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The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy Hardcover – September 11, 2018

by Mariana Mazzucato (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 298 ratings
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Modern economies reward activities that extract value rather than create it. This must change to ensure a capitalism that works for us all.

Shortlisted for the FT & McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award

A scathing indictment of our current global financial system, The Value of Everything rigorously scrutinizes the way in which economic value has been accounted and reveals how economic theory has failed to clearly delineate the difference between value creation and value extraction. Mariana Mazzucato argues that the increasingly blurry distinction between the two categories has allowed certain actors in the economy to portray themselves as value creators, while in reality they are just moving around existing value or, even worse, destroying it.

The book uses case studies-from Silicon Valley to the financial sector to big pharma-to show how the foggy notions of value create confusion between rents and profits, reward extractors and creators, and distort the measurements of growth and GDP. In the process, innovation suffers and inequality rises.

The lesson here is urgent and sobering: to rescue our economy from the next inevitable crisis and to foster long-term economic growth, we will need to rethink capitalism, rethink the role of public policy and the importance of the public sector, and redefine how we measure value in our society.
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  1. Print length
    384 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    PublicAffairs
  4. Publication date
    September 11, 2018
  5. Dimensions
    9.6 x 1.65 x 6.35 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    161039674X
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1610396745
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

A finalist for the FT & McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award


"A stimulating analysis of the underlying causes of inequality and growth which forces us to confront long-held beliefs about how economies work and who benefits"
―Martin Wolf, Financial Times

"Mazzucato's mission is to overturn the now dominant neoclassical theory of value."
―George Eaton for New Statesman

"Mariana Mazzucato offers an exposé of how value extractors and rent-seekers have been masquerading as value creators in the global economy. And, furthermore, how the conventional wisdom has indulged them in this."
―Fran Boait for Prospect

"[Mazzucato's] passionate call to empower policymakers to understand that the state's role is not secondary to the private sector is infectious."―PROSPECT

"Mazzucato is fast emerging as one of the world's leading public intellectuals... [she] has offered the left a positive vision of growth based on innovation and profit-sharing, rather than sterile and counter-productive analysis based on the politics of resentment and expropriation."―SPECTATOR

"Mazzucato sides with the actual makers, those who struggle in an economy tilted in favor of the ultrawealthy... she expresses specific incredulity about the banking sector's self-serving statements about wealth creation... She is especially eloquent when commenting on arrogant tech-giant billionaires such as Peter Thiel, who claims that his wealth accumulation occurred in spite of, rather than because of, government presence."―KIRKUSREVIEWS

"Mazzucato's trenchant analysis is a compelling call to reinvent value as a key concept to help us achieve the world we all want."―NATURE

"A fresh look at the meaning of value to the economy...This organized and easy-to-read book will appeal to curious readers as well as those interested in economics, investing, and public policy."―Booklist

"A fundamental re-think of what constitutes real value in the economy."―StephenDenning, Forbes.com

"Mariana Mazzucato's insights into the current state of the economy, and how to think differently about it, are essential. Her new book, The Value of Everything, is outstanding."―Tim O'Reilly, author of WTF?: What's the Future and Why It's Up to Us

About the Author

Mariana Mazzucato is professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London (UCL), where she directs the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. She is the winner of the 2014 New Statesman SPERI Prize for Political Economy, the 2015 Hans-Matthö-Preis, and the 2018 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought. She was named as one of the "three most important thinkers about innovation" by the New Republic.

She advises global policy makers on innovation-driven inclusive growth and is Special Advisor to the EU commissioner for research, science and innovation. She is a coeditor of Rethinking Capitalism: Economics and Policy for Sustainable and Inclusive Growth and the author of the award-winning The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ PublicAffairs; Illustrated edition (September 11, 2018)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 384 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 161039674X
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1610396745
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.32 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.6 x 1.65 x 6.35 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 298 ratings

About the author

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Mariana Mazzucato

Mariana Mazzucato

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Mariana Mazzucato (PhD) is Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London (UCL), where she is Founding Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose (IIPP).

She received her BA from Tufts University and her MA and PhD from the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research. Her previous posts include the RM Phillips Professorial Chair at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at Sussex University. She is a selected fellow of the UK’s Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS) and of the Italian National Science Academy (Lincei).

She is winner of international prizes including the 2020 John Von Neumann Award, the 2019 All European Academies Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values, and the 2018 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought. She was named as one of the '3 most important thinkers about innovation' by the New Republic, one of the 50 most creative people in business in 2020 by Fast Company, and one of the 25 leaders shaping the future of capitalism by Wired.

Her highly-acclaimed book The Entrepreneurial State: debunking public vs. private sector myths (2013) investigates the critical role the state plays in driving growth—and her book The Value of Everything: making and taking in the global economy (2018) looks at how value creation needs to be rewarded over value extraction.

She advises policy makers around the world on innovation-led inclusive and sustainable growth. Her current roles include being a member of the Scottish Government’s Council of Economic Advisors; the South African President’s Economic Advisory Council; the OECD Secretary General’s Advisory Group on a New Growth Narrative; the UN’s Committee for Development Policy (CDP), Vinnova’s Advisory Panel in Sweden, and Norway’s Research Council.

She is a Special Economic Advisor for the Italian Prime Minister (2020), and through her role as Special Advisor for the EC Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation (2017-2019), she authored the high impact report on Mission-Oriented Research & Innovation in the European Union, turning “missions” into a crucial new instrument in the European Commission’s Horizon innovation programme.

Customer reviews

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298 global ratings
from the above two images it should be apparent that this is part of a pitvotal book
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from the above two images it should be apparent that this is part of a pitvotal book
This is outside the box thinking that is so needed in the current economic and political environment.
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Top reviews from the United States

Julison
5.0 out of 5 stars A whole new way of thinking Value
Reviewed in the United States on April 10, 2020
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I first knew Mazzucatto in an article on Wired UK. After that I followed on Twitter and got a closer understanding of her thinking. I then bought this book and started to read it with an open mind. It worth the reading! Her concept about what really value is and who generated it is a new approach in Economics (at least for me). It’s a new way to think (or rethink) capitalism, putting government in a much more important position. During the reading I had, in some occasions, great doubts about her approach but in the end I recognize that she’s bring important issues to discussion. A discussion that should be done publicly, with all participants: private sector, government, civil society, on the table. I believe now that government has a bigger role that neoliberalism believes and a lesser role than communism believes. I still believed, as also as her, that capitalism can b redirected to focus again on benefit the most of citizens and not only a bunch billionaires. I now believed that government must step ahead and take the reins of innovation (by mission-oriented projects) and must limit the excess of profit-only driven companies and also limit expropriation by rent seekers. In sum, I believe that we can make this world a better place.

I highly recommend this book not only for Economics interested people but for anyone who wants Capitalism be better for all.
12 people found this helpful
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A. Menon
4.0 out of 5 stars Very useful question to have asked, the author's conclusions are more muddled
Reviewed in the United States on July 22, 2019
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The author poses the question of what is value and how is it considered. The history of ascribing value to human activity is an old one that is largely glossed over in most modern economic thinking. From an economic standpoint academics largely defer to the idea that the price determines value as that is where marginal demand is determined which subsequently indicates its relative worth. It is a simple tool that moves the discussion away from philosophy to something computable. But in taking that leap, and assuming the logic flows from competitive market equilibrium pricing in microeconomic theory, we have glossed over something big and dangerous.

The Value of Everything asks the reader to question value with much more scrutiny. She gives a history of how various jobs and commodities were valued in the past, discussing the earliest concepts of economic value as defined by the physiocrats and moving through the theories of history's most prominent economists, including Smith, Ricardo, Marx, Marshall, Samualson and Pigou. One is reminded that versions of value were very different in the past and the real consequence of defaulting to price as a means to judge value creation is it allows for an easy aggregate goal to embrace, namely GDP and its growth. By circumventing the verification that society believes price defines value we have perhaps made a grave oversight. The author highlights that financial services as a proportion of GDP is inefficiently high and that its share reflects monopoly rents rather than a measure of its productivity. The author takes aim at the idea that increasing margins in finance somehow is measured as productivity enhancing vs in the retail sector it is considered evidence of lack of competition. The author spends a lot of time discussing the failure to measure value creation in monopolized businesses. This to be fair is an addressable issue in marginal value theory as it is a market failure on the conditions required for marginal value to be discovered. Nonetheless the author spreads the argument into a host of other industries in which competition has been in decline. Internet giants where economies of scale created by network effects that deeply entrench monopoly interests are targeted. The author though is inconsistent, she brings up the increasing costs of the financial services as a sign of its monopoly power and then uses completely different arguments for internets which on the face of it generate substantial consumer surplus for not charging for their services. In addition the fees charged by financial services are in structural decline as the growth of passive products has been enormous. The author highlights UBER as a dangerous addition to the monopoly industries and is obviously unaware of the massive operating losses the firm digests as a function of investors willing to fund scale, perhaps foolishly. Thus exercises where there has been consumer surplus the author remains angry for new reasons eroding her academic consistency. It is the case that these industries disrupt capital labor relationships but the author takes aim at sometimes the wrong thing and is inconsistent. The author also takes aim at the pharmaceutical industry in the US which is truly predatorial, here the arguments are clean and obvious and the author highlights the problems that are being created by rent seeking intellectual property rights. This is an area where the author's ideas will most resonate as they are clear examples of monopolized power sitting on fragmented and powerless buyers. The author swings into how the government is not valued and ties this back to traditional economic thought on the subject but then highlights how crazy that is considering society is enabled by government. One need only look at how much basic research has been funded by government and how commercial technology development happens very late stage. The discussion of the state and its role is valuable and the author is right that the value of the state is not considered enough anymore. That being said the author is terrible at distinguishing between productivity enhancing states and rent seeking states. Clearly the Greek government was rent seeking as are aspects of the Italian governance, yet the author bemoans austerity by putting government on a pedestal of being the foundation. The author needed to have distinguished between governments investing for the long term and governments who waste, the recent book by Alesina- "Austerity" shows the stark difference in subsequent improvements in the economy between spending and taxed based plans. The author claims to not be political but she most certainly is and its a shame that certain powerful arguments are dulled in their effect as a consequence. The Singaporean government's investment in its own population is what we need more of, not more Southern European fiscal expenditure but there is no distinction in the author's work. The amazing contributions to basic research in the US came from government grants to universities, not from within government, this is not mentioned.

The Value of Everything brings up a vital point. We need to reconsider what we should be valuing so that our economic policy is not obsessed with a measure that is decoupled from what people care about. That being said the author does not convincingly argue around 50% of her cases while the other represent a real problem that she has well identified. The author's love of the potential of the state to drive foundational improvement isn't wrong but it has no metrics associated with it and as such is easily refutable with multiple cases and defendable in others. She needs to define value herself within an economy not claim the benefits of 1950's and 60's US research are the natural byproduct of any fiscal expenditure, such an assumption is ridiculous. Great concept, some good arguments, other very weak arguments.
20 people found this helpful
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5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic
Reviewed in the United States on July 5, 2021
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This is one of the best economics books I've read in the last 5 years. It goes beyond accounting identities, empty ideology, and hiding behind math. The author asks really tough questions about what the economy is *for*. Probably the most valuable aspect of the book is the historical context, which shows that theories of value have always been driven by government needs, primarily fighting wars, and that they have often gotten things very wrong as the result, with disastrous consequences. I anticipate that measures like GDP will go the same route.
2 people found this helpful
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Bob Taos
5.0 out of 5 stars Another inspired book from Mazzucatto!
Reviewed in the United States on May 18, 2021
Verified Purchase
Imagine organizing our economy and government around an enlightened conception of the common good. Imagine publicly owned industries whose mission is simply to solve the problems that confront us without the burden of enriching executives and shareholders. That is the kind of vision suggested in this learned book. Can we transition to clean energy and a sustainable, healthy society? Why not? It is simply a choice we must make. A choice like the ones we have made in the past with leaders like FDR and John Kennedy.
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Kurt Smithpeters
5.0 out of 5 stars change government role to create and shape markets
Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2020
Verified Purchase
useful summary of history of understanding economy as structured by surplus value (political economists Smith, Ricardo, Marx) or by marginal utility (various economists). Mariana says she isnt putting forward a theory of value but see's this is important and wants to contribute to that inquiry. most of the book argues that the perspective of utility distracts from key economic concerns and promotes dysfunction. she concludes that government role should be significantly changed in order to create and shape markets. all this is informative. however i agree she doesnt have a theory of value. there is some sort of mathematical/proportional relation of labor, capital and wealth that wasnt well understood by Marx, and hasnt been improved upon in this book
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Ela K.
5.0 out of 5 stars Very Good
Reviewed in France on September 22, 2021
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Very interesting book.
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Mark Hewitt
5.0 out of 5 stars A stimulating perspective on long term value - a challenge to long held beliefs
Reviewed in Canada on March 14, 2020
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Mariana does a remarkable job of bringing perspective to us of long-held beliefs that are choking our world's economic health. Her approach may be one of the most central aspects of how we work together to solve some critical issues, economic inequities, climate change, and trade.

Future generations will look back at these times and visions with a deep state of gratitude for her perspective.
4 people found this helpful
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Antonio Axel Rivera Jiménez
5.0 out of 5 stars El el valor del libro
Reviewed in Mexico on September 25, 2019
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Excelente libro. El valor de todo nos da un panorama más amplio dentro de los privilegios de un primer mundo.
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Private&Confidential
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing Book, Amazing Author
Reviewed in Canada on September 30, 2020
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A must read about the problems of modern day capitalism and what to do to improve it so it benefits the 99%.
2 people found this helpful
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Eduardo Andres Quiros Rosas
5.0 out of 5 stars Game changer
Reviewed in Mexico on June 23, 2020
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Un gran libro con ideas reales para ser un game changer
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