The Value of Everything - by Mariana Mazzucato (Paperback)

About the Book

"Who really creates wealth in our world? And how do we decide the value of what they do? At the heart of today's financial and economic crisis is a problem hiding in plain sight. In modern capitalism, value-extraction is rewarded more highly than value-creation: the productive process that drives a healthy economy and society. From companies driven solely to maximize shareholder value to astronomically high prices of medicines justified through big pharma's 'value pricing', we misidentify taking with making, and have lost sight of what value really means. Once a central plank of economic thought, this concept of value--what it is, why it matters to us--is simply no longer discussed. Yet, argues Mariana Mazzucato in this penetrating and passionate new book, if we are to reform capitalism--radically to transform an increasingly sick system rather than continue feeding it--we urgently need to rethink where wealth comes from. Which activities create it, which extract it, which destroy it? Answers to these questions are key if we want to replace the current parasitic system with a type of capitalism that is more sustainable, more symbiotic - that works for us all. The Value of Everything will reignite a long-needed debate about the kind of world we really want to live in"--Publisher's description.

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

A Strategy+Business Best Book of the Year

"Mariana Mazzucato's book The Value of Everything provoked a lot of reflection in me." --Pope Francis, in Let Us Dream

"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

A Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award Finalist

"[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

"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." --Forbes

"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

"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

"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 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 is sure the economic forces that affect our lives can serve the public interest again." --The Irish Times

"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

"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

"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

"Someone should make a musical out of this book." --The Times

"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

About the Author

Mariana Mazzucato (PhD, CBE, FREcon) 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. She is winner of international prizes including the Grande Ufficiale Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana in 2021, Italy's highest civilian honour; 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 is a member of the UK Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS) and the Italian Academy of Sciences Lincei. In 2025, she was appointed Commander of the British Empire (CBE) for services to economics in the King's Birthday Honours List. Pope Francis appointed her to the Pontifical Academy for Life for bringing "more humanity" to the world.

Her award-winning books include: The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths (2013), Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism (2021), and The Big Con: How the Consulting Industry Weakens our Businesses, Infantilizes our Governments and Warps our Economies (2023). She advises policymakers around the world on innovation-led inclusive and sustainable growth. Her policy roles include: Chair of the World Health Organization's Council on the Economics of Health for All, Co-Chair of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, member of the South African President's Economic Advisory Council, Co-Chair of the Group of Experts to the Brazilian 2024 G20 Task Force for the Global Mobilization against Climate Change, and Special Representative of President Ramaphosa to the 2025 G20 Taskforce 1 on Inclusive Economic Growth, Industrialization, Employment, and Reduced Inequality.