The Value of Everything

The award-winning author of The Entrepreneurial State and Mission Economy offers a scathing indictment of a global financial system that incentivizes taking over making and extraction over creation

“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

The Value of Everything is a penetrating and passionate argument that modern capitalism has failed to clearly delineate between value creation and value extraction. As economist Mariana Mazzucato shows, from Silicon Valley to Wall Street and beyond, foggy notions of value create confusion between rents and profits, reward extractors rather than creators, and distort the measurements of growth and GDP. Asset management companies profit exorbitantly off of income generated elsewhere; big pharma uses value-based pricing to justify astronomically high prices for vital medicines that are publicly funded. In the process, innovation suffers and inequality widens.

The Value of Everything reignites the debate over how we measure value in our society—and in so doing, shows how we can shape our economy to be more innovative and inclusive.

• A Strategy+Business Best Book of the Year
• A Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award Finalist
• “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
• “Some economists merely interpret the world in various ways; others seek to change it. Mariana Mazzucato is an exemplar of the latter kind... Mazzucato’s mission is to overturn the now dominant neoclassical theory of value.” 
  The New Statesman
• “A fundamental re-think of what constitutes real value in the economy.” 
  Forbes
• “Someone should make a musical out of this book.” 
  The Times
• “Mariana Mazzucato’s book The Value of Everything provoked a lot of reflection in me.” 
  Pope Francis, in Let Us Dream
• “The way in which financialisation proved to be an anti-industrial strategy is admirably set out in leading economist Mariana Mazzucato’s new book TheValue of Everything.” 
  The Independent
• “[Mazzucato] argues that we urgently need to rethink where wealth comes from to heal a sick system.” 
  Management Today
• “[Mazzucato] excoriates the global financial industry. We need to rethink our ideas on value, and how financialisation has turned us away from value creation to value extraction.” 
  Business Live
• “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.” 
  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’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 must-read if you’ve been concerned by the inequities in mature economies that seem to grow unchecked. The Value of Everything will rekindle a much-needed debate about the kind of world we really want to live in.” 
  The Marketplace
• “Mazzucato is sure the economic forces that affect our lives can serve the public interest again.” 
  The Irish Times
• “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
• “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.” 
  Kirkus
• “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.” 
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