verhaal, wat makkelijk in 1/3 van de pagina's vermeld had mogen worden: Zelden een boek gelezen waarin zoveel nietszeggende, zichzelf herhalende alinea's gepropt zijn.
September 20, 2016
Professor Mazzucato does a wonderful service by illuminating the important vanguard role the state - especially the U.S state - has played in the technological innovations and inventions of the 20th and 21st centuries, especially the IT and internet revolutions and the biomedical industry. In so doing she challenges the narrative which is all too popular that the great technological innovations from the internet to the iphone to pharmacological breakthroughs are the result of the independent private sector 'entrepreneurs' and that in order for progress to continue, the state needs to keep its interference to a minimum. She shows us how most of these innovations are the result of direct state financing and direction, and how private capital (venture capital) has been unable and even unwilling to fill the role which the state has taken. The last chapters deal with the implications of this reality whereby the public largess has led to very little collective benefit - the socialization of cost, privatization of profits - and what needs to be done to change this. An eye opener and a must read.
March 15, 2021
Informative and well written, plenty of examples and evidence to support arguments. I especially liked that it provided recommendations on what a change in policy outlook should look like if there is to be sustainable, inclusive and long term strategic innovation in the future.
The development of Green energy, is a key industry where the State should take a dynamic and pioneering role by leading R&D and creating markets.
However this can only be efficiently done when the risks and rewards both are shared. What happens more often is the privatisation of gains and profits and the socialisation of risks and failure which the state has to bear. Mariana writes “reaping the returns is crucial, because the innovation cycle can thus be sustained over time”.
The book also acknowledges and very accurately presents the shortcomings of Venture Capital in failing to provide the long term capital and tolerance of failure that is necessary for emerging sectors like biotech or green energy. States however can provide that long term strategy and targeted investment by mission oriented R&D, policy support, professional networks and viable commercialisation.
The development of Green energy, is a key industry where the State should take a dynamic and pioneering role by leading R&D and creating markets.
However this can only be efficiently done when the risks and rewards both are shared. What happens more often is the privatisation of gains and profits and the socialisation of risks and failure which the state has to bear. Mariana writes “reaping the returns is crucial, because the innovation cycle can thus be sustained over time”.
The book also acknowledges and very accurately presents the shortcomings of Venture Capital in failing to provide the long term capital and tolerance of failure that is necessary for emerging sectors like biotech or green energy. States however can provide that long term strategy and targeted investment by mission oriented R&D, policy support, professional networks and viable commercialisation.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 334 reviews