Acknowledgements
In 2013 I wrote a book called The Entrepreneurial State. In it I debunked how myths about lone entrepreneurs and start-ups have captured the theory and practice of innovation, ignoring one of the key actors that has been an investor of first resort: the state. Innovation is a collective process, with different types of public institutions playing a pivotal role. That role is ignored, so our theory of value creation is flawed. And this is a major reason for wealth often being distributed in dysfunctional ways.
The book you have in your hand is a direct consequence of this early reasoning. We cannot understand economic growth if we do not go back to the beginning: what is wealth and where does value come from? Are we sure that much of what is passing for value creation is not just value extraction in disguise?
To write the book I needed to delve into the last 300 years of thinking about value. No easy task, and made no easier by also having to grapple with the application of these ideas to contemporary capitalism as a whole – for example, financialization – and to particular sectors, from finance to big pharma and IT.
Many people very kindly helped me achieve this daunting task – from the deep dive into theory to swimming in the richness of industrial stories.
I would like to thank Gregor Semeniuk, who like me received a PhD from the Graduate Faculty of the New School in New York – a rare place that still teaches alternative theories of economic thought. He generously shared his extraordinary knowledge about value theory, from the physiocrats to the classicals. Gregor was a tremendous support in helping me document, in a ‘user-friendly’ way, the debates between the Physiocrats, Smith and Ricardo – and the strange fact that even Marx had no real theory of the way in which the state can contribute to value.
Michael Prest provided expert and endlessly patient editorial assistance, using his magic pen to make the often too dense material flow much better. He cheerfully cycled to our meetings on even the hottest days of the year and was not just a friendly editor but also a great companion, bringing calm to what often felt like hectic months trying to finish a book while I was raising a large family and starting up a new department at UCL. Our weekly meetings in the Lord Stanley pub in Camden to pore over the material often trailed off into a stream of consciousness dwelling on the ills of modern capitalism – and were nothing but pure joy. With the occasional pint (or two) to keep us going.
I would like to thank the following people for looking at particular chapters in the book and double checking it for errors in its final stages, selflessly offering their wisdom and care: (in alphabetical order) Matteo Deleidi, Lukas Fuchs Tommaso Gabellini, Simone Gasperin, Edward Hadas, Andrea Laplane, Alain Rizk, and Josh Ryan Collins.
My editor Tom Penn at Penguin was a great sounding board during our endless coffee-filled meetings at the British Library – having the rare qualities of a meticulous proofreader while also retaining a deep engagement with the content, both economic and philosophical.
I also want to thank the excellent administrative assistance I have had over the last four years, first at SPRU in the University of Sussex and now in a new institute that I have founded at UCL, the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose IIPP). Gemma Smith in particular has helped me always try to get messages across – whether on the 10 o’clock news or in a policy brief – that could be understood by the general public. With the new team at IIPP, I hope the book’s message about the need for revived debate about key questions around value can be linked with the IIPP’s ambition to redefine ways of conceptualizing public value in particular: how to create it, nurture it and evaluate it.
Lastly, I want to thank Carlo, Leon, Micol, Luce and Sofia for putting up with the many long nights and weekends that the book entailed – letting me climb up the stairs and plop myself down to the most happy and conversive dinner table a wife and mother can ask for – putting life back at the centre, where it should be.
THE BEGINNING
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ALLEN LANE
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Allen Lane is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com
First published 2018
Copyright © Mariana Mazzucato, 2018
The moral right of the author has been asserted
The illustration here is by Jon Berkeley for The Economist.
Reproduced by permission.
Cover design: Jim Stoddart
ISBN: 978-0-241-18882-8
The Value of Everything (UK) Page 40